Daughter-in-law Strikes Harder

After the departure with Collin in the past who left sadly after he could not win Ariana’s heart after everything, she cut ties with the group that she had joined and left for California with one sole purpose; Finding her sister.

It was very hard at first. There was no wedding announcement. No news from the press, and no uproar with a scandal or secret footage. It feared Ariana.

‘What if her sister had misheard? What if their father lied about a marriage? What if he sold her?’

Hamilton ran to Dalton’s grandfather for help after he lost the entire money, but it was so hard to even speak with him until months had passed. When he finally did, tracking the money was hard because a lot of illegal transactions had been done while withdrawing the funds daily in different parts of the state and even the country.

After Ariana was dealing with her father in the most painful way possible, she started investigations on shortlisting the names of billionaires in the city. She ran background checks which were quite difficult, and attended ceremonies for elites using a fake identity.

Getting everything together was harder than she thought, because she was in a different place entirely from where she came from. The first meeting with Aria and knowing the family she was really married to, was after many months had passed, when a scandal broke out, that Dalton was secretly married to a lady that no one knew.

It took Ariana a few extra months to be able to confirm that, because there were no public appearances with her sister in any event. Most times she posed as a waiter at every party the Millers were usually found, but it was getting even hard for her to believe until one day.

There was an important family event at a family private funding conference, and Aria was allowed to go with them, because it required the complete family since Mark Miller was attending. The securities were extremely tight and thorough, and Ariana knew her resemblance with Aria would get busted if she wasn’t careful.

She had to hang around the building until the conference was over, to be sure that she saw her sister in the car that had entered the building for real. When she saw that Aria could leave in the car again without getting a hold of her, she ran across and slumped, pretending as if she got hit by the first car which was meant to return Aria home.

The compassionate lady who was so miserable in her marriage came down from her car in fear to check if everything was fine, and Ariana quickly passed a letter to her hand even if her sister had not recognized her at that point because of her disguise.

She stood up and dusted her clothes claiming that she was okay before leaving, which got Aria severely scolded that she was still of a lowborn family who didn’t know how to act. When she finally read the letter secretly at night, uncontrollable tears streamed down her face because it was hard for her to believe.

‘How could her cold-hearted sister love her so much to risk her own comfort while trying to communicate with her?’

Her sister dropped a phone number that she could call her to, an email address, and a private social media handle that she could text her to, in case her communications were being monitored in the house.

They met almost two weeks later at a perfect time when Aria could leave the house for her clothes fitting, without getting caught or suspected to be doing something funny. While she was getting the clothes that were already preselected for her, Aria borrowed one of the helper’s phones to send Ariana a text and deleted it immediately.

To avoid getting caught that there could be foul play, she had to use the lady’s research engine to input totally innocent keywords; Does blue and red match perfectly?

How well does pink complement green?

Her sister came to the cloth mall minutes later, and threw a tantrum with a loud voice that alerted Aria. While they were trying to attend to the strange woman who was causing unnecessary problems, Aria entered the female’s toilet and her sister went to meet her.

Aria had quite the emotional moment as she cried uncontrollably on her sister’s shoulders, who patted her softly with her heart so heavy for her sister. With limited time to talk while the ladies meant to help her look around for her, Ariana gave her a phone under a phone number registered under another person’s name.

And that was the first turning point.

Without any suspicion from the people that accompanied her, Aria sent messages to her sister at night with the phone with extreme caution from the people around her. Since she was made to do unnecessary jobs, the most efficient time to text Ariana was whenever she had a sickness breakdown again.Belongs to (N)ôvel/Drama.Org.

Their second meeting was at a family event where Aria disappeared from the family’s presence for minutes, who didn’t bother to know because they didn’t love her one bit.

When Aria gave her sister a rough narration of what was going on in her marriage, Ariana wanted to ruin the mood at the party which was stopped by intense begging from her sister.

Ariana blamed her sister for being too dumb and allowing everyone to take advantage of her, when she could stand for herself even if she was in a loveless marriage. Aria told Ariana about a detailed journal that she kept of everyone’s records in the house, which was in a place no one could ever find it no matter how they tried to search her room.

During their chats too, she never told Ariana about the planned attacks against her life since she got to the house. She knew it would make things worse for both of them, given the fact that Ariana would act rashly which would make Dalton take action.

The third physical meeting was until months again, when Mark Miller wanted his granddaughter-in-law to accompany him to the airport. Aria had begged her sister so much not to do anything till they would meet again, and Ariana had been making money through different illegal means, especially from wealthy youngsters.

She had found out about her sickness too, and was determined to make herself useful for her sister before the worst would happen. When she got the chance to meet her sister at the airport again, she realized that the pain was too much for Aria and told her that she would take her place in the house.

“We would be dead if they caught on, Ana. We would. Dalton is a ruthless man, and he might kill me if he finds out. We can’t,” Aria begged her sister, who was bent on exposing everything to the media if her sister didn’t do her bidding.

“And how exactly would they find out? You have been given an opportunity for divorce, and the bad way they are treating you is grounds for it. If you cannot do it, then I would do it for you. Besides, how would people who loathe you know there is foul play? We look exactly the same.”

“We have contrasting characters, Ria. They would find out that something has changed, if you retaliate if one of them hits you. You cannot even bear it. What if Dad comes around and finds out that the daughter he had lived with for a long time has changed?” Aria questioned her sister again and again in fear, while trying to convince her that waiting till the marriage would be dissolved at the end of three years was the best.

“That bastard believes I am dead, and I will always be dead to him. I have nothing to lose. It is better to die while trying than not having to try at all. Can you see that nothing will change with his cool attitude?!” Ariana yelled at her sister angrily, who was just sobbing silently knowing that she was still keeping quiet because of her.

“Please, Ria, I can bear it till the end. And we can leave together after that to stay together. Please, I’m begging you,” Aria cried so much, to convince her sister that all will be fine if she didn’t do anything. She could not let her sister take her place in the house, and get killed if she acted too rashly.

“I’m giving you two months to make up your mind. After that, I’m ruining everything for those bastards. I’m still holding my peace because of our resemblance, and I don’t want to ruin things before my plan is executed. I’m giving you a waist chain now, and it has a tracker inside. Always keep it on,” Ariana warned sternly as she handed the gold to her sister, who just kept nodding at everything that she was saying. They departed again after Aria’s faked piles in order to get more toilet time. The next time they would meet, it was a few days before the vacation.

It was a perfect time for them to meet and talk about so many things because Aria would be able to have her freedom, which made Ariana plan for the trip too with her sister. When the family was by themselves, Aria met with Ariana early that morning, who told her that she had contacted her group back in Italy and that they were to help them hide.

It was the same day that she was pushed by someone from the railings of the tall building by an unknown person, and the family was having fun by themselves and didn’t care to know her whereabouts.

Emma, who had been suspecting her sister right from the beginning had no evidence because she was rarely at home, followed her sister after she didn’t see her for a short while only to see her amid the family by the time she returned.

Ariana had witnessed her sister fall, and it put her in delayed shock which couldn’t allow her to mourn properly. By the time she single-handedly carried Aria to the hospital and got her treated, something had caused a switch in her body and she kept calling her sister her own name.

That same day, Aria entered into a coma, while Ariana had called her crew who wanted to help them escape from Italy to come over. They transferred her sister back with them before the afternoon of the next day, while she gave all the money that she had been saving from illegal businesses to her favorite person, Ricci, to make sure her sister came back to life. It was a painful departure, but Ariana could only watch her sister leave in the helicopter without any emotion.

“Good bye, Ariana,” she muttered silently without proper grief.

It would have been a perfect time for her to leave and end the fight, but she vowed to make everyone’s life miserable by coming into their life as Aria. She found her sister’s journal too which was a perfect outline to a perfect story cover.

Her dissociative personality made it plausible, and her brain had already identified her as Aria.

Asking for a divorce, was the first thing she thought of by collecting half of his assets as her own, but things took a turn with Dalton’s sudden refusal which was a challenge she never expected.

Since she had nothing to lose, she might as well include all of them in her game of chess and be the winner at the very end.