"You are drinking too many bottles," Steve, Mike's best friend said. As he had expected from Mike, he ignored him and picked up another bottle on the table, gulping the content in it like it was going to save his life. Steve sighed. Mike had never had a good relationship with his parent, but he had never tried losing himself in bottles. Whatever they had called to tell him about must had truly hurt him. "I thought you only wanted to take a few bottles, but you are almost drinking the bar dry."
Steve had lost count of the bottles on the table. What was he supposed to do with Mike?Mike slurred, "I need to forget the fact they said that, and the only way is this." He picked another bottle and rested on the chair.Steve was more confused than he was. What did they say that he needed to forget? He picked up the one bottle he had been zipping since and tried asking Mike the same question, but when he lifted his head up, he was already sleeping with his head swinging in a different direction. Steve groaned, "Now I have to take him home. I won't ever try drinking with him again."It was a hard battle dragging Mike who was huge than him to the car. He dragged, pulled, stopped and tried all that he could until Mike was sitting in the back of the car. The moment he was successful, he let out a sigh of relief and drove to Mike's apartment. When he got there, he contemplated leaving Mike in the car because how was he supposed to drag Mike to the elevator, and finally to his apartment? If there were home, some of the workers might have helped, but here everyone was minding their business.Steve took a deep breath and rolled the sleeve of his shirt. He would surely make sure Mike pay for putting him in this situation. He pulled his phone out taking pictures of Mike in his sleeping position in the car – it was good to have proof. He smiled at the pictures before putting his phone back in his pocket, then got to work dragging Mike to the elevator. By the time he got to the apartment, he was exhausted. He dropped Mike on the couch and slumped in the next chair beside him. Whatever he heard, that made him this drunk, he was going to find out the next day, with that thought in mind, he dozed off.Mike's head was pounding when he woke up. He opened his eyes slowly, and then shut them when the impact of the light hurt him. Then he slowly opened his eyes back, while holding his head. He was never getting drunk again. He felt like shit. When he glanced around the apartment, he saw Steve sleeping and snoring on the couch next to his. He tried smiling, but his head hurt. So, he stood up to make himself some hangover soup. He had eaten, taken some drugs and started doing some work on his laptop when Steve finally woke up."Welcome back to earth. I left some food for you in the microwave." He didn't take his eyes off his laptop while he was talking to him. Steve nodded, scratching his bums as he moved to the microwave to reheat the food. The moment he was done heating it, he brought it out and sat opposite Mike."What happened last night?"Mike did not need to ask what he was talking about. He knew exactly what he was talking about."Hmm. I don't want to talk about it."Steve shook his head, "You have to talk about it after all you put me through last night. Do you think it's easy dragging you from the bar all the way home? You were so heavy."Mike chuckled still not lifting his gaze off his laptop, "Thanks, buddy."Steve wasn't satisfied with that. Knowing Mike, he wouldn't speak of it until he felt the need to, but Steve was so eager to know what had made him run to the bottles. He brought his phone out, "I have this." Finally, Mike lifted his gaze from the screen to see what it was. It was a picture of him sleeping in the car. He looked homeless.He raised a brow, "What are you going to do with that? Why did you even take the picture in the first place?"Steve relaxed on the couch and smiled, "I am going to post this online. Imagine your first picture online and this is it. Everyone will be so interested in the sleeping billionaire heir."He groaned. "What do you want to know?"Steve clapped glad he had decided to take the picture. "What made you drink that badly? What did your father tell you on the phone?""If I tell you, promise me you are going to delete that picture from your phone."Steve looked at the picture and shook his head. "I can't promise that. When next do you think I will have something to hold against you?"Mike groaned, sometimes he believes he was charmed to become friends with Steve. There was no way he must have picked him as a friend. Yet, he knew it wasn't because he was charmed. Steve was the one who made his life a bit fun, and he was the one who always wanted to show him off even though his own parents were hiding him from the world. The truth was, he loved Steve as a brother."I think we are going back home."It wasn't what Steve was expecting. The phone in his hand was temporarily forgotten. "What do you mean? Did they finally ask you to come? Is it time to inherit the company?"Mike sighed, "According to my father, it's time for me to get married and he has found a bride for me."Steve opened and closed his mouth in disbelief, "And are you going to marry this stranger."Mike chuckled in disbelief, there was no way he was getting entangled with someone he doesn't even know. "All I know is I am going to inherit my family business. So, start packing up, we are going back home."Epilogue Amelia had slept all through the trip; being pregnant only makes her wants to sleep all the time. By the time she felt a little nudge by her side they were somewhere far from home. She could barely pinpoint exactly where Mike had taken them to, but the bright sun and the beach side felt strangely familiar. The air was different too. More natural and makes her lean more into him. She felt like she had seen this numerous time, but it also felt like she hadn’t seen it before. Mike assisted her from the car, and it all hit her like a wave. She had the picture of this in her room for a long time. She had sigh looking at him and thinking it there was heaven, this would be it. It seemed so out of reach then like she could never get here no matter how much she tried, but here she was with her husband. She jumped on Mike. “Are you serious?”He nodded, “Of course, I am serious. I bought this place for you.”Her heartbeat raced. It was a different thing visiting the place she had
The whole room was silent as everyone anticipated the next word out of the newscaster’s mouth. In front of the newscaster, in the left corner of the television was an old picture with five young men and women, with some children sitting on the floor in front of them in a chain. It was easy enough to tell the relationship of the children with the adult. They looked so good while the children looked like they could barely stand without falling. They looked malnourished. The headline was the most captivating; Child Trafficking exposed.They had exposed the names of everyone involved in the trafficking and declared them wanted. Apart from those in the pictures, the journalists were able to fish out more people backing them up behind the scenes. It was a bigger syndicate than Mike expected. It might be one of the reasons; that it was easier for Alfred to cover up the death of his parents.The picture made it easier for Mike’s man to find out a lot about Alfred and to get more vital infor
The news spread faster than Mike had expected, and his wife’s phone had continued to ring non-stop since the announcement. It was mostly from her foster family. He was certain there would be more calls from the company, but there was no finding out because he had forbidden them from reaching out to him. If they couldn’t handle those calls, they don’t deserve to be paid the amount they were. The families were spread out in the main mansion, all seated on the couch listening to the news. Every station talked about the sudden appearance of ‘Anne’ and the ownership of D&D, which suddenly brought back the hidden fraud cases. No one could get closer to the Afonso’s mansion, so they were perfectly at ease at home. Mike held Amelia’s phone, thinking she would be tempted to pick it up if the call was too much. If there were something Mike would thank the journalist for, it was their speed of linking up gossip. In a short time, they were able to figure out about Amelia’s identity and link her
Florence had displayed different emotions with her eyeballs within those few minutes, and at last, she settled for fake tears as she gripped the edge of his table, “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t know much about him. He barely says important thing in front of me.”Mike narrowed his eyes at her, barely moved by her tears, “Seems you just decided your job isn’t precious to you. I’ll ask the HR to type your…”“No sir,” she screamed. Mike raised a brow at her. “I’m ready to talk.”And she did.She split every little thing she knew about Alfred; most she had gathered illegally, maybe hoping to threaten him when they had a misunderstanding. Anyway, it would work well for Mike without putting much effort into finding things about Alfred.After she had split her gust out, he dismissed her and called the H.R. to fire her. Someone who could be so greedy was of no benefit to the company; she could easily tell others their company secrets to gather favors for herself.Glad from all he had gathered f
As Mike checked his phone, he shared a look with Steve, and they both smiled. It was time to go home. Mike made a call to get a new car before they went home.Amelia couldn’t hide her anxiety after waking up and she didn’t see Mike by her side. He had just gotten hurt, and she knew he might be on one of his dangerous missions. If only he could tell her about it; he keeps trying to protect her.She stood beside the door and called him numerous times, but he wasn’t picking up, which only scared her more. Her mother had tried peeling her away from the door, but it was useless.When Amelia heard a car moving into the mansion, she ran out with Anne hot on her leg. She was super excited until she saw it was a different car, and her legs faltered on the way. The car stopped directly in front of the main mansion, and Sharon came out before Mike’s aunt.Guilt filled her as she watched his uncle come out of the car. Ever since she had gotten her mother out of the hospital, she hadn’t gone back
Mike woke earlier than the previous day, and although his hand hurt like crazy, he unbound the bandage and tried some hand exercises he had seen online last night.Amelia was sound asleep, which was the best. He knew she suspected things, which was one of the reasons he needed to act faster. Thankfully, her foster father had fallen into his trap after his short visit to his house, and the accident was somehow a blessing in disguise. To them, he was in a serious accident. They thought he was still unconscious. He had made sure that the hospital said that if anyone called to ask of a Michael Afonso apart from his wife.It made it easier for him to carry out his operations without them suspecting him. He dressed quietly and called Steve to join him.During their previous investigation, they found out that most of the children would be shipped out of the orphanage today because they already suspected Mike was up to something. Now, it was up to him to save the children, and recuperating