Chapter 7

My joints burned in pain  the moment I rolled myself into a sitting position, fuck.

I forced myself to the bathroom after a few minutes of just sitting in bed, my head as well as my joints protested painfully but I ignored it all as I splashed water on my face and neck. The eyes that glared back at me from the full length mirror in the bathroom were bloodshot and swollen. 

I looked like crap and I didn’t even care. It was 06:00am and I had to be at the office because I had a meeting at around 07:00am which can’t be shifted to a different schedule since I already had the whole day booked with schedules from weeks ago.  I was supposed to close a deal with a company in Spain and hopefully celebrate it by taking my siblings out on a dinner date tonight, but that’s not happening now since my brother is being held hostage and his twin got shot at. 

I wasn’t even feeling today at all and I have meetings upon meetings to attend.

I breathed out a tired sigh as I prepared for work, today is going to be a long ass day.

Dressed and ready for work, I made my way into the work room. Tristan and Daven were hovered over a laptop.

“Hey man,” Tristan threw a greeting at me before turning back to hunching over Daven’s laptop. 

“I really can’t stay here until 08:00am for Xobra’s call to come in. I have a meeting scheduled for 07:30am with the founder of the shares company located in Spain which I’ve been telling you guys about.”

“Oh,” Tristan said in realization after staring at me blankly for a few seconds. I watched as his face fell on realizing the fact that even if I get the deal, there won’t be time for any celebration.

“A text just came in from an unknown source.” Daven said loudly, dragging my attention back to him. I glanced at Tristan again but his face has gone blank. A small sigh escaped my lips as I hunched over Daven’s form before the laptop.

“Click on it,” I tell him.

The text said; Don’t wait for my call this morning, I’ll call by 02:00pm. 

Xobra¡ 

“Shit, I’m going to be in a meeting by then.” I mutter while Daven clicked on a few buttons of the laptop before pushing it away and saying slowly.

“Whoever this person is, is smart as hell, to think I called him petty last night.” Daven paused a beat before continuing.

“He probably wants to call you this afternoon when he knows you’d be at work, so maybe he could track your call and come ambush you where you’d be without any real guards.”

Shit. I thought just as Tristan muttered a low “Shit,” underneath his breath.

“How about we text him back and tell him Auden would be unavailable then?” Tristan suggested.

“I don’t think so, that asshole won’t want to negotiate a thing.” I replied with my shoulders feeling heavy.

“Oh wait, how about when you take his call first, then you’d break your phone and I dunno, throw it out the window or something.” Daven offered, a smile lighting up his face.

“That could work,” I mutter as I glanced at my wrist and mumbled a quiet ‘shit’ under my breath when the time was almost 07:30am. 

“Alright guys, so I have to run now. I’ll keep you guys updated.” I threw over my shoulder then paused with my hand on the door knob before turning around again. “Secure the whole house as tight as possible, be on guard. Shit I still haven’t checked up on Nicole, I’ll do that tonight...”

I pulled the door open before a thought flashed in my mind. “Crap, I didn’t talk to the guardsmen last night. You do that again, Tris. I’ll see them tonight.” And I slammed the door shut behind me.

—————————-

“The purpose of planning this particular type of way, is to only ensure our tomorrow is in secured hands, and that it’s in a safe place. And also that it multiplies every single day, that’s the whole purpose.” I paused and walked two steps away from the microphone to take a deep breath and avoid it from resounding in the mic and creating a loud, piercing noise. I walked two steps forward and continued with my speech as the whole board’s eyes as well as the invited VIP’ eyes were all on me.

“That is why I as well as my helpful different teams have taken their time to ensure no leakage of any form could occur mistakenly. Here are the drafts of the plans...” I dug out my handkerchief from my suit pocket and dabbed my face before alighting the podium to move back to my seat so the main plan could be displayed on the wall with the aid of the projectors.

I nodded my head at the team and in no time, the whole light got turned off while the projected images took up the whole space on the wall facing the discussion table.

I stood up and moved towards the owner of the shares company who’s willing to sell. He pointed at his opened laptop before him and I crouched more behind until we were head to head since I had long legs so I could see what he was saying and also talk to him without disturbing the meeting.

He pulled the laptop forward and I tapped on ‘zoom’ to enlarge the picture when I felt him suddenly stiffen beside me and the very next second, his head fell on my shoulder and blood started leaking from his mouth. The moment his assistant saw what happened, she erupted in loud, hysterical screams followed by the rest of the workers available for the meeting.

I pulled away from him in horror and watched as his head which was once resting on my shoulders dropped lifelessly on the back of his chair, his blood slowly seeping into his cream colored suit. The hairs on my whole body stood on alert as I scanned the whole room with my eyes. This man got hit with a sniper while I was exactly beside him and I had a bad feeling the sniper was meant to go into my neck, and not his.

Shit.