Chapter 51 Barry’s Arrival
Alison was stunned. When she looked in the direction of the voice she heard and saw Barry, she stood up and put down her fork. “Grandpa? What brings you here?”
“Is this all you’re having for lunch?” Barry was concerned.
“I’m not that hungry, so anything’s fine.” Alison explained. She then politely asked, “Have you had lunch. yet, Grandpa? If you haven’t, I’ll get someone to prepare some food right now.”
Barry set his eyes on Alison with a complicated look and asked realistically, “Are you sure they’ll listen to you?”
She pursed her lips, not knowing what else to say.
“Be honest with me. Did Brayden falsely imprison you here?” he asked in anger, unhappy with his grandson.
“No.” Alison lied because she didn’t want Barry to be worried about her. Furthermore, she didn’t think those people would be able to keep her if she wanted to leave the estate. Instead, she willingly stayed in the house, reluctant to let her relationship with Brayden worsen because of Julia’s issue.
“Why couldn’t I reach you, then? What happened to your phone?” Barry asked.
“Someone kept calling me earlier, so I turned it off because it was annoying.” Alison made up a convincing
excuse.
When the lady finished her words, his face was filled with sorrow and disappointment. After all, there was nothing he could do to make Alison tell the truth as he reckoned he was perhaps too old to interfere with young people’s affairs.
Soon, Brayden returned and saw Alison talking to Barry in the living room. At the sight of that, he knitted his eyebrows and walked toward them before he greeted his grandfather coldly. “Grandpa,” he said.
Barry shot Brayden a glare. “I’m taking Aly with me. She’ll be staying with me for a few days.”
“No way,” Brayden replied while Alison was caught in confusion.
“You don’t get to decide for Aly. She hasn’t said anything.” Barry didn’t want Alison to suffer. Even though she might be divorcing his grandson soon, he still wished the best for her.
“I still have a little something to discuss with Alison,” Brayden lied brazenly before he added, “For that, she won’t have any spare time until after our divorce.”
“Is that so, Aly?” asked Barry as he turned his attention to her.
“That’s right,” Alison replied affirmatively. Since she had the same goal as Brayden, she wanted to do her best to resolve it by herself without getting the elders involved.
Meanwhile, Barry was also aware that the two young duo had their own plans. Furthermore, he only had. two purposes for visiting Alison; to take Alison away with him if she admitted that Brayden was falsely imprisoning her, and to intimidate Brayden with his authority while warning him not to bully Alison.
As the old man dwelled on the matter, he was filled with complex emotions. In the end, he gazed at Brayden with dissatisfaction and said, “Come with me. I have something to tell you.” Brayden did as he was told, whereupon the two men had a word with each other for almost ten minutes.
“I believe I just made myself clear, warned Barry one last time. “If you dare strip Aly of her freedom or bully her. I’ll make sure you regret it.”
“I heard you.” Brayden’s gaze darkened.
After that, Barry left without sticking around for too long. Before he made a move, he told his men to buy something nice for Alison to cat and bared his heart to her. When Barry was gone, the estate was left with only Alison, Brayden, and his bodyguards, who were nothing like invisible people.
While wearing a decent suit, Brayden set his eyes on the bowl of pasta and mocked Alison, saying, “I didn’t realize you were so good at playing on someone else’s sympathy.”
She didn’t bother entertaining Brayden. She had planned on finishing her pasta, but she soon realized it was already soggy. Thus, she decided to leave it there without finishing it. In the meantime, Brayden, who was given the cold shoulder, couldn’t stand being ignored disrespectfully, especially when he was alone. with her in the living room. “I’m talking to you.”
“I heard you,” Alison replied tersely.
“Why aren’t you answering me, then?”
“None of the rules here say I must respond to a dog that barks at me,” she responded sarcastically. “You can say whatever you want, but if I don’t want to answer your questions, no one can make me.”
Brayden gritted his teeth, feeling mad that the lady had just called him a dog. “You can go now.” He wante Alison to disappear in front of him before she gave him a heart attack. “If you stir up any more trouble before we divorce, I will not go easy on you again.”
“Is there some kind of misunderstanding or something?” Alison corrected Brayden’s misunderstanding. “I’m the scapegoat, whereas you’re the one who created all the mess. Are you sure you’re going easy on m now? Or did you mean you’d make my life even more miserable than it already is?”
What’s wrong
with this man? Does he really think he’s going easy on me after everything he’s put me through? He is pretty good at justifying his mistakes, isn’t he?
“I won’t frame you for what you didn’t do if you’re truly innocent.” Brayden’s eyes were filled with indifference.
Soon, Alison took a hundred bucks and patted Brayden’s chest, leaving him confused. “Go and get your brain checked at the hospital.”
She didn’t want to waste her breath convincing Brayden. “It’s on me.”
After that, she headed upstairs to grab her phone and walked out of the estate, leaving Brayden behind a he watched her leave with a darkened look on his face.
Upon exiting the estate, Alison flagged down a cab and went home. When she gathered all the informat about the real culprit behind Julia’s car accident earlier, she didn’t go through them but instead stored it her drive, wanting to review it later.
I wonder who’s going through so much trouble to drag me into this. While Alison was caught in her train of thought, a call from Charles suddenly came in. The moment she picked up her phone, she heard the man’s soothing voice. “Are you coming out of retirement?”
“Not exactly.” Alison knew what Charles was implying. “I just have a little something to look into, so I di little digging.”
“It’s because of Brayden, right?”
“Yes.”
“Are you free tonight?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s meet up and talk.”
“Sure.
The two of them finished their conversation through brief and straightforward replies. After hanging up the call, Alison received the location and time of their rendezvous from Charles. She then replied affirmatively and locked her phone.
Later that night, Alison, who was wearing a monochrome outfit, arrived at the bar and made her way toward the lounge that Charles was in. Charles came alone, and he greeted her with a smile, the golden- framed gla**es on his face making him seem even more decent-looking. When he noticed Alison’s arrival, he said, “Here you are.”
“Hey.”
“have something to show you.” Charles took a stack of photos from his pocket while Alison watched in surprise, for she didn’t expect him to carry photos wherever he went. Soon, he displayed all the pictures in front of her and gently said, “These photos are real. Take a look at them.”
Alison took a closer look at each of them shortly before she realized they were all pictures of Julia with another man. While some of them showed Julia and the man sharing a kiss, others showed them dining together. Apart from that, there were also pictures taken in private.
