Chapter 81: Chapter 81

Dashtan returned to the hospital after talking to Razak. Doctor Pedro met him just as he arrived at the door of the ICU, he had just come out of the room to check on Rakia.

“Do you want to look after her tonight?” Doctor Pedro looked at his son-in-law with a sympathetic gaze. The look on Dashtan’s face couldn’t hide the anxiety that was engulfing him at the moment. Dashtan nodded.

“You can sleep in my room, because the ICU doesn’t allow anyone in there except the patient.” Doctor Pedro informed and once again Dashtan nodded.

“Come on, let’s go to the cafeteria for coffee,” Doctor Pedro invited which Dashtan agreed to. He needed a conversation partner to at least distract him from worrying about Rakia’s condition.

“I told Adeline about Rakia, she’ll be here tomorrow morning to see her. I know it’s worrying but that woman has been through a lot as a journalist. Rakia is a strong woman.” Pedro smiled as his mind recalled Rakia’s vigorous and unyielding figure. As a stepfather, he knew more or less what Rakia was up to, given his wife’s affection for her only daughter.

“It’s all my fault, I put her in her current position. If only I had been braver, she wouldn’t be in this situation.” Dashtan said as he reflected on how he had not been a good husband to Rakia. He had to admit, he had begun to love her but had not fully dared to give her his heart. He was still traumatized by the past of being abandoned when he had hoped too much.

“I don’t know what really happened between you. I hope, whatever problems you face, solve them with a cool head. Do you love Rakia?” That question made Dashtan lift his face to look at Doctor Pedro.

“Yes, I love her.” Dashtan answered steadily. Doctor Pedro smiled and said, “Remember that in your difficult times, then you will find your way again.”

Doctor Pedro’s statement was enough to jolt Dashtan to the core of his soul. He only needed one reason to convince himself that Rakia was worth keeping and Doctor Pedro gave him the answer he needed. They were silent for a moment, Doctor Pedro sipping his coffee before speaking again, “There is no marriage without problems. But those problems sometimes make our relationship with our spouse clearer and more meaningful. If you know each other, you will be able to survive and overcome any obstacle.”

Dashtan was silent as he contemplated Doctor Pedro’s advice. He still had a lot to learn to be a good husband. As they returned to silence for a moment a male nurse came towards them with hurried steps.

“Doctor, the patient named Mr. Reynaldi has regained consciousness.” The male nurse’s words immediately distracted them both and rushed to Mr. Reynaldi’s room. When they got there, there was a doctor who was handling the man examining his condition in detail.

“Oh, you guys are already here. He’s just regained consciousness, but he still needs rest to recover his elbow condition.” The doctor said as he turned towards Doctor Pedro and Dashtan. After that he left, leaving the three of them in the room. Doctor Pedro approached Mr. Reynaldi with his welcome smile.

“Welcome back, old man,” he greeted to which Mr. Reynaldi responded with a weak smile. Doctor Pedro pulled out a chair to sit at the side of the bed.

“Rest for a while, I’ll be back here again. I have a surgery scheduled in a few minutes,” informs Doctor Pedro. Mr. Reynaldi nodded and thanked him.

“Ash, you can stay here and keep him company.” Doctor Pedro turned towards Dashtan and the man nodded. After Doctor Pedro left, Dashtan took the man’s place sitting on the chair beside Mr. Reynaldi’s bed.

“Welcome back, Old Man.” Dashtan smiled after saying that. The laughter of his wife’s father sounded dry and weak but at least to Dashtan the man was back.

“Please, I want a drink.”

Dashtan readily complied with his father-in-law’s request.

“How is Rakia?”

It was a question Dashtan was afraid would come out of the man’s mouth. He didn’t know what to answer and how to make it sound less alarming.

“She’s... Resting.” That was all he could say. He didn’t want to add new problems and make things more complicated. But he knew he couldn’t hide this for long, but for now, let it be like this.

“It feels strange to come back and open my eyes. Thank you for being here when I came back.” Mr. Reynaldi smiled. When it was ten o’clock in the evening, a doctor and a female nurse came to recheck Mr. Reynaldi’s health condition. The doctor advised him to go back to rest to recover after finishing his dinner. Dashtan painstakingly helped his father-in-law finish his meal and then let him rest by going out of the room to where Rakia was being treated.

Dashtan took a seat at the spot where he had sat a few hours ago. He looked at his wife with a sad gaze. His communication with her before everything happened had not improved. He honestly wanted Rakia’s apology but he reconsidered and thought it was selfish. The only thing he wanted right now was for the woman to open her eyes again soon.

“Will you apologize, Habibti? After that I will solve all my problems and start our life with our children.” Dashtan grasped Rakia’s hand that was close to her. The sound of the ECG device displaying Rakia’s heartbeat accompanied him at that time. Since there wasn’t much to do in the room, he went out to Pedro’s doctor’s office where he kept the few things he had brought in his backpack. He sat on the sofa available in the room and adjusted his hair slowly. The situation that happened to him recently was quite emotionally draining. He lay down on the sofa and reached into his pants pocket to retrieve his cell phone. He opened his photo gallery and found a picture of Rakia when they went to visit the Dubai aquarium. He went through her pictures on his phone and it made him feel a little better because it gave him hope. Dashtan closed his photo gallery and kept his phone on the wooden table directly opposite the sofa. Then she closed her eyes to take a moment to sleep. The last few days he had been sleep deprived but he had a lot on his mind and work. Finally, he managed to fall asleep with a dream about Rakia smiling at him, the woman holding a boy who was about three years old. They both smiled at him with a smile that warmed his heart.

**

The next morning, he was woken up by Adeline who had come to see Rakia. Not only that, his mother was also in this room. Dashtan looked at the two women with his eyes narrowed as he was still struggling against sleepiness and the lighting of this room which was hit by the bright morning sunlight.

“Mom?” Dashtan said just to be sure. His mother sat beside him and looked at her son with a worried look. Adeline and Pedro excused themselves, Adeline would go to Rakia’s room while doctor Pedro would check on his patient. The mother and son were left alone in the room.

“What happened?” The mother asked with a curious look on her face.

“Someone wants to kill Rakia, I’m not sure who it is yet but I’ll get it as soon as possible.” Dashtan said then rubbed his face rather roughly to get rid of his sleepiness.

“You left Dalilah alone at home.”

“I’m sure Dalilah is hiding something.” Both of them were silent, Dashtan’s cell phone rang with an incoming message notification from someone. He grabbed it to check the message he had received. It was from Razak.

[I found out something about Dalilah. I sent everything to your email.] Dashtan sighed and typed a reply.

[Thanks, Bro. You’re always reliable.]

“Mom, I’m going home. Can you stay here until I get back?”

She nodded and they left Pedro’s doctor’s office with different destinations. She would follow Adeline to Rakia’s room while Dashtan would return home. He quickly showered and changed after arriving home then rushed to his office to check the emails from Razak. Razak had sent her a number of documents, CCTV footage and voice recordings. He played the voice recording and listened to a conversation between two people. One of the men admitted to working with Dalilah to produce a fake gynecologist’s certificate stating that she was pregnant, and she gave him some money to shut up. Dashtan turned to the CCTV footage, he saw someone approaching Rakia’s car while it was parked at DS, the person placed something on the bottom of Rakia’s car after which he left with a suspicious look.

Dashtan could not clearly see the perpetrator’s face. Dashtan also used him forbidden ability to hack into the Singapore police website to get CCTV footage around the Daily Singapore building. It took about half an hour to get some of the CCTV video footage he needed. He immediately checked them all and found one footage that quite clearly captured the face of the perpetrator who put something under Rakia’s car. Dashtan hoped it was Dalilah but when he examined it carefully, it was not but a man he did not recognize.

“She must have sent someone to do that.”

While he was focused on investigating Dalilah, the woman he was investigating walked into his office without permission.

“Hi, are you home? How’s Rakia?” Dalilah stepped deeper until she was in the center of the room. She looked at Dashtan with feigned concern. Dashtan stared at her with a sharp gaze for a moment then looked back at his laptop. He copied the voice recording he received from Razak onto his cellphone, then got up from his chair and approached Dalilah with the cellphone in his hand.

When he was close enough to Dalilah, he immediately played the voice recording he had heard moments ago. At first, Dalilah did not understand and was confused, but the next second her face turned surprised and her gesture implied fear. Dashtan’s intimidating gaze did not leave the woman.

“Do you want to admit it? Or have you also prepared an excuse for this if you get caught?”