Chapter 86: Chapter 86

Chapter 86 She Is The Murderer

On her first day back from vacation, Bella found herself bored out of her mind. Not that there was nothing interesting about work, it was just that the mechanical routine of it all seemed lifeless and repetitive, almost like a metronome.

The President of the company had her workstation moved right next to his. He'd asked her not to leave his sight, not even for half a step and Bella had immediately felt suffocated.

"Your job now is simply to meet my personal needs," he'd said sternly as he looked into her eyes.

Bella's face shot to a deep red at once as she looked away in embarrassment. Personal needs? Did he mean...? He could have just gotten Lanny to satisfy him. Lanny was good at that.

"Stop imagining things. When I said personal needs, I meant my personal schedule, my meals, and so on," the President corrected her, finding it amusing to see Bella blush. He could see why she would think that way though, it was not uncommon to find bosses sleeping with their personal assistants.

Bella felt stupid, but she quickly tried to cover up her shame by diverting the attention to something else, "No, no, I wasn't thinking about that at all. I was merely wondering... Uh, what about scheduling meetings for the jobs?"

"Kelvin will take over those tasks," he replied as he shuffled some papers in front of him and started to read a file full of charts and numbers, signaling that he was done with the conversation.

What was he trying to do? Bella felt puzzled. But the President's order was final, and this was clear to all Skytal employees.

The whole morning passed quite slowly. Bella sat in her seat with nothing to do. She was restless and distracted, and she wanted nothing more than to go out for a walk. Perhaps, a quick talk with Jenny for five minutes could raise her spirits. But now that she was chained to the boss, she couldn't leave lest he needed her.

She peeked at him from behind her monitor and studied his features. His eyebrows were knitted into a tight knot, his eyes glued on the papers in front of him as his eyes quickly moved through the stack of papers.

As soon as he'd given her the orders to remain by his side, it was as if he'd forgotten that she existed. And she felt like a minion, ready to jump at his orders. But nothing was asked of her and she turned to the clock on the wall, watching as the seconds ticked away.

Her eyes then landed on the dragon mask. The icy cold light emanating from it made Bella afraid and rooted her to her chair.

Finally, feeling the muscles in her back tingling with restlessness, she coughed gently, trying to get the President's attention.

She succeeded, and the President looked up at her with his eyebrow cocked.

"What's the matter?"

She cleared her throat and spoke in a small voice, "I need to go to the bathroom."

"You can use the restroom in the office," he replied flatly.

"Thanks, but I'm not used to it. I'll be back soon, in about ten, oh no, five minutes." She squeezed out a flattering fake smile.

He nodded his head as he turned his attention back to the stack of papers in front of him. With the President's non-verbal permission, Bella excitedly bounced up from her seat and strutted toward the door.

As she walked out of the door, she encountered a middle-aged staff whose name she tried to recall. Robert, the marketing manager. Apparently, he was there to see the President.

"Hi! Mr. Robert, how can I help you?" she greeted him with a smile.

But Robert's reaction surprised her. Robert quickly averted his, pretending that he had not seen her nor heard her. He immediately turned to Kelvin and stated his business, "Kelvin, hello. Please schedule an appointment for me to meet with the President tomorrow afternoon."

Bella stood in the doorway and her face fell as she listened to their conversation. Her heart sank, the soles of her feet felt like lead and she could not take a step. She was very familiar with the feeling of being deliberately ignored; it was the harshest, most relentless form of hazing.

Most people who harbored hatred would physically attack a victim and make them feel pain, or verbally degrade them and make them feel inferior. But being deliberately ignored was a deeper level of mental harm that could make anyone doubt their own existence and thus fall into a kind of nothingness and eventually lose themselves.

Bella remained standing until she heard Robert and Kelvin end their conversation and Robert immediately left. She wished to never experience this again in her life. It was degrading and downright humiliating.

She walked to the bathroom and heard a group of voices gossiping animatedly.

She had never been a very curious person, much less had the habit of eavesdropping on people's private conversations. But she stopped right in her tracks as a strange intuition came over her. Something pulled her attention and she strained her ears to listen to what they were talking about.

"Hey, did you guys know? That pretty secretary... Bella, she came back to the office today."

"Really? She's too concerned about work, that one. It's only been a few days since Bob died, and she's come back to work? Ambitious."

"Shhh... Don't talk about her, be careful in case the President finds out. You know what will happen if he does... He doesn't like it."

"What are you afraid of? It's not like he would come to the ladies' room, right?"

They giggled and laughed.

"She's been at the company for only two months, but she has fixed the President good. And that whole thing with Bob, that is unclear, isn't it? This is what she is like. Poor Bob, if he hadn't gone to her that night, he probably would still be alive, right?"

"Yeah, it's all because of her. She looks so meek, but who knows what she's hiding underneath?"

*****

The words pierced Bella's heart like a sharp knife. Her legs went weak and she slid to the floor, where she quietly hugged her knees and buried her head between her legs to stifle her sobs.

Everyone was blaming her for Bob's death. Worst of all, she blamed herself for his death too.

If she hadn't come to work at Skytal, she never would have met Bob, and he wouldn't be dead. It all was because of her.

Bella felt miserable as the traumatic memories came flooding back to her like a tidal wave sweeping everything in its path, leaving her breathless and with a splitting headache.

Then she heard footsteps. Someone was walking in her direction. The footsteps stopped in front of her, but she was too miserable to raise her head.

"Hey! Bella, how are you?" Jenny's concerned voice came through.

"I'm fine," Bella murmured as she lifted her head and dried the tears on her face with the sleeves of her blouse.

Jenny wrinkled her brows, the corners of her mouth going in a downward curve as she sized up Bella, "No, you are not. You look horrible. What's going on?"

However, she got her answer quickly enough. Jenny listened to the sounds of voices coming from the bathroom and heard the burning by the gossip mongers from within. Her expression became set on her face. She breathed rapidly, clenched her fists and growled through gritted teeth, "They are too much, I am going in to give them a piece of my mind."

As soon as she said this, she turned on her heels and stormed into the bathroom, ignoring Bella's pleas to leave them alone.

"Hey! Bitches! Why are you hiding here gossiping like a group of old women instead of earning your paychecks? Why are you guys pretending to be good people when you are clearly a bunch of shallow gossipmongers? And poor Bob, when he was injured, I don't think I forgot how you were all gloating. Now that he's gone, you are pitying him, claiming the moral high ground by blaming Bella? You're shameless and shallow! You petty women!" Jenny glowered with her fists on her hips as she looked at each one of them. A few were shocked by Jenny's unexpected outburst; others were about to retort.

When they noticed Bella standing behind Jenny, they instantly paled with fear.

They clumsily tried to save the situation by putting forward their best foot, "Bella, I'm glad you're back."

"We didn't mean anything by all this. Harmless talk, my dear."

"Please don't take us seriously. We're going to go to work, bye. See you later."

They all apologized with embarrassed smiles and slinked out of the bathroom sheepishly.

Jenny took Bella's hand and said soothingly, "Don't pay too much attention to what they're saying."

But at that moment, Jenny's voice sounded distant to Bella, and the words were incoherent. What was she trying to say?

Soon, Bella could no longer hear Jenny as she felt the world around her spinning. The bright LED light dimmed as she tried to grasp onto something to stay on her feet. She flailed her arms around, lost her balance as her legs went limp and fell heavily to the ground with a thud.