Liam just concluded a call with his step brother, Ethan. After so many years of ghosting from both brothers. And it was nothing short of surprising and suspicious.The guy had developed one hell of an accent and seemed to be speaking through smoke fumes. He asked about "the family company", and Liam said it was fine."And ya new wife?" he asked. "You think man is gonna know what is going on, right?"Whatever that meant, Liam told him Elena was okay, and switched the conversation back to Ethan. Ethan announced proudly that he would be releasing his latest art exhibit this year, and would love to see his stepbrother attend the exhibition ceremony. Liam laughed and said he might come. The call ended afterwards in an awkward note.Now, Liam sighed as he headed back home on his bicycle, after an evening cycling. Ethan wore him out. But also terrified him. At surface level, it might look like the 25 year old had nothing upstairs. But Ethan was one of the most cunning people Liam had known.

Rosa stopped herself from going after Liam, so that if anything happened, Elena wouldn't see her as the culprit. She remained there on the bench, wishing that the lights of the mansion were dimmer, so that she could feel some privacy within her.Her heart was in turmoil. She couldn't stop it, couldn't let go. Liam. Highschool...*****Flash back"Hi," Rosa said, a pretty school girl with an amazing knack for all the psychological intelligence needed to keep any conversation going.He turned to her from the reverie of his thoughts. And instantly he saw in her a stranger with a pretty face and sexy straight legs."You appear lost," she said, shifting closer to stand with him behind the rails. "Are you thinking about taking over the whole world with the snap of your fingers?"Liam cackled up in laughter, as he hadn't seen that coming. He decided to give it back. "Yes. And I was just concluding my decisions on where y'all gonna stay," he said, "because I wouldn't want any humans around

The evening was getting darker. But the spirit of the party was heating up. Liam didn't know how his event organizers did it, but dancing poles had been set up and three strippers were on the platform, doing their thing. The DJ had gotten high, because the song he dished now had shifted from mild to hardcore.Liam had empty bottles of wine and glasses seated before him on the table, also ashtrays filled with burnt up cigars, some half smoked.The colors of the lights — multicolored and swirling — danced around his eyes, the loudness of the jam, the strippers moving their bodies ever alluringly, the sight of his many friends getting drunk and high on stone: all of these brought a sudden nostalgic feeling to Liam. His clubbing life."Where had it gone?" was the question that popped into his mind. He tried to recall the last time he hit a club as he used to, but he couldn't. His life, of late, had been centered mainly on his work, and trying to keep his family together. Well, that wasn't

Liam knew he would only be deceiving himself if he claimed he didn't notice the tension in the car as he drove his wife's best friend down the road.The scent of her perfume filled the car, even drowning the air freshener oozing from the dashboard. Liam tried to keep his eyes on the road, but they would always wander back to her laps, which were conspicuously bared. From time to time, her fingers drummed on her laps, as though they were a keyless piano. She was humming a tune, which Liam found himself reclining to listen to.He fought it, fought really hard. Told himself he was just giving her a lift to a hotel, nothing more.But it was only easy to say these things to himself; the problem came from stopping himself from the raging hormones and wild thoughts.He found his lips moving. "How close are you to Elena?" he asked. Perhaps talking to her about Elena would help keep the guilt alive. "We've been friends for years," she said, absentmindedly. "She's cool.""Okay." The car now m

Liam set the rum glass down on the counter with a slam."Another," he grunted to the barman.The barman gave him a studying look, probably wondering again what Liam with his flashy Jeep outside was doing in such a lowly bar. He poured him more rum.Liam was on his sixth shot and as he tried to lift the seventh glass to his mouth, the images in his vision collided violently with each other. The glass slipped from his hand to the ground, shattering with a loud sound. The people sitting and standing by stared at him. It wasn't often that a man who had the look of a billionaire would come to such a bar and break tumblers. They began to whisper amongst themselves. Someone took out their phone to record the scene.The barman muttered something under his breath and trudged over to clean the mess up. Liam just sat there, staring at his fingers. They were reddish at the tips.He was aware of the attention around. He knew the barman was saying something to him, but Liam couldn't get himself to