Chapter 27 - Nothing escapes from your eyes
Seeing the dazed look disappear from her, Sean was a little disappointed.
"What are you talking about?"
"I know there is more than what you had told Kyle, and your father refuses to say much other than him being your ex-boyfriend."
"You do not need to know other than Gio threatening our business with unethical moves."
"... During these four years, I occasionally spoke to Advin, and sometimes, he would mention about you."
Ashley waited for more, but he did not say anything further, calmly waiting for her response. Without his input, she had no idea how much her father had told him, or if he ever did speak about Gio to Sean.
She urged herself to calm down and think properly. There was a huge part of her that believed he did not know anything, other than Gio plagiarising her father's recipes. The evidence was his anger and ignorance when she spoke of her new relationship after their divorce.
He would not have reacted that violently if he had already known about it.
"He has something to do with Advin's leg injury, right?" With Ashley's sudden stiffness, Sean knew he hit the jackpot. "Tell me, please. Without telling me everything, how am I supposed to help you properly?"
Ashley finally sighed, putting away her hard front. Her head hurt just from trying to deduce how much he knew. Other than hurting her pride, what else would hurt after telling him? "You are right. Gio used me to get hold of my dad's recipe. All of it. Even if it means it would hurt me."
Sean remains quiet, his silence encouraging her to say more. His encouragement brings up her desire to vent.
"I found out about it, and broke off with him." She laughed painfully but was glad the pain was not as severe as before. "I should have not been so naive to think he would just let it go. In my anger, I did not think I should have broken up with him in a much more private place instead of in my dad's diner, right in front of our customer, who could listen to every word I had said."
"It humiliates him."
"Yes, it did. I regretted it, but what he did next completely wipes out even a tiny bit of regret I had for my actions." Ashley paused. "Well, maybe still some, but I don't know if he will still do the same even if I did it privately. Or he might have done worse."
"What did he do?"
"Slapped me across my face and called me an ungrateful bitch. He would have done more if he was not stopped," she said in a matter-of-fact tone. Her face had swollen for two days with a cut on her lip.
Sean mumbled something that would be offensive to children's ears. He caressed her cheek, his touch so gentle and caring that her heart ached in longing.
"He doesn't get away from that, does he?"
She snorted. "Our customer stood as witnesses that he assaulted me. He spent a night behind the bars. I did not want to report him to the police, but my parents and Ashton pushed me to report him."
"He became very angry, didn't he?"
"Angry doesn't even cover it. He's pissed to the point he could murder me."
"He tried?" Sean asked dangerously. If Gio was here, Ashley knew Sean would beat him up.
"Nearly. He brought the opposite shop and turned it into a restaurant and grabbed our customers away. He even interferes further by getting our suppliers to stop helping us."
"He's doing the same thing now, isn't he?"
She nodded. "The same, but I don't expect that he would follow everything he had done before."
"What happened then? You say he's angry to the point he would kill."
"We manage to do well even after what he did to try to ruin our business. With his first plan failed, he started another one." Ashley paused for a moment before regaining her voice to continue. "He gets even more aggressive. Nearly burned down our diner if my dad had not noticed it earlier."
"What? How dare he?!"
"He's a former street punk. So he is very capable of being ruthless." Ashley shrugged, but the small shiver from her shoulder betrayed her. "I used to pity him, you know, being an orphan so young. Not at all happy living from moving around different foster homes. But maybe, they returned him because he's the problem."
"He told you?"
"No, I hired a private investigator to check on Gio's background. He looked like a nice and decent person and I didn't mind being with him even if he told me his history. As long as he did not commit a crime and treated me and my family well, we could have made it. But he never thought of being serious with me, and only sweet-talked me just for my dad's recipes."
And she never knew if he had done the same thing to other poor women.
Sean tried his best to ignore his jealousy. "Doesn't he have any relatives left?"
"He did, but his relatives are poor. They already have difficulty trying to find food for their family, so they couldn't help Gio."
"So the foster home?"
"So the foster home. After being constantly returned from his foster family, he chooses to run away from his latest foster home and live in the streets since then. He was seventeen."
"How did he live after running away?"
"Based on my private investigator's report, he was taken in by a chef and has been living with him since then. But of course, for Gio to turn out this way, there could be a reason."
"There's a reason?" Sean muttered in disgust.
"Every person has a reason for being their own way, except for being born with it."
"So what's his reason?" Sean snorted and asked, humouring her.
"I say 'could'. It's just my reasoning. The chef's family tried to get rid of him because that chef's will include Gio. Not to mention more than half of his inheritance was given to Gio."
"What kind of way did they try to get rid of him?" Sean asked suspiciously.
"The permanent way."
Sean raised an eyebrow. "Killing him?"
"He managed to kill the hired man in retaliation and claim it as self-defense. The chef died from a heart attack after hearing it, and Gio got the part of the inheritance, no matter how much the family member tried to kick him off the will." Ashley could not help but smile at Sean. "Pitiful, isn't it?"
"That doesn't give him the excuse to do what he did to you."
"He was actually very nice to me until I knew the truth and broke off with him. I guess only then do I truly see him for who he really was for the first time."
"No need to find excuses for him. He's a bastard and it's all his fault for harming innocent people."
"I know that already."
Sean snorted. "What else did he do after he failed to set Summer Diner into flames?"
Ashley hesitated, unsure if she should say it. But since she had gotten this far, might as well finish saying it. "Break into my apartment and beat me up. Dad managed to save me before I was beaten even worse. But Gio had broken his leg. With a baseball bat."
Sean immediately hugged her tightly. "God, you could have died! And Advin could lose his leg forever. That fucking bastard!"
"The doctor did say that. But dad proved them all wrong and showed everyone he could walk after five months." Ashley said, happy that her father was recovering well, yet angry about Gio's cruelty.
"So this-" Sean rubbed the back of her neck and she went still. "Is this where Gio hit you?"
"Nothing escapes from your eyes, huh?" She sighed, rubbing the scar on the back of her neck that trailed down to her mid-back. "Yes, he hit me with a glass bottle. The doctor says I was lucky that there isn't any permanent damage, just a small crack on my spine. I guess I'm lucky that I bent forward so that the effect of the hit did not land fully on me."
"Why isn't he in prison?" Sean asked angrily.
"Corruption?" She answered sarcastically but that was half the truth. Gio was free by using money to bail him out and he has gotten someone to vouch for his location, which was far away from her apartment at that time. If they manage to stop Gio until the police arrive, the outcome would have been very different.
But after that incident, he learned to stay away, until now.
Sean let out a harsh breath. "You suffered a lot."
"Not anymore, I won't," she said tightly. She would not let Gio harm her family again.