CHAPTER 6 "The Stake’s empire demolished"

LEE- 

[ My dad and I were going to practice; we were having a race. Dad was running slowly as my small legs couldn’t match his one-meter step. I was giving my best but still lost with a huge difference. I frowned and he picked me up on his shoulder.

“I’m taller than you dad.” I said giggling loudly.

“Of course, you are my son.” He said and ran, I saw the beauty of the forest as I’ve never seen it from this height.

“Yay, dad I’ll be a great man and see the beauty in everything.” I said excited seeing everything around me. An arrow came from an unknown direction and pierced his heart. My dad fell on the ground, I felt my back hit the ground harder but didn’t feel any pain as I saw my father lying on the ground. I shouted his name several times but he didn’t listen. I asked how I'm going to go through everything alone but I got his silence in response. Then he finally spoke.

“You have to manage everything from now on, I’m proud of you, my son.” He said and died right in front of my eyes. I could only cry and shout for help.]

“Dad” I shouted and found myself on the bed, my eyes were teary but I wiped them off and saw everything around me. I saw Jordan lying next to me. I roamed my eyes and realized I was in the doctor’s cabin.

“You’re awake.” Jordan said, and got up from his bed extending his arm as much as he could and caressed my back.

I saw him looking at me with concern. Why was he looking at me like that, shouldn’t he hate me for what I’ve done to him? I removed his hand from my back and stood up from the bed. As soon as my feet touched the ground, my head started spinning in all the direction possible and was about to fall. I felt someone grabbing my waist, I didn’t fall but noticed it was Jordan. I was feeling something strange but didn’t utter a word. I stood firmly and pushed him away fixing my throat. I walked into the corridor and saw everyone peering down on the floor expressing their condolence, I still couldn’t muster up the courage to speak something and moved towards my room.

I have been locked up in my room for one week now after dad’s funeral, Cole and the doctor checked me on a daily basis, Cole managed everything and was very supportive even when he himself lost someone closed to his father. I mourned, cried, shouted and expressed everything in that room. I got drunk, I hit myself several times, my knuckles bled. Every time the doctor entered; he only saw new wounds on my body. Both of them saw me with pity. Cole tried to stay longer to look after me, but I threw him outside. I didn’t know what I was doing, was I mentally stable or not, I didn’t care about anything and live like a ghost for seven days.

After that one week, I got ready and opened the doors of my room. I walked towards the corridor and saw the bodyguards nodding in my direction. Everyone was shocked when they saw me, as I was back to my normal self, probably the rude and merciless one. I asked Cole to hold a meeting, he gathered everyone around. Dad’s bodyguard Shawn, Cole, and all the other men who worked under them, we all sat and I asked for the recording of the CCTV footage.

Cole hurried and brought the laptop with some pen drives. I asked them to tell me their whereabouts of last night. After listening to them I checked each and every file but saw no one entering or going from dad’s room. But everyone told the truth as they were found on the places, they told me. Cole investigated everyone but we found nothing, I didn’t want to lose hope and tried to dig deeper. Dad’s room didn’t had any cameras as he hated them, he hated his privacy being crumbled. I saw the footage of Jordan’s room and it was blank, as if someone had deleted the footage.

“Where is the footage of this room?” I asked Cole, and he was shocked.

“It must be here, unless something happened to the camera.” He said while checking everything. His speed was way too fast, being scared as I would scream on top of my voice. He looked around but found nothing.

“Don’t tell me, this is the only room which had technical problems.” I said, I wasn’t calm exactly but didn’t shout at him too.

We hurried towards the seventh floor, and I barged in to the doctor’s cabin. The doctor was treating his wounds, Jordan looked better than I last saw him. He was silent when he saw me and stood up. I saw concern in his eyes but ignored it, I walked towards him with no expression on my face. I grabbed his collar and lifted him in the air.

“Where were you, when my father died?” I said still showing no emotion at all.

“Mr. Lee…. Mr. Lee, he was tied here, he didn’t have the courage to move. He was too weak to kill somebody.” The doctor said begging me to spare his life. I looked at Jordan, he didn’t utter a word but looked at me with sorrow.

“Where… were… YOU?” I said, throwing him on his bed as he couldn’t go far because of the chains he was tied with.

“He is not the one you are looking for. He was here all night. When you came to check on him, he was sleeping and you saw it too. I gave him strong medicine. He couldn’t have done it.” The doctor said, but Jordan didn’t speak a word.

I looked down on the floor, when the doctor mentioned I came to check on him. Everyone looked at me in surprise, even Jordan’s eyes went wide. He looked away from me but didn’t say anything. Why was he not speaking?

“C’mon, defend yourself.” I said but Jordan was still quiet.

“Just fucking speak…… haven’t you lost someone close to you?” Cole said, starring at him with red eyes. As soon as Cole mentioned about losing someone he stood up and kicked Cole in the gut. But then fell and he lost control and groaned in pain. He will only react to Cole and not me?

“Enough... both of you.” I said and went outside, not bothering them.

Cole followed me as I entered in my room. He closed the door behind me to prevent people from eavesdropping.

“Shouldn’t you check Mr. Mathew’s room? Maybe we can find something there?” He said and I looked towards him. I couldn’t speak as I wasn’t sure if I’m ready to handle the rush of emotions I will face when I enter in his room.

“What was the issue with the camera?” I said touching my temples, ignoring what he said.

“It was broken.” Cole said and looked outside the window.

“Can it be Stake’s?” I said, as I totally forgot about them, they were finding the perfect moment to harm us. It must be one of their men.

“Can Mark enter inside without us knowing? Does he know where the cameras were?” He said pointing out the facts as he would’ve been caught if he entered in the mansion.

“What if there’s a mole inside?” I said thinking everything through. It is so common, people backstabbing each other just for few pennies.

“We definitely do, there must be someone leaking everything and staying between us as a spy.” He spoke. I was furious but didn’t show any emotion on my face.

“And the camera situation? Why Jordan’s room?” I said as this was something to be concerned about too.

“I would look into it too, but I don’t think so... this time he is not related to the murder. The poor creature can’t even stand properly.” Cole said and I agreed, as I saw him falling on the ground the moment he kicked Cole. Also. the keys of his chains were with Cole only, and it was impossible for him to break through and then again lock himself up.

“Prepare, we are going for a war.” I said, as I remembered dad saying, it should be us attacking them. Or else our empire would collapse.

“War?” Cole asked with confusion.

“We’re going to kill everyone who call themselves the Stake’s.” I said as I wanted to end their bloodline. No one would know about the Stake’s, as if they never existed. People will learn not to mess with Lee.

“Okay, Sir.” Cole, said and went outside.

Everyone was busy preparing for the attack. I knew the Stake’s will be in the know and I didn’t have the intention of hiding our attack either. I wanted everyone to know, what happens when you touch the 'Tennyson’s’. I wanted to know about the mole, so I tapped everyone’s phone and knew about their conversation. I found one person strange who worked under Shawn.

Cole killed him in front of everyone to threaten the other traitors, everyone got scared. Cole conveyed the perfect message of what will happen to those who cheat on us. The loyal one’s shouted in acceptance as this was the right thing to do. I saw Jordan peeping from the window when Cole shot that bastard. He looked shocked and surprised. This was a weird reaction for someone who knew how to kill people. I didn’t focus at him for a long time, but looked in his direction several times.

“Whosoever is the spy among us, come forward or your life will be living hell.” I knew they won’t come out but I still wanted to tell them what will happen once they get caught. As expected, no one came out.

“Fine, I hope you got the message. Now, go back to sleep and be ready for the attack.” I said and everybody dispersed. I saw Jordan still looking at me and suddenly turned his eyes away when I saw him.

“What’s going on?” Cole said looking at both of us then gave Jordan a final look.

“Nothing, what the fuck are you talking about?” I said and saw Jordan panicking as Cole looked at him. He went inside. Cole and I talked for a few more minutes and went to our rooms respectively.

I couldn’t sleep last night, thinking about every move we would take today. Now that dad’s dead, I’m the only one who has to look after our business. I wasn’t new to this, but still having dad around left a little room for me to make mistakes. Now, I had to be the perfect leader, Cole was by my side every time. Jordan was tied in the mansion; I still had few questions for him hence I made sure that there’s no way for him to escape.

We got prepared for the attack, our trucks were loaded with weapons and armed men. Everything was going as I planned, my car was in the middle leaving Cole and his men in the front and Shawn with his team at the back. I knew the Stake’s would be alert, but wasn’t scared at all, I was too determined to kill that bastard, Mark. I gave a signal and his house was soon surrounded by my men. The moment we stepped inside, the lights went off and I could see bullets raining on us. We somehow managed to dodge the bullets but Cole got hit on his shoulder, and some of our men collapsed on the floor.

We found place to hide and locate their men. As expected, they already knew and planned everything accordingly. We threw few smokes bomb inside and blurred everything they could see, our men killed theirs in no time when we got the upper hand.

“Pleasure meeting you, Lee.” I heard a similar voice shouting from some corner. My men fired in that direction but didn’t hear him screaming in pain.

“This would be your last pleasure then.” I said and shot the men standing near the entrance. Why wasn’t this bastard attacking us?

“Mathew was a good human being. Poor man, who knows how he’s feeling right now.” He said and I got irritated as hell. Cole was grunting in pain but still tapped my back to get rid of my annoyance.

“Ask him yourself when you see him, oh! But monsters are meant to be in hell. Oops, too bad I can’t fulfil your last fucking wish.” I replied and he shot towards me from an unknown direction. Who made him the mafia with such bad aiming skills?

“You’re getting old, ha-ha!” I said and all of our men laughed making fun of him.

By the time I occupied him with my nonsense. Shawn managed to reach the first floor, he killed everyone with his sniper, I saw no one but Mark standing alone with Shawn aiming at his head when the smoke cleared. I saw bodies lying on the floor, I smirked as most of them were Mark’s men. Shawn threw him down from the first floor, Mark fell on the floor and blood started dripping from his head.

“I saved your pathetic life because I was too busy mourning my daughter, you would’ve been dead for good.” He said while keeping his hands on his wound.

“I didn’t kill your father, but it will be fun killing you.” He spoke. He smirked at me; we had the upper hand but why was he making fun of me. It took me few seconds to realize.

“Get down.” I shouted and heard gunshots after that, most of my men died and I managed to kill his men, who attacked us from outside. It was his idea to lure us in. That old freaking bastard.

We were all severely injured and I soon noticed Mark fled. Mark wasn’t in the condition to run, who helped him? We couldn’t find a single trace of him. Cole was shot in his other hand. The bulletproof vest saved us but I could still feel pain all over as the bullet hit me. We were outnumbered as more men arrived, most of the people from my clan were dead, we found someplace to hide and aimed at them. Few men were killed, I grabbed my AK47 and few bombs, and found the exit in order to chase Mark but didn’t see any sign of him. I could hear the sounds of gunshot, when I looked around and saw no one, these bastards were so busy shooting at us that they left the exit open and didn’t cover themselves. I ran towards the entrance and saw them shooting at our men, I threw bombs in their direction and all of them scattered around in order to save themselves but couldn’t. The one remaining man shot towards me and I got hit on my right arm, but Cole managed to shoot him in the back of his head. Everyone from their clan died and Mark escaped. Some of our men were injured and few were dead. As soon as everyone got out from the building, we bombarded the place and left.

I left with a smile on my face as everyone was dead but still the wish to kill Mark remained unfulfilled. I got assured that Mark wasn’t the one who killed my dad, nor it was Jordan, then who was the real murderer? I heard Cole groaning in pain, and recalled the moment I saw him coming downstairs that night.

I wanted to kill myself as I was suspecting my brother, but couldn’t help it as I never investigated where he was. Also, I never saw him in the footage, apart from him coming downstairs and talking to me. Where was Cole that night? What was he doing upstairs, because I didn’t see him walking around as he said? Has he fooled me? Is he the mole we were searching for? How can it be Cole, he is my brother? Dad treated him like his son, he couldn’t have done it. But then where was he? Is he the real murderer? He killed dad? It can’t be him, right?