The boardroom buzzed with fake calm; all the executives stared at each other with discomfort. They had a new board member, and Amira wasn't pleased; she didn't expect any other enemy on her table at the moment.
Amira Fernandez sat at the head of the long glass table, sipping her espresso like it wasn't her fiftieth in the last three hours. Beside her, Brooke stood nervously adjusting the slides and explaining the quarterly report. They were talking business.
"Good day, sir, welcome to A.D.F. Do you have an appointment today?" The clerk addressed an elderly man who just boldly walked in. "Yeah, I do with CEO Amira", he replied. "Sorry, she's currently busy, and I don't see any appointment scheduled for her", she replied. "I'll just wait", he said with an unconvincing smile. He just walked down to the elevator, and within the blink of an eye, he was gone. A knock sliced through the tension in the boardroom. Before anyone could answer, the doors opened. He walked in like he owned the place. He looked tall, had a beard, and wore a grey suit. Silver ring. Leather gloves. Cold eyes.
"Victor de Almonte". Amira muttered, her face became more serious, and she could hardly breathe now. They all stared blankly at him "No need to rise," he said casually, "I'm just here to watch the empire I helped build… crumble" they looked at each other and began to murmur and whisper and gossip among themselves in the room, "what is he saying?", a shareholder said, "I'm sure he's here for Amira", another person added.
Amira froze. She looked at him, "Dismiss everybody", she ordered sharply. For almost twenty years, he'd been nothing but a whisper behind closed doors. A ghost of the past. A risk factor she and George had paid handsomely to disappear.
And now he was here, very real, very loud, and very amused. Now she knows all her enemies are coming closer to her doorstep, and death will soon embrace her or somebody closer. "You weren't invited. What brought you to my empire, Victor?" Amira hissed. "Neither was betrayal. Yet here we are." Amira could have sworn she thought he died a long time ago; he's a threat to her and George. "Do you think you and George could get away with what you all did to me back then?, Victor said, his eyes were burning with fury and violence, "that was a mistake. Victor, we apologised." Amira was very scared ofthe De Almonte family; she never wanted to get involved in their shady business, but George dragged her. She fears him more than the Caldwell's.
Later, Selene bumped into Victor in the elevator lobby. She didn't recognise him at all, but he recognised her. "You're Selene," he said smoothly, eyes never leaving hers.
"You look just like your mother did… the night she tried to erase a life." She blinked. "Do I know you?" she stared at him carefully. She looked official. "No. But you will soon."
Victor turned to leave, but not before whispering: "Tell your mother the boy's blood calls louder than she thinks."
Joshua has been a bit off towards everybody; he ghosted the office for three days. Brooke was a bit worried. Back in his shared office, Joshua sat quietly and was doing something reckless.
He'd been combing through old HR records, reports, and internal staff logs, looking for any inconsistencies in Julian's data. And he found one.
Julian Blackwood's emergency contact was listed as: "I. Blackwood (Korea)"
But two other names were part of his contact emergencies, but not in Julian's handwriting… they were also crossed out:
V. de Almonte
O. Blackwood
"Why would Julian list an Almonte?" he muttered.
Just then, a knock landed on his door. Oscar Blackwood stepped into the room. he scan the whole place for a while before adding. "Okay. Who the hell are you, and why did you say someone's pretending to be my brother?"
Two months ago.
Victor received a call, he looked at it for a while before picking up, and the voice rushed in. "You owe him, Victor," Isabel's voice said from Korea. "You left him in the hands of devils." Victor hadn't heard her voice in 27 years. He disappeared some days after his son's one-year birthday, after a fire outbreak in their house, and Isabel blamed him hopelessly for it. He thought the chapter was closed. But she called him, crying, trembling. "Julian is your son. And he's in danger. Natasha told me everything." There's something wrong with our so, that no one knows. Victor booked the next flight down to New York. Now he's in town, not for George and Amira alone, but for his son, who never knew his father and instead took his mother's name.
Coincidence played a role here. Brown Caldwell, still trapped in Julian Blackwood, doesn't know Julian's father is around. Before he came to work in A.D.F, he found Julian's documents, but it was only Julian's mother's contact he saw.
Brooke has served Amira for ten years. She started working in A.D.F at 18; she couldn't break the trust, but at the same time, the secrets were getting too much. Amira storms into her assistant's office, eyes blazing. "You knew he was coming." "I didn't…if I did, I will tell you everything", Brooke defended "Don't lie to me!" Amira slams her hand on the desk. "I built this company. I buried the past. I killed for peace. If he's back, then I want eyes on him. Twenty-four seven. If he even blinks in my direction, I want to know." Brooke nods. But later that night, shereceiveds another encrypted message on her tablet.
Victor sat at the back of a jazz club, swirling whiskey, music boomed all over the place, ladies danced with panties and few wore transparent bra, while others wore no bra, they danced on a long pole, men sprayed them money, others drank with sexy women, others smoked their lighted cigarettes with joy, it was a pleasant place you would find Brown Caldwell, but not Julian Blackwood. He watches as Brown (in Julian) steps into the venue. He studies every gesture as he passes in front of victor "You walk like him. But you're not him." He said to him, but Brown just looked at him and walked off. He still doesn't know he's Julian Father yet. Victor picks up his phone and calls a burner number. "I want confirmation. Blood work. DNA. I want to know if that thing walking around ADF is my son…" "…or something else entirely." He hung up the phone immediately. It was already getting late; the moon hung in the sky, casting its dim lights over the cold streets of New York, as usual. Brown lay down on his big white bed. Jasmine wasn't with him anymore; he didn't care. He wished it were Joshua who was by his side. Hee thought about his life, past, and plans, and, every moment, he closed his eyes and dozed off. A man held a child in his hands, while running out from a burning house, his clothes were almost burn to his skin, fire fighters and ambulance drove towards their house, the percent sound of the siren blared everywhere, people gathered, the man looked at the child in his hands and said "I'm so sorry son, I'm coming to find you soon". Julian (in Brown) jolts out from the bed, his eyes wide open; this was more than a dream to him.