His daughter’s reaction and attitude since all of this had started was pissing him off even more than anything that Rafael could do. Hermes could not believe that his own daughter who he had raised all these years and had cherished like an egg was now on the side of the enemy against him. He couldn’t understand why she would even want to do something like this in the first place. In a lot of ways, she was more like her mom than him. Very soft hearted, kind and extremely gullible. It had been one of the reasons he had liked her mother in the first place and why he could not really be around Athena for too long because even though he didn’t care to admit it, she reminded him of the woman who he had lost all those years ago.He had found out a while back that Athena was not suited for this business which he had ventured into. It was very obvious from the way she talked and related with people. There was no way in hell she was going to be on board with him killing people and conducting ex
RAFAELThere I was in the study with Rachael as we waited for Hernandez and Athena to come in. I had called them because I needed advice on the next step to take and I needed everyone to be present.“I still do not understand why you called her though.” Rachael said, referring to Athena. “Why should she be here in a strategy meeting?”“She offered to help and there might be something that she knows which we do not know.” I replied, “Right now, I need all the help I can get. It is my mother’s life that is on the line here so all suggestions and helpful ideas are welcome.”I could see that she was in no way pleased with that answer but I did not care. It would be strange to anybody and it sure as hell was strange to me, but for some reason, I felt like I could trust Athena with this. When we had spoken in the room back then, she had a look of sincerity in her eyes and I felt like I could trust the words that came out of her mouth. She looked like she actually was willing to help and at
ANDREAI felt all kinds of nervous as I prepared myself to follow Rafael into the meeting with my father. I had not been nervous the last time I went to see him but after knowing everything that I now knew, it was a given why I was this nervous. All of it still seemed like some sort of distant memory, a bad nightmare which I definitely wanted to wake up from as quickly as possible. I had tried to wake uo so many times but it definitely was not working. This was not a nightmare in any way. This was reality, my reality and I had to face it head on.So many thoughts kept on playing in my head as I kept on wondering what my father’s reaction when he saw me would be. His words over the phone were still playing in my head, he really did think I was some naïve brat of his that couldn’t handle herself. Thinking about it now, I wondered if perhaps he was right about that.In a way, I had been the cause of everything. I had been the one who put myself in the situation I currently was in. Whethe
“What the fuck do you mean by she is gone?!” Hermes yelled out, as his car sped along leaving the warehouse. He was completely furious at how things had ended between him and Rafael. Rafael was the one who had the last laugh as he got away with Athena while Hermes had to be led away, completely shielded by his guards to stop whoever was operating the sniper which was aimed at his head from taking a shot which would have definitely proven to be extremely fatal.The fact that one second he was completely in control and the next, it had all slipped right through his fingers continued to mess with his head. He had no idea how that had happened and even now as he sat in the car trying to think about it, he still couldn’t come up with an explanation as to why everything was the way it was.“Fuck all of this.” he yelled out, “You are all a bunch of incompetent fools.”His driver looked at him through the mirror of the car and they both locked eyes but he dared not say anything in objection.
RAFAELThe joy which I felt in my heart was beyond anything that I could bring myself to explain. It filled me up to the brim and I could feel it overflowing as I drove back to the house. A part of me had felt it was not going to work and I would have to hand over Athena to Hermes which would mean that he definitely has won. I had not expected that he would ask for my estate and everything that made me me, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made.If I was in his shoes I most likely would do the same thing as well. It made sense for him to want to cripple me and take away my resources totally. I had half expected him to try to kill me there and then and maybe he would have tried to do it if I didn’t have the sniper trained on him. He already knew that if any of his men pulled the trigger, the chances of him making it out of there was extremely slim. There was no way he was going to want to die in a warehouse when he could leave to try to fight me another day. I knew Her
ATHENAImmediately I opened my eyes, they were greeted by the warm rays of sunlight that seeped in through the open windows. This was the first time in a very long time that I was having a very good rest and my heart was actually at peace. I knew it shouldn’t be because we were not completely out of the clear, but for some strange reason, I felt completely relaxed about everything.I sat up in bed and looked around, taking in the scene of the room as I thought about what today held. Being cooked up in the room and house all day had proven to be extremely boring but after all the recent activities that had happened, I knew exactly why I had to be in the house. A part of me was still scared that my father would do something completely crazy, for some strange reason, I couldn’t completely shake that feeling.This was the exact same way I had felt before we learnt about the abduction of Rafael’s mother. I didn’t know what to make of it though and so I brushed it to the back of my thoughts
RAFAELI woke up in a very good mood today. This was the first time in a very long time that something like this happened and I was sure I was going to embrace it. I remember giving my mother a huge hug goodbye before I stepped out of the house to the office. My assistant had been trying to reach me for weeks now to tell me about problems in the office but then I was facing my own problems so I had been blowing her off. I couldn’t do that anymore. I had to turn into the office today and have a couple of meetings to ensure that the business which I had setup was still running smoothly. It was a pain in the ass but it still had to be done.Today, it didn’t feel like a pain though because of the mood I had found myself in. I was sitting on the chair in the office trying to get through the mountain of paperwork and files which had stacked up on my desk over the past few days. Corporate life was definitely not for me but then I had to do it in order to maintain my status. This was how my i
Rachael lay in her room in the house as she thought about everything that was going on all around her. She had purposely boycotted the dinner last night because she was in no mood to share in the festivities that all of them were taking part in. They were acting like they had won and that the war was over when this was certainly only the beginning. If there was anybody that knew this very well, then it was certainly her.Given how closely she had worked with Hermes, she was well aware of everything that he was capable of. The depths in which he would go to come after people who he felt had wronged him totally was beyond anything that they could even imagine. They had no idea about this because they had not been with him for as long as she had been.They felt they knew the depths of Hermes’s evil but they were not aware that what they knew was only the surface level. Rachael had watched Hermes order hits on whole communities just because they refused to pay their dues to him. She had w
EPILOGUETHREE MONTHS LATER“He is so beautiful.” Athena said, as she lifted up their baby and spun him around in the air.The past months after the baby had come had been nothing short of magical. She couldn’t stop staring at the baby and she thought about how different her life was now from how it had been just a couple of months ago. They were at a point of peace and Rafael had magically transformed into the sweetest person on the earth. She now saw him smile a lot, especially when he played with Jaden. They had both chosen the baby’s name together after a lot of arguments. It had been a funny scene to witness but at the end of the day, they had settled for Jaden and it was a name that suited him so well.“He has my eyes so of course he is going to look beautiful.” Rafael said, as he emerged at the door of the room.He had been standing there for a while watching his mother and Athena without them knowing. They were startled at first, but at this point they had gotten used to the f
RAFAEL“Watch your step.” I said, as I held her hands and led her into the house.She had absolutely refused my offers to carry her. In her words, she felt I had done enough. On the contrary, I felt I was yet to do enough. I was not sure if I could ever do enough to compensate for everything that I had put her through in the past few months. I felt it in my heart though, I was definitely ready to make amends for everything. That was the plan.The doctor had finally agreed to discharge her from the hospital and we got back to a welcome party from my mother. She had been extremely happy over the past few days. Ever since I told her the news at the hospital about how the baby might actually be mine, I realized that the glow which she had the first time she found out that Athena was pregnant had actually returned to her face. I couldn’t be hundred percent sure if I was the father, not until the baby was here and we were able to carry out a DNA test.I could feel it in my bones though. It
ATHENAMy eyes fluttered open, as I came to. A faint beeping noise continued to ring in my head, as I steered wondering where it was coming from. My equilibrium was still off and I had no idea what was going on around me. My mind felt like it was covered by a thick fog and it was very hard to get it clear. My eyelids felt extremely heavy and it was like they were being weighed down by invisible anchors. Finally, I was able to pry them open. It took some time for my eyes to get accustomed to the lighting in the room. There was a light which shone soft and dull right above my head, casting a pale glow across the room I was in.I looked around as it took me a moment to adjust, to process the white walls of the room it was in. There was the hum of machinery all around me, that was where the constant beeping sound was coming from and that smell. It was a very distinct smell which I recognized immediately. I had spent enough time in hospitals during my mother’s hospital to be able to recogn
“Athena!” Rafael yelled, as he rushed over to her side.He had watched her fall when he came out of the car and this had taken him completely by surprise. He knew that she could already tell exactly what had happened from the moment he stepped out of the car. The stench of failure was no doubt all around him and he had thought about it all through the drive to the house. He thought about how he was going to tell her that her father was dead and he had watched as Hernandez put a bullet through his head as he was unable to do anything about it. The mere thought of telling her such a thing troubled him so deeply and it showed on his face immediately he stepped out of the car.Without him saying a word, she could already tell that the worst had happened. The look in his eyes told more words than he could ever say. Athena had felt like she was going to cry, as if a great burden had just come upon her shoulder. A burden which was too heavy for her to bear. She felt like she was going to cru
RAFAELWe finally pulled up to the house and my mother was right outside to greet us. She was so happy that we made it out, as I watched her hug Athena deeply. She checked her to ensure that she was fine while she led her into the house. I could see a deep sadness on Athena’s face even though she tried her best to hide it for my mother’s sake. I could tell that she was greatly troubled about what happened to her father. Her words in the car kept on ringing in my head. She had asked me to help him and there was only one way I knew how to.Walking past them, I headed to my room upstairs and went straight to my wardrobe to bring out my box. This was where I kept my suit and weapons which I used when I raided Hermes’s warehouses. Every time I wore it, it meant that I was about to do something which I was not essentially going to be proud of. I stared at the box for a couple of seconds as I contemplated whether or not to open it. Questions danced around in my head as I wondered if doing th
The whole room seemed to be in a sort of chokehold, as everybody’s eyes bounced around. Hermes’s arrival had been quite unexpected to all of them and they had no idea what any of this meant or what he was doing here. From the way that he had burst in, his intentions could be told to some degree though. He was standing in between his two guards who had come into the room with him and he had a smile as he stared at the meeting which was going on at the table. Rafael most especially was very surprised by all that was going on. He wasn’t sure what to make of all of this as so many questions ran through his mind.He got up and walked over to Hermes as their eyes met.“What the fuck are you doing here?” Rafael asked,“And here I was thinking that you were an honorable man that I could trust, Mr Hall.” The investor said, as he sat up and adjusted his suit. “The last thing I was expecting was that you would bring the enemy right to my doorstep after you were the one that asked for this deal t
RAFAELAll through the night leading up to this, I found myself completely unable to sleep. This was certainly not a new phenomenon for me. Sleep had managed to elude me a lot during the past few days and I desperately hoped that I would finally be able to find rest when all of this was in the past. When Athena and the baby were safe and sound, I would finally be able to rest and think about everything. I had desperately avoided thinking about what Rachael had told me the other day. This whole time, I had not even considered the possibility that the child that Athena was carrying could be my own in any way. Initially I had seen it as a means to carry out my revenge on Hermes.Raising the child the way which he had raised me, that was what I had planned to do. That plan had since left my head, but then, I still had never considered the possibility of the child being mine. All I had thought was that the child was Athena’s ex’s and this had pissed me off so much for a reason that I was s
ATHENAEven as I sat bound to the chair with a bag over my head impeding my vision, the whole scene at the restaurant kept on playing in my head. I had seen the bullet go through Rachael as she slumped to the ground along with the gun which she had trained to my back. The whole thing had happened so fast and even though I had tried my best to get to Rafael, especially after hearing him screaming my name out loud, I wasn’t able to. I couldn’t get to him before the van pulled up beside me and the men tossed me in. As I sat in the room, I could still feel their presence all around me. I wondered who they were and nobody had bothered to tell me anything ever since we got to wherever this was. They had not spoken to me directly despite all the questions I threw their way. I was in a world where I knew no one and I struggled so hard to comprehend what was going on.I was sure of one thing though, these were completely different people from Rachael’s men. When we first got here, I had though
RAFAELWe all rode in silence as we headed to my house. Rachael was bleeding in the back seat and I had instructed one of my men to tend to her wounds. She kept staring at me without saying a word, but I could tell from the frown on her face that she was not pleased by anything that was going on. When I had offered her my assistance when she lay on the floor bleeding, she had initially tried to fight me. It had not been so much of a fight as her hand was not of so much use. The bullet was still lodged in there and I had already called the family doctor to meet me up at the house to perform a quick removal of it. The wound didn’t look entirely nasty and I was sure she was going to live through it.Hermes was not too pleased about my decision to keep her alive and he made this expressly clear. Even when I tried to place her in the back of the car, he expressly denied and insisted that he was not going to ride with someone who had been responsible for putting his daughter in harm. I coul