2 Nicolas Russo

With heart palpitating crazily against the ribcage, a lady in her mid-twenties stepped into her house with very faint steps. Despite the early awakening of the sun, it was exceptionally dark inside the four walls. With all of the curtains still sealed and no use of electricity, it corresponded more like a burglar's cottage than her. The redolence of alcohol and cigarette communed substantially stronger as she walked in further, an unclear hazy shadow of a dreadful man taking the yield of her eyesight from a few meters away.

"Back home so early, sweetheart?"

The slurry-threatening statement triggered her hands to tremble and Aria Miller coerced her feet to walk despite their tremendous weight. As she approximated the distance, the red-shot eyes of her father fixated on her were enlightened. She could tell that he was extremely fierce like a canine who had his prey slipped under his paws.

The middle-aged man was located by the wall of the window with a nearly vacant bottle of liquor in his hand. The entire living space was a total mess embellished with some empty alcohol bottles and the remainder of cigarettes. All the well-arranged articles in the front room were either smashed or lying muted on the floor, but it wasn't something unacceptable to her. After all these years of accommodating along with him, his behaviour had evolved so predictably.

Replying nothing to the mocking terms, Aria Miller bent to the floor to clean the clutter. The piercing gaze of her father was still frightening and it felt like numerous arrows were pointed at her to slash her flesh. The afraid lass started compiling the mess around, ready to bear the land of the bottle in her father's hand aimed at her head. This day was going to be a nightmare, she was sure of it.

"Like mother, like daughter!"

The bitter choice of words earned Aria to look at her father for the first time. The displeased look in his eyes was giving chills down her spine. From the short recollection of memories, she knew that her father loved her mother a lot but, what he just said didn't seem so healthy. It looked like it held a deep hurtful meaning behind that.

'What did he mean by that?' She wondered.

Looking at his hostile eyes, Aria still found it tough to accept his unloving figure. The delightful memories of a loving and caring father were the past now. The most angelic human had turned into the God of hell after the death of his wife. A father who used to spoil her a lot had started hurting her, both physically and mentally. With the appearance of a cold shoulder at first, he was promoted to the alcoholic and abusive guardian over the years. He neglected her cries, ignored her presence in his life and if he ever talked, only hurtful words left his mouth.

Many times Aria thought that Joseph Miller, her father, just couldn't bear the loss of his missis he loved tremendously but hearing his mutterings under the influence of alcohol, she sometimes couldn't understand what was going on in his brain.

The girl battled inside to gather enough courage to reply to the furious father but Joseph suddenly smashed the beer bottle on the floor. She flinched hard at the unpredictable juncture, stumbling back a bit as she landed on her buttock from the crouched position.

Aria hyperventilated with the adrenaline rise and watched her father walk up to his room, slamming it close with a loud thud. The lass kept her eyes locked on the wooden frame, a little taken aback by the unexpectedly unforeseen behaviour of the man who would have hurt her with the leather belt of his pants. Why was he so indifferent from his usual self? Aria wondered.

Diverting her attention to the timepiece hanging off the wall, she decided to speed up her cleaning labour as she didn't want to be late for her office. Not when her boss was a cranky and picky person.

Aria entered the management section of her company and walked straight towards her assigned table without exchanging greetings with any of her associates. She didn't bother to even pass them a glance or forward a simple gesticulation of welcome but grabbed the thick bundles of papers kept on her desk. Having three years working at the same place with such an indifferent attitude, the team workers had given up their efforts to put up with her aloof and cold character.

As the girl reviewed through the thick bundles of documents, her work got interrupted by a familiar bag that blocked her vision. Touching the familiar old leather, Aria looked at her side.

"Wanna grab a coffee?" Hazel beamed at her with a heightened state of energy.

Aria seized her bag and kept it aside in one corner of the desk while she looked back into the details of the writings. She shook her head lightly with a frown of focus on her face, mumbling an inaudible thank you about her bag.

Hazel's smile dropped. After long hours of talking last night, she thought they were close enough to at least share some polite and friendly words. Not something more but at least a smile! The disappointed girl straightened up her back, a little stiff as she was so unsure of what to say additionally.

Before Miss Grey could figure out her words, a hand flung around her neck and she looked at her side, finding Kevin Clark smiling at her handsomely.

"Some people don't know how to be grateful, Hazel. Why are you wasting your energy on unworthy people?" Kevin remarked with a wicked smirk forming on his face. His words were particularly thorny to pick on the silent girl.

Among everyone in the office, Aria was one of the best people to know how to piss off people. She was rude, and selfish and would always greedily be setting her eyes on a promotion. This was her identity. At least as per the people's perspective. Despite the intensity of their utterances, Aria never failed to ignore the people around her and always went back to her work to piss off the populace more.

As usual, the hours passed by with people joking, helping each other, and moving from here and there as they did their jobs. On the contrary, Aria Miller managed to keep the same position despite the needles running around the time.

The day passed by and the sun started to fade out of the sky, telling people that the time to go home was coming. Aria looked up at the small clock clicking on her table, sighing as she realized that it was only an hour from today's departure. The refuge for everyone was a suffocating place for her, especially when her father was around with smoking tobacco in his hand. It was a place where she couldn't seek freedom, let alone relax for mental and physical peace.

When her eyes were focused on the PowerPoint on the screen, a paper appeared in front of her eyes. Looking around, she saw the clerk distributing the same to other people as well. Her colleagues were already so dense in the discussion about this new matter.

Aria perked her ears in the surroundings, trying to eavesdrop on their words. She scanned through the front page while paying attention to her office workers chatting.

The topic revolved around someone buying almost more than half of the shares of their corporation and being the workers, they needed to sign these papers relating to change in governing power. Funny how it happened without any prior notice or maybe, they weren't notified about this yet. After all, they were just mere workers like thousands of others. But thinking on the other side, it wasn't like their company was in crisis. Why would such a big deal come out of nowhere?

Aria turned to the second page as she tried to read through the big pile of paper.

Nicolas Russo! He was the new owner of their company.

"Sign at the bottom of every page, people. Hurry up, you gotta submit it in two minutes!" Their bald boss declared, declaring his authority over his workers. He was too strict with his principles, ready to punish people with the penalties so often.

The workers scattered to their desks again, signing the papers without reading them even once. Aria followed her coworkers and started signing the thick sheets one by one.

Suddenly, the silent surroundings brought out some high-intensity whispers and Aria looked around to skim through her surroundings. Her eyes caught a high authority man standing near the front desk with almost half a dozen men from different departments tagging him along as he talked to their department head.

A tall man with a fine dark blue suit, he stood out dashingly with his hairstyle styled like a model and a short boxed beard marking his masculine features. With such a high dominance, he must be someone important. Probably Nicolas Russo? Not sure.

All of a sudden, his dark intimidating gaze struck her vision and the sudden interaction put a hold on her consciousness. She blinked her eyelids and a flash of expression crossed her visual cortex. She squinted her eyes to confirm but that uncertain man turned his figure as he walked away.

Did he just smile?

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