DID YOU FIND THE BAD GUY?

ZEATH.

“I'm at the hospital, hon, for an ultrasound,” Yolie says through the phone as I return from the restroom.

I sit behind my office desk, watching Beavan set some files on it. “We didn't discuss that yet, my love.”

“Yes, yes, I'm aware.” Yolie sighs. “I'm sorry. I just... I nearly died of curiosity.”

“You know it doesn't matter the baby's gender, right?” I ask. Yolie falls silent. “You there, love?”

She still doesn't reply, so my fingers count each second on the desk till she finally does. “It's easy to say until your brother closes in.”

I frown. “East has no claim."

“He has two sons. And the company doesn't favor women much.”

She isn't far from the truth, yet my brother won't dare me unless Vietili pokes his ass for the umpteenth time.

“Stay in the hospital, love. My work here will finish in an hour. Tell your doctor to get you whatever you want. And ensure you don't stress much.”

“I'm not stressing at all, though I'm worried that staying in the hospital isn't safe. East gets information somehow, and you heard his tone when he made that toast. He isn't pleased.”

God damn East and his shenanigans. “I'll deal with him. Rest now, baby girl. I love you.”

Yolie giggles. “I love you more. Kisses?”

“Hang up the call, Yolie.”

Her titters don't die down. Certainly, she knows how much hearing her happy gratifies my heart.

When the call ends and I'm left with a beep tone, I find I'm sinking into a silence that eats up my concentration. Maybe my sanity too, as time goes on.

An hour of work throws a long bridge between my lady and me.

I'd skip it and make my way to her already if it were possible. But, no, I have to work, mostly to clean up the mess my dear father left when he died.

Gratfiend Lupin was the perfect embodiment of a macho man. His ego made him enemies from every quarter, and he never learned to admit that before his death.

Now I'm left to wipe his sour trails. I don't even know when it'll end. But I know this—it has taken me four years, yet I'm half-finished.

Amongst the mess he created was my brother, East, though Vietili gave him a hand.

If only she had listened to Father and flushed East's pregnancy when asked to, we'd be rid of one problem by now.

Instead, she kept the pregnancy, pampered the boy till he couldn't bend straws, then pushed him into the company even after he failed his responsibility as a first son.

Beavan completely sets the files, bows, and leaves just as my phone dings. East's text sits on the phone screen: ‘How ya holding up, brother? Pregnancy and all. Dead yet?’

I huff as I swipe it off, only to find Mellow's too—ones she sent me through the week; ignored, others not on the screen left in the trash.

I just hope she'll stop clinging to me with her melancholia. The height of her immaturity has me wrinkling my nose. It always did.

Back in high school, I thought it was her young age. Yet, some years later, she's still the same old Mellow with the stuck-up attitude and a dramatic distaste for losing.

It makes me appreciate Yolie more. Loving someone a year older is probably better than having someone four years younger reduce my frame of mind to nothing.

She doesn't even realize her infantilism blinded her from seeing the hints that were right there.

And I don't know who told her a good marriage is without qualms because that person clearly hasn't swum in the buildout of a healthy union or hasn't married before.

One hour soon expires, yet a rotten temptation lingers, urging me to stay and finish more work.

But the temptation of seeing the true love of my life is greater.

I strictly instruct Beavan on the remaining files. They contain sensitive matters, you see. Then I proceed to the hospital.

It doesn't take me much time to discover which room Yolie is in.

However, on getting there, I find it empty, aside from a nurse who seems lost, loitering near the bed.

“Where is Yolie?” I ask, causing her to flinch at the sound of my voice.

She looks scared to death, probably even shitting her pants already.

“Please tell me my woman is safe,” I mumble with an effort to keep my cool while doing a terrible job at that.

As the nurse still doesn't reply, handing me Yolie's phone, I take the hint. Something has happened.

“Fuck it!”

I put Beavan on call while hurrying to the hospital entrance. “Skip the papers, Beavan! Send some men to East's and leave no stone unturned. Find my lady.”

I toss the phone to a seat before starting the car. The tires screech as I zoom out, my sweating fingers clasping the steering wheel.

I should've sniffed that East was up to something when he sent the text. He always is.

Yolie was right. This wouldn't have happened if I hadn't ignored her warning.

The motherfucker has just meddled with my leniency, and I'll put aside the goddamn fact that he's my brother just to snap his neck.

Then I'll fix the neck, make sure he doesn't die, and then go over the same process. So that next time he'll know not to mess with my property, especially not my properties.

When I reached East's villa, I found my men rummaging through it.

His men do nothing, standing unbothered in their stations, which means one thing—Yolie isn't here.

And as I move closer to the house's rear, the ping-pong sound coming from there only intensifies my rage.

“East Lupin!” I yell before my brother's guffaw travels to me.

On reaching his back porch, I find him engrossed in table tennis, the glass barricade around the porch serving as my only hindrance to the field where he's in.

But that won't be an issue much longer, as I swing the door open to enter the field.

“Do you hear that?” East utters to his ping-pong opponent, but I know it's for me. “That's the sweet sound of trouble.”

He stops playing to turn around, approaching me with a swagger in his steps.

My knuckles are pale already, hungry for blood. Blood they'll soon savor.

“Hello brother,” East drawls, “haven't seen you here since half a quarter decade ag―” His words die in his mouth when my fist meets his jaw.

East wipes blood from his nose while throwing his head back, snickering as he struggles to regain his composure.

He doesn't fully do so when I knead my fingers into the spot between his shoulder and neck before pinning him down, his back on the tennis board.

His opponent sprints for life.

“Tell me where my woman is,” I snarl.

East perks his brows, still smiling. “Which one?”

I stress the point where I'm holding him. “I swear I'll tear those lips off, East.”

“Well, you forced one into a torturous crescendo yourself, while I got the tastier one. Gobbled down every bit of her, her fetus too.”

A snappy punch cuts the grin on his lips. Now he looks better with blood on his teeth. He groans from the pain.

“Where. Is. She?” I bark.

“Why should I tell you, huh? You'll wag your tail and save her like the knight in shining armor you think you are?” East's snigger spurts blood over his face. His grey eyes glimmer when he thrusts his head up as if to resist my grip. “Why don't you make me a deal? Surely, the company is worth your wife and child.”

“You do not want to price my family, East.”

My brother scoffs, and I swear if one more drop of his blood touches my skin, I'll be sure to drain it all out of him.

“You know it'll be easier if I just cut her down, throw her remnants to your feet,” he grunts, “then watch as depression eats you deep, and keeps you distracted long enough for me to claim the company.”

My fury drives me to exert more dominance on East by working my thumb into one of his neck veins.

That results in him grunting in pain as I lean down to whisper in his ear.

“Your sick ideas know no bounds, brother.”

East lets out a difficult laugh. “I'm not the one who played a Fanning for three years, dude! You won yourself a knife in the gut with that one.”

Ah, I see. I see what he's doing.

Mind games, like he always does.

Yolie's probably somewhere else now, suffering while I'm here trying to squeeze nothing from my brother.

He works better with action—not that I've seen a result. But no one has tried either, and I'm about to be the first.

I rise to my full height before turning to Beavan, who has been a standing mess behind me. “Initiate strike on his men. Them still as poles annoy me,” I tell him.

Handling office and men-in-black duties must be taking a toll on him. But it's harder for a man whose abducted family is on the chopping block of power and motivation.

“You, my brother, are coming with me,” I say to East as I yank him into the hands of two of my men before instructing Beavan yet again, “And fetch me his damn sons.”

Stepping into the protective glass walls of the porch, I watch the chaotic artistry of flying bullets and grunts of death and pain going on in the field.

But East's chuckles are what keep spoiling the moment.

Will he still find the whole situation funny when my men put a gun to his boys’ temples?

Yes, he does.

He merely stares at their unconscious forms lying at his feet. Strapped to a leather chair, he looks up at me with a probing mischief. “Is this supposed to be a motivation?”

I nod. “Hell yeah. Now tell me. Where is Yolie?”

“In hell. She's a sinner, after all. And so are you.”

I let out a short chuckle while shaking my head.

“Don't start with the Bible, brother. You know who always winds up losing.” East shrugs while I walk by him to stand at his back, massaging his shoulders rather roughly as I mutter, “For heaven's sake, I'll kill your sons, brother.”

“Do it.” He sounds like he's made up his mind. “You'll only prove to me who the monster is between you and me.” Ah. So that's where we are. He knows I don't mean to do it. And I really do not want to.

I thought the threat would propel him to spill, but he's seen more of me than necessary.

So, I'll have to surprise him. His sons are important to his quest, after all.

I signal my men with a nod before their index fingers slowly reach for the gun triggers.

That unsettles East. First, his hands curl into fists. Then he sits up, battling with the straps as his legs kick as if to stand up.

Beavan runs in to hand me my phone. I find two messages on the screen.

One from an unknown number: ‘Mr. Lupin, this is Oasis Lebnon and I'm really sorry, sir. I need to confess something.’

Then one from Vietili: ‘Where are you? Why does this witch have an ultrasound result of Yolie's baby?’

My brows knit together in a frown. One that pastes on East's face when he cranes his neck toward me.

For once, the wrinkles on his forehead are not the result of a smile as he asks without gloating, “Did you find your bad guy?”