Grudge

Thursday, the 5th of May.

07:22am.

The Manhattan spring morning was chilly and cool and oddly quiet, maybe it was because he had woken up too early or maybe it was because he was not used to waking up from this part of the city, he was not used to waking up in this house. It had been eight years and a couple of months since the last time he had slept in here. He laid still in the bed, unmoving, with the covers pulled all the way up to his chest, he breathed softly, listening to his surroundings, the house was quiet. Throwing the covers off of his body, he slid his feet into the flip flops and casually strolled out of the room, he quietly descended the stairs and headed for the back door leading out of the house.

He stepped out onto the terrace and stood, shoving his hands into the pockets in his trousers. He had slept in his suit trousers and his singlet because he had not brought any other clothes. He had not even planned on spending the night here but he did and now he missed the feeling of being in a complete family, a completely normal one.

He heard the foot steps approaching him from behind but did not bother to turn back around to see who had just stepped onto the terrace, it was just him, Michael, Grand father and the butler, Grand father’s right hand man in the whole house, none of those people posed a threat to him so he remained unalarmed.

“Weird having to see you waking up in this house.” Michael said as he approached Chester who was standing in his favourite spot in the whole house, the view of nature from the terrace was calming and peaceful and most of the time, Michael needed such calm feelings. Most of the time like right now.

Chester took in a calming breath and nodded in approval. “Hmmm… weird, true.”

He heard Michael chuckle and take a couple of steps forward until he was in line with him. “What made you return after all these years? After being away for this long?”

“I missed my family?” Chester replied sarcastically, which caused Michael to roar out in laughter.

“We both know that is not the reason why you decided to return, and speaking of family, is this it? The family you missed is just one old man.”

“The old man happens to also be your grand father.”

“And what do you think I am to him? Family too?” Michael chuckled and stretched, standing on his toes for a second and breathing in the cool morning air. “I am turning thirty in a few days and I am still not recognized by him as a member of this god forsaken family. Thirty years of trying to be the perfect one and yet still…”

Chester turned to him now, speaking to him in a sharp but still calm voice. “Michael, you should know that I am not here to contend any position with you…”

“You do not even have to.” Michael said, cutting him off and already pissed off. “You are the legitimate one, just try not to get in my way.” He said and walked back into the house, leaving Chester alone.

Chester sighed loudly, if this family had been right, then Michael would have been a better younger step brother but grand father always had to remind him of how much of a mistake it was for him to be born but could you really blame the child when the father did the sinful thing?

Their family, as much as Chester could recall of it, had been small and that small was perfect, it had just been him, his mother, his father and grand father and they had tried to live as a normal family but that was until that night when every thing had changed for the worst…

*  *  *  *  *

The house was silent and calm and peaceful that night as every one had all gone to sleep, every one except for his mother, he could tell because the piano still played, it was some thing she always loved to do. Every night before bed, she would play the piano, the sweet melodies could easily put Chester to sleep, whiffing through the house in its soft dancing tune, peaceful and calming and hypnotizing. Chester laid in his bed with both eyes closed but his ears still open to his mother’s night lullaby. He was slowly drifting into sleep when there was a sudden loud high pitched note and it jacked him out from his half sleep state, it had woken every one up. Mother had missed a key.

He bolted upright, it was not just a key she had missed, but rather the whole tune. He waited for her to recompose and get back into the soft tune but she did not, rather the unpleasant tune went on for a while, the loud and none melodic sound ripped through the house like she had just slammed her fingers on the keys in anger or frustration.

Throwing the covers off of his body, Chester stepped out of his room in a flash to check on what had happened when he saw that his father too had come out of their room as well and was already walking down the stairs. Chester stayed up stairs. Walked up to the railing and looked through the spaces between them, what he saw that night would forever haunt him.

Down below, slumped against the piano was his mother, a red thick liquid pooling out fast from a tiny hole by the side of her head, her eyes closed peacefully. He gasped and slapped his palms to his mouth, his eyes beginning to tear up. Three men, all dressed head to toe in black stood around her, one still had his gun held to the back of her head. Then there was a shot and this one was not silent, it ran out in the now quiet house and Chester saw his father go down but not dead. He scrambled back up the stairs, holding on to his left arm which was now bloody.

Chester watched as he took cover behind a pillar and pull out a gun from a secret compartment behind the pillar which Chester never knew was there and he loaded it. Chester watched on, he saw his father yelling at him but he could not make out what he was saying, his hearing was low and his vision was slow, some how he was struggling to breathe. He looked back through the railing, back at his mother’s body and her blood still pooling out, all around the piano keys and on the floor around her. His eyes shifted, the three men were making their way up the stairs, each one of them pointing a gun towards the pillar where his father hid behind.

Another shot rang out and it knocked Chester back into reality. The bullet had chipped the side of the pillar and he saw his father clearly now. He kept yelling at Chester.

“Get out! Find the escape chute and go to grand father! Chester run! Now!”

Chester breathed and scrambled away on all fours, now wanting to stand up for fear of being seen. The escape chute was in the study, hidden exactly where the desk was, where the rug covered the small trap door. It was a narrow passage way, built like a tunnel slide which led all the way to the back of the house, under the ground and outside of the wall. Once outside there, he could easily find his way to grand father.

Just before he shut the door to the study, he saw on of the assassins fall and tumble down the stairs, hit by a bullet from father’s gun. He took a last look at his father before shutting the door to the study and securely locking it, making his escape.

*  *  *  *  *

Chester released a breath which he had been holding and shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He wanted to push all those memories away but he could not help but remember then now, it had been in this very house that both his parents had been murdered and ever since then it had been difficult for him to stay here and maybe that was one reason why he had left in the first place, even after Grand father had tracked down the assassins only days after the attack and wiped them all out as his revenge for his son’s murder. It had turned out to be an impulsive move but there was nothing that grand father ever regretted, turned out that the attack on his son had been based on vengeance.

Elena’s pregnancy was a responsibility that his son had denied and ignored, abandoning her to suffer alone, the pain of a difficult child birth. She had given birth to a healthy baby boy but with so much difficulty that she had initially died at first, she had stopped breathing and her heart had stopped beating for a few minutes after she had given birth, the doctors had to do every thing that they could to get her heart beating again and they were successful but the pain and grief of almost loosing his sister had driven Philip mad with anger, he wanted to make the man behind his sister’s pain to pay for his crimes and what better way to do that than to take his life and every life that he held dear to him.

But grand father had already wiped them all out before he learnt of this truth, he had killed them all including Elena, and he had adopted her son because he found out later on that the child was also his grand son and he had grown him into the Michael Hunt that he now was, but his was the part that was kept hidden from Michael, the fact that his mother had died by the orders of grand father. It was an unnecessary truth which Michael need not to know about.

The circumstances surrounding his birth and the events that happened after wards still lingered strongly in grand father’s memories and he just could not bring himself to accept Michael fully as his true grand son because his birth had led to the death of his own son. The family’s tragedy it seems, was never ending.

Chester hated to remember the sad parts of his life, he hated to remember that he had not grown up with his parents and at some point he had also hated Michael after he had found out the truth concerning the death of his parents, and it had taken him a while to accept that all these was not Michael’s fault but his father’s - their father’s fault - and often, despite the fact that Michael never actually got to know his mother, he would find himself imagining how the situation would change if Michael found out what grand father had done to his birth mother and to her family in his vengeful anger.

This family truly, was a write off.

Chester turned around and walked back into the house, he still felt some how uncomfortable staying in the house even though he had missed the place where he had grown up in, it triggered memories, memories Chester would rather prefer that they remained beneath the surface of his thinking, totally buried and submerged since they could not be forgotten and neither could they be erased.

“Positive thinking.” He told himself, making his way back upstairs to his room, he needed to bathe and change and get out of this house as soon as he possibly could. “Think only positive thoughts.”

Positive thoughts inspired by the sweet aroma of freshly grounded coffee and the delightful sight of mouth watering doughnuts. Thoughts he could get in his coffee shop where he wanted to be at right now. The busy morning would distract him and the change in environment would help clear his head, plus Gabby would be waiting on him for her coffee with extra cream.

08:03am, Chester was dressed and ready, he left the house without telling any one that he was leaving because he did not need to and he really was not wanting to hear his grand father rolling out orders to him, orders he would not be tied down by any way but still, the talk would be extended and they would end up arguing back and forth without any one of them yielding to the other. He got into his car and drove out of the premises.

From the window in the study on the first floor, grand father stood and watched his grand son get into his car and drive off. He smiled lightly, Chester might have agreed to come back home but he was still a rebellious spirit and he would only do what ever he wanted to do. Grand father was patient enough, Chester would have to, sooner or later, fulfil his first son duties to the Hunt family.