ECSTASY | CRIME PRINCE SERIES | BOOK 0.5 FIRST EDITION

|𝟏𝟒.| 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗲 𝗢𝗿 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝗷𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗰𝗲 ♤

She pulls a gun from under her pillow and points it in my direction, when she notices me she sighs and lowers it.

"Ash, don't do that!" she sing-songs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you" I walk over and sit on her bed. She still goes through her pile of papers. Her hair is still tied up, her face gleams and solemn, and she looks like me on a bad day - which is well every day.

"Mhm, why aren't you sleeping?" she asks, a worried tone in her voice. Why isn't she sleeping? She's worried about everyone else but herself, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

"The giggling goblets downstairs," I chuckle I notice she's still wearing her pantsuit and her hair is curled into a bun and she's wearing her glasses. I never see her with her glasses anymore - it's adorable.

"I heard them, at least they're relaxed that's all I want" she sighs, finally finding the piece of paper she was looking for, and a little smile forms.

"You're still in your work clothes?" I notice.

"Didn't have time to take them off"

"What are you busying with?" I enquire, picking up some of the papers. I read through some bank statements about her company, there's negative everywhere with money being usurped by God's know who. It's at least about forty million lost already.

"It's nothing, don't worry-" she notices the paper in my hand and snatches it immediately, "Don't worry about it." her face grows an expression of embarrassment or humiliation. She must think I believe she's incapable of running her own company - unfortunately, it wouldn't be the first Aria faced misogynistic comments from men

"By the month or by the week?" I ask.

She sighs, hesitant to answer me but when she sees that I'm not going to change my mind, she realizes that it's useless "For now, by the month but in a few weeks probably by the week and if I dont do something about it, we could be losing 10 million by the day."

"You need to rest" I decide.

"No, Ash I need to figure this out" she reads some documents and stands from the bedside to fetch some documents from her shelf. She barely makes it up without falling back on the bed.

"Corazón, you're tired. Your room is a mess and I rarely see you eat, you can barely even stand without feeling dizzy. I'm not even sure how you can concentrate on your work if you can't take care of yourself. " I confirm.

"I know-" she stops and huffs, before her eyes linger around my abdomen and torso. She curls her lip I'm genuinely confused at what she's staring at.

"What?"

"You're not, -you're not wearing a shirt" she lowers her head.

"Oh, um," I think and walk over to the pile closest. There's an oversized white hoodie and I think it'll fit me so I put it on. It's a bit tight but it'll have to do - I walk back into the room and sit back on the bed, it bounces a little and she giggles, Aria hates giggling "continue..."

"I-I want that back!" she deadpans. She takes a deep breath before answering me.

"I know I'm tired, but I can't rest. Ash, people depend on me. Families depend on me, if this continues I might have to consider retrenchment in two months, I can't fail again. I can't be that person who depends on others. I have to figure this out." She rambles.