The Son-in-law's Revenge

Chapter Six

Elijah was in his room inside his grandfather's estate, gazing out the window. The mansion was one of the biggest and highest in Connecticut.

'Elijah, you won't be able to use your legs for a while.' Elijah swung his hands to the side and threw the bottle of brandy he was holding against the wall. He wheeled himself away from the window, knowing that one of his grandfather's maids would come in a few minutes to clean everything up.

This is what Bianca and Fred had turned him into. He had been in this state for almost two months now. Which had given him enough time to learn the name of the man who had put him in a wheelchair. He had spent two weeks in the hospital, before Ethan discharged him, sending him away in a wheelchair and a physiotherapist to assist him get back on his feet.

Elijah was not proud of his behavior and his current physical state, he knew he was making it difficult for the physiotherapist who had been assigned to him. In fact, he was not making things easy for anyone, including his grandfather, his sister, and everyone who genuinely cared about him, his stepbrothers, and his stepmother, non-inclusive. They had only sent greeting cards to the hospital, and it was not like he cared, they were never really a happy family.

Elijah wanted to see the world burn. 'What did I do to deserve this?' I was treated and discarded like trash because they thought I was poor?' he thought to himself. Elijah believed that anyone who treated the poor like they were less human deserved to die.

His alcohol consumption had doubled the week after he left the hospital. The mix of his painkillers and daily alcohol intake caused him to vomit and suffer severe headaches, so he started to skip them, and now he wasn't taking them anymore. 

A few minutes later, his door opened, but it wasn't a maid who entered. It was Cora who was sending him a death glare. He stared back at her. Gone were the days when he cared about her emotions and did everything in his power to make her smile. 

"Elijah, this is not the right way to live," Cora said as she shut the door behind her.

Elijah ignored her and wheeled himself to pick up another bottle of alcohol among the numerous ones that had been set aside for him at a bar within his reach. It took a fight with his grandfather before he agreed to install a bar in his room. He had even threatened to kill himself. The day he said that he was just fishing for anything that would convince Lucas to give him whatever he wanted. But these days, it was now a thought that lingered.

He turned to wheel himself back to the window but came face to face with Cora who was standing with her arms folded across her breast. 

"You've become a shadow of yourself, Elijah. Somebody that I don't know anymore." 

Elijah wheeled his chair backward and Cora reached out to stop him immediately. "What the fuck do you want from me, Cora." 

"To be alive again. Get your freaking head back in the game, goddammit. Imagine if everyone who has ever been trampled upon behaved in the same way you are currently doing, then the world would be boring." 

"Those are really touching words." Elijah replied.

Cora crouched down to be at Elijah's eye level. She spoke her words slowly. "Take what has been given to you and throw it back at them. Make the world your gaming station. Hurt them back as they have hurt you if that would give you any satisfaction. I have never known you to back down from anything. You are here, living like this, while they are living their best lives and have completely forgotten about you." 

She leaned forward and placed a kiss on his forehead before walking out of his room. Then a maid came in to sweep the glass pieces of the broken bottle hurriedly. Her movements were fast and uncontrolled as if, if she was not quick enough, he would smash another bottle on her head. The maid finally got all the glass pieces and scurried out of his room in less than a minute. 

Elijah drew the bottle of whiskey he was holding to his lips, he pushed his head back to take a big gulp from it. The liquid burned his throat, and he completely forgot about Cora's words. He wheeled himself back to the window from where he enjoyed watching outside. He saw a couple of boys playing football in the compound, they were yelling at themselves, sweating profusely as they enjoyed their game. His grandfather had a very large field in front of his compound, and he allowed children to come in and play as they pleased.

Elijah watched them for a while, thinking how he would give anything to live as carefree as these boys.

"To end my life or to live again?" Elijah asked himself aloud. 'What would they say about me if I kill myself,' Elijah thought. He could just picture the stupid headline. "Elijah Artis, the poor waiter commits suicide after Bianca Gardini divorces him.”

Elijah scoffed at the fake name he had given Bianca's family. It was very necessary, and he was glad that he did it, considering that Marcus had called a few days after Bianca had introduced him to the family, to inform him that they had hired someone to dig deeper into his life. He was grateful for the extent to which Marcus had gone for him. Marcus was a Private Investigator, who had prepared the details of a fake Elijah Artis, sending the Gardini family on a wild goose chase. 

He rolled himself to the center table in his room. His opened laptop and his phone were on it. Elijah stretched out his hands to pick up his phone to call Marcus, whom he had not spoken to in a month now, but something on the laptop's screen caught his eye, so he slipped the phone into his shirt pocket and leaned towards the laptop.

His jaw fell open when he read the headline of the latest news.