Ch-13

013

 Eliaz's POV 

       I let out a breath I had no idea I was holding when I stepped into the living room. I counted to ten, then twenty and thirty, and when the stillness I had walked into still remained, I let out another sigh of relief. 

Heaven knows I'd had a really long day at the office today. As promised, I had hopped on another call with Mr Dumont again, and it didn't go as planned. 

He was beyond furious. 

I didn't know the man on a personal level, but I think it was safe to say that if he could, he would stripped me of the little dignity I had left and made me the laughing stick of the business world. 

The first hour of the call was filled with constant pleas from me, just to get another chance. Before that, I'd contacted a couple of other investors, but they weren't really interested. A whole lot of them were polite by telling me they would get in touch, while the others simply didn't bother to pick up. 

Yes, it was that bad. 

I shook off the events of the day before heading upstairs. I found the quiet unnerving, but I wasn't going to pass out on a chance of getting more peace and quiet. Heaven knows if Cynthia had greeted me by the door today, my brain wouldn't have been able to take it. 

I was almost at the door to my room when something caught my eye. It was tiny and barely existent, but I'd noticed it almost immediately. 

A tiny beam of light spilling onto the wall in front of me, but from where? It was a pretty big mansion and even though there was a handful of staff, some of them tended to forget their boundaries from time to time. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case, but unlike the previous times, I wasn't going to be so lenient. 

As carefully as I could, I followed the direction the light had come from. It stretched on for a while, but eventually I was able to trace it, and it led straight to my study. 

What the? 

I paused, just a stone's throw away from the front door. It was opened a notch, and the quietness helped me realize what whoever was inside was doing. 

The tap tap tap that sneaked out of the room only hinted that whoever it was, was fiddling with my laptop or what not? My stomach churned and it didn't take too long for me to understand the emotion settling at the pit of my belly. 

Anger. 

How dare they?

Without giving it so much as a single thought, I barged into the study. 

“Cynthia?” I couldn't believe my eyes. “What are you doing in here?” 

Cynthia was the last person I'd expected to see. According to her schedule, she was meant to be halfway done with her nighttime routine, or on her way to bed. Instead of that, I'd caught her fingers deep into my laptop. 

“You're home late.” She snorted loudly, ignoring my question. “Did you have so much work at the office today?” 

“Don't try to push it off that way.” I walked deeper into my office. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“Nothing that's overly important to you.” She replied, a bored tone on her lips. “You can go to bed. Tomorrow's another work day for you.” 

“But that doesn't explain why you're snooping through my laptop.” I hissed. “I'm not going to repeat myself. What are you doing?”

The silence that followed was deafening, and also infuriating. I counted to ten, slowly waiting to see if she would stop her incessant tapping, or at least tell me what she was doing. But when ten seconds rolled into a couple of minutes, I just knew she wasn't going to budge. 

“Give me this.” I yelled, and in the blink of an eye, I spun the laptop, just so I could face it towards me. Cynthia hadn't seen it coming, so it was pretty simple to pull the laptop away from her grip. 

“Give it back to me.” All of her efforts to pry it away from my hands failed woefully. She struggled and tried her level best, but the laptop didn't so much as move.

“Cynthia.” I let out slowly. It has taken everything in me to not yet at the top of my lungs, but as I scanned the content of the laptop, I wasn't sure just how much I could keep in. “What is the meaning of this?” 

She said nothing. Instead, with a pout, she crossed her hands over her bosom.

Equal parts of disgust and anger filled my entire being as I scrolled and clicked on the links opened in front of me. There was a lot of information to be digested, but only one name stood out the more.

“Alora.” I muttered underneath my breath. “Why are you looking into Alora?” 

For the second time since I'd asked, she still said nothing and that was all it took for me to completely lose it. 

“Are you dumb?!” I hissed, before pounding my fist into the table. “What the hell has gotten into you? Didn't I tell you not to waste your time with all of this?”

“I'm not wasting my time. “ She shook her head. “Alora's success is too sudden and you know this. Don't tell me you're not the least bit intrigued. You should be bothered that she just came out of nowhere and snuffed out the contract we both wanted right from underneath our noses. Does that seem normal to you? It sounds fishy as hell and I'm going to make sure…..”

“Let this be the last time you'd pull something like this.” I cut her off, a stern warning gleaming in my eyes. “Do you want to ruin us? What do you think will happen if…’

Something caught my attention, causing me to stop mid rant. An article had popped up and the headline was all I needed to want to know more. 

“No.” My eyes widened as the full page loaded. “No, no. This can't be happening. Ar all.” 

Oh shit.