“Kayla, I think you should step down a bit.” Kayla’s hands froze on the table and she looked up from the files spread across her. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Surely her father hadn’t lost faith in her, just because of some few discrepancies and the arrest days back?Was this the reason why he’d ambushed her today in the office? He didn’t even call to let her know he was coming. He’d just arrived and taken her by surprise. Out of all her relatives, he was the first person she was seeing in days, if not weeks. The only person who’d had her well-being at heart, and she thought it strange, but it wasn’t. “Father…” She hissed. “Sorry, chairman. What did you just say?” “You heard me right, Freya.” He flicked off an invisible speck of dust on his jacket, and looked back at her, gaze boring deep. “Things aren’t looking good at all. The merger with Zhang Corps is happening soon, and the wedding too. Everything has become overwhelming in the last few days and…” He sighed dee
When Lei got to the restaurant for their usual meetings, the only customer she met was Reynold.She was dressed in the same clothing as the last time. A character she was beginning to fall in love with. Gave her some kind of solace, and making her briefly forget the crisis her life was right now.She wore a blonde wig, a coat, which this time was more needed because the weather was cold that night, and then the brief case.The place looked totally different from the business and old people she hadn't seen the last time. The coffee shop was darker than it should be, and she found Reynold seated at the same place she had met him the last time.She walked to him and took her seat. She expected him to talk about her clothing today, but he didn't. She’d have given him her rehearsed reply.It was hard to tell what was darker—Reynold's face or the place. A light bulb hung above them, and it made shadows on his face; his eyes were like dens, and his nose cast shadows on his lips.He took a si
Lei rushed to the ladies and closed the door. Nobody was in when she picked up his call.“Meet me at the city park,” he said, then hung up.Reynold returned to the bench he had sat on the last time he was there. The day was different; perhaps the peace he had always wanted was slowly becoming a reality. He took a deep sigh. Finally, he'd be able to vindicate Kayla.Lei stood from afar, watching Reynold sit there with his head raised and his eyes closed. Being a meditator wasn’t a habit that she had grown to know with him.“I am here,” she said.Reynold stood up and stretched a folder to her. "Here," he said.“What is this?”Reynold didn’t respond. She opened it, and it was evidence and proof of Grant's involvement in tax issues and the police warrant to arrest Grant's company.“How did you..."Reynold interrupted, "Tell Kayla about this and suggest that she make a PR blitz.”"Sure,” Lei said, “umm, this is …” Lei couldn’t even hide it any more. How did Reynold get hold of all this ki
Grant got into his car, filled with mixed reactions. There had to be a rational explanation for how she’s always a step ahead. Someone had to be helping her, and it had to be someone who knew both parties plans. Someone who knew about both his and her secrets.He started his car and took a deep breath. It had to be him, he concluded. It had got to be him. He’s the only person they have mutually. Hamish, that fucking snake, he must have been setting me up all this time.Jovian started his own car, too. He had parked a car about five cars away from him. Reyland's instructions were direct and clear: "He is at his tail”.Jovian’s face was beginning to sweat, his heartbeat was in a rush, and his hands were firmly gripping the wheel. “Follow him,” Jovian recalled what Reynold had told him. “He must have an insider, and that’s where you come in; get whoever is feeding him.” “Don’t ask why; don’t improvise; stick to the plan,” he said, a line he had recently learned from the internet. He sa
Grant Emerson stood in his office thousands of feet above the ground floor.He liked to be up there, with the rain clouds stretched out before him like floating cotton soaked in dye. In the city, the sun rarely ever burned bright, which meant that the skies were almost always one viscous shade of blue or the other. When he was there, standing so high up in the air, Grant felt like a god, like the people thousands of feet below him who looked to be the size of specks from such a great distance were just that: specks. It was a good feeling, this sense of divinity. It was all the more reason why he loathed Kayla and the Johns and the cunningness that ran in their blood like a taint. No other woman could have matched him like she had, move for move. For every inch he gained, he lost another. For every foothold he ceded to gain new ground, she claimed another. Grappling her was like grappling a chess grandmaster, like trying to take hold of a snake sliding in a barrel of butter.He walked
It was the first night in a long while since Kayla had slept so peacefully. There were no violent interruption; she did not wake up in the dark worried, wondering if her brothers had made another move on her while she slept. Even though she had never needed an alarm clock to rouse her from sleep, her body being one itself, she had an alarm clock on the bedside. It woke her now, cutting through the air with its shrill cry. Kayla slammed a palm down on the device and it responded with sweet, well deserved silence. She sat up in bed and looked around her room. It felt suddenly unfamiliar in the absence of Rey. He had slowly and surely embedded himself in her life without her even realizing it. While, previously, she used to look forward to waking up to the greeting of sunlight dotting her coloured blinds, now it was the smell of his cooking he missed. She could just picture him in the kitchen, apron strings tied around the width of his waist, his arms chiseled to sculptural beauty.
Lei waited outside the boardroom, watching the siblings settle in. Both arms locked behind her back, she stood guard, her spine straight as an arrow, eyes forward— just the way that they had taught her at the academy. Even through the glass doors, the John siblings dislike for each other was palpable. So corporeal, you could touch it. Hell, dislike seemed like an inadequate way to describe what they felt for each other.Sean was unbridled, roiling hate. Tate sat in his chair, curled up like a cottonmouth snake. She had learnt to fear the man—when he struck, he struck hard and fast. Hamish was as cold as ever, a portrait of their father the chairman. When they assigned her to Kayla, Lei was young, barely into her adolescence. The chairman arrived one day and she could still remember it: his slowly graying hair, the sunglasses. He stared down at her for seconds that bled into minutes and made her uncomfortable."This one," he had said to their commander and that was that. Her fate h
Lei watched understanding wash over Kayla's features. Then shock. Then doubt."Why? Why would you even do that?" Her boss asked, rising from her perch on the edge of her desk. In her heels, she towered above Lei who was kneeling."Your brothers made me do it. They wanted to force your hand and force you make a mess of the Zhang contract and cause the chairman to cut you out."Kayla looked at her with new eyes. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. "They succeeded, didn't they? They took the contract right out of my hands. With your help."Lei's heart had become a steady pounding in her chest. It beat wildly as if to compel her to pay heed to it.'Fear,' Lei thought. 'So this was what fear felt like.'After all these months, it was still a strange emotion to her. Fear was one of the first things that they beat out of you at the academy when you were young. If the commander found out you had a deep-seated fear of heights, he would see to it that you spent your nights patrolling the high