Later that night.Rebecca was coming down for dinner, so Benjamin accompanied her even though he wasn’t hungry.Just when he arrived at the table, Veronica told Amber, “Buy ten toilet rolls in the morning.”“What do you need ten rolls for?” Selena asked. “Didn’t you buy a dozen a month ago?”“Mom, I used more. What’s the big deal? It’s just toilet paper,” Veronica said. “Don’t tell me, you can’t even afford this much.”“The money is not the issue,” Selena hissed. “It’s your attitude that’s the problem. I’m your mom, so I’ll bear it even if you yell at me unreasonably, but you think your husband will bear it when you talk with him so unacceptably?”“Why not? Isn’t Brother Benjamin bearing your insults without any problem?” Veronica said.Elizabeth spilled her drink, and everyone else at the table were also surprised by Veronica’s boldness. Veronica would rarely talk back to her mother, but it looked like she got annoyed because her mother was arguing with her about mere toilet rolls.S
For the next few days, the workload escalated to the aether for Benjamin. Not only did he have to work as a delivery guy during the day time, he came home and had to take part in cooking along with the maids who showed their attitude before him, especially Amber and Kathy who were cousins. If not for Sheron keeping them in check, they would have made his life even harder.Benjamin understood that the maids did not respect him much anymore now that he stepped into the kitchen to cook. After all, nobody in the sterling family would enter the kitchen to cook. He was the first one who was told to cook. Since he was being treated with not much respect by Selena and Elizabeth, the maids also naturally learned from that and began to stop doing their work and push all that load onto Benjamin.For instance, Amber was the one who used to wash the dishes after every meal, but now, Amber was giving the excuse that she was having a headache, and she told Benjamin to take care of it.Kathy told him
Benjamin put the towel on the homeless man who then immediately grabbed Benjamin’s arm and tried to steal whatever that was in his pockets.Rebecca was shocked to see that. “Hey, stop!” she was stepping out. The thief took Benjamin’s mobile out. It was a button mobile, so he threw it away and checked the other pocket while wrestling with him. He found some cash in that other pocket. He quickly pushed Benjamin away and was running, but Benjamin bent down, grabbed the towel, and threw the towel like a rope and it knotted itself around the thief’s ankle, making him fall flat on his face, thereby injuring his nose.Benjamin took his money from him and then let him run away.“Why did you let him go?” Rebecca asked him quickly. “You should have held him down until the cops arrived. I already called them, you know.”“Forget it. He seems mentally disturbed,” Benjamin said and then put the towel back at the place where the homeless man had been resting, where there was a small plastic bag. He
After Benjamin went into the kitchen, Rebecca went straight to her room.She grabbed a towel and a pair of clothes before entering the bathroom. “Mom is clearly angry at me for marrying without telling them. She can’t take her anger out on me, so she’s targeting Benjamin. Watching him getting slapped is hurting me, so I’m sure it should be hurting him a lot more, but he’s not complaining, so why should I involve myself and complicate things even more?”A few seconds passed.“But the fact that Mom slapped him… it leaves a bad taste in my heart,” she thought. “How can she just slap a grown man for silly reasons? She never slapped dad even though he did things that deserve more than slapping. Why is she taking out all her frustration on Benjamin? Elizabeth, her parents and her children, and even the maids are not treating him, yet he’s absorbing everything thrown at him like a sponge. I’ve never seen someone as unruffled as him.“And he’s surprisingly honest. He could have easily done a
“The more pride, the better.The more greed, the better.The more violence, the better.The more pain, the better.The more blood, the better.The more lies, the better.”A voice had been reciting these words in the heads of Vlad and Mercie in their sleep, and their fingers were trembling and jerking as a result.Louis and Bella were too busy with their own affairs to notice what was happening to their children right now.Benjamin was still outside, but he was able to see the children right through the walls. “They are under demonic attack.” He looked at the sky. There was no moon or stars for that matter. “A new moon night, huh. This is when they’re at their peak of hunger...”He stood there and waited and waited for more than an hour just in case the children might lose their consciousness and turn into full-blooded monstrous vampires and go on a rampage and kill everyone and everything in sight.He couldn’t interfere because their parents were with them in that same room, so all Be
The next morning.Rebecca woke up. Almond milk was waiting for her on the table. Did Benjamin leave the milk there? The vapors were still coming out from the milk, so he must have put it there recently, she thought.Pista and almond bits floated at the top. And these bits made the letters ‘L U.’Rebecca was not surprised by it as she had seen it before. But after seeing this, she was sure that the maids did not leave the milk there. She never asked the maids to cook anything for her before because most of them slept with her dad. So she only ever talked to them to make them do some housework. That was all. She never happily ate the food made by them.But after Benjamin started making more of the dishes every day, she asked him what dishes he made and began to selectively eat those dishes because she wanted to avoid eating the food made by the maids. Moreover, the dishes Benjamin made were tastier and made her feel healthier. She had no idea how he was able to cook this well, but she c
Benjamin finished his house work and was waiting for Rebecca at the dining table. He kept a seat next to him.However, Selena sat next to him and waved her hand before her face. “You smell like kitchen soap. Did you wash your hands properly?”“I washed dishes last night, Mother-in-law. I washed my hands and then I bathed this morning. I washed my hands again after working, so there’s no way you can smell kitchen soap on me.”“Are you saying that I’m lying?”“Well, you must be imagining things. That’s all I’m saying,” Benjamin replied. “If you don’t like the smell, why don’t you take another seat?”“How dare you tell my mother-in-law to change seats?” Elizabeth raised her voice. “Know your place, Benj-eff-min.”“It’s Benjamin,” he replied. “I’m sure it’s not hard to pronounce. Or do you want me to pronounce your name differently, too?”Elizabeth gritted her teeth. “You… I’m a senior in this house. I can call you what I want, but you can’t do the same.”“Is that so? Who makes rules in t
After breakfast, Benjamin was waiting at Rebecca’s car. She wasn’t there yet, and he was waiting for her.“She didn’t stop me or stop her family members,” he thought. “I think she’s just not taking any side at the moment. I didn’t understand it yesterday, but now I know better. While she’s not stopping her family, she’s not stopping me from retaliating, either. But I should keep my mouth in check. Too much talking back will make them hate me, and then it will get much more difficult to turn their faces toward me.”Rebecca was coming toward him while checking her mobile. “Look at your surroundings while you’re walking, Love,” he told her. “Don’t be distracted by that thing in your hand. Technology isn’t necessarily good all the time. It can be used to distract and dumb people down without them knowing. Lisa and Roshan, for example, spend more time watching mobile phones every day than they spend talking with others in the house.”Rebecca put the mobile in her bag. “Happy now?”“Yeah, b