"You guys are joking, right? A week after you left, the woman kicked me out of the house with the excuse that you guys had not paid the rent for years," Ivan said simply, and Liam opened his eyes wide in shock."What?!" he exclaimed."How is that possible? Even though we were not okay then, we made sure that we did not owe her any money for rent. We also never borrowed money from her, so how could she do something like that? We trusted her because she was older, but could she stoop that low?" Elena might look like a gentle mother with a gentle voice, but her temperament was like a firecracker."The old woman said that she needed money urgently, and since you guys were not around and she felt that no one would pay the rent that you owe, she thought I was too young to handle it. So, she said she could not wait anymore and heartlessly kicked me out, without even considering how I would live without a roof over my head.""I tried begging her, no, I did not try, I begged her countless time
"Listen to what? What other excuses do you have again? Did you call me here just to tell me stories? Then I should not have come. I should just continue to live my life with the mindset that I had for fifteen years, that I don't have any family members again. Isn't that even better?"By the time Ivan finished talking, he had already stood up. Liam and Elena stood up anxiously with him as they tried to calm him down."Ivan, listen, we will explain everything to you...""Then, what is taking you so long? What is the use of all the wealth you've gathered in all these years when I had just been suffering due to loneliness? Okay, I am also at fault for being a useless and a good-for-nothing son, but at least, you should not have made that action. It made me feel as if you guys never cared about my well-being at all.""In all these years, there was no particular day or time that I never worried about you. I knew your condition before you left and I could not help but have different worries
"How come? How is this possible? How did you guys do it? Both of you are the owners of SOHO, how does that work? How is it even possible? You guys are not pulling my leg, right? How could it be? SOHO has been in existence for years, even before I was born, so how did you both do it? If what you are saying is true, then it means that you guys have been the CEOs of SOHO for years, so why did we have to live like we were poor? What happened? What exactly is going on?"Ivan questioned in confusion. A look of sheer disarray washed over his face. It was as if someone had pulled the rug away from under him, leaving him suspended in a condition of bewilderment.The truth of the matter was so far-fetched, so unfathomable, that it seemed like a riddle with unaccounted-for parts, and he struggled to connect the dots and come to an obvious conclusion.Questions tumbled through his brain, each one more baffling than the last. How is this possible?His confusion was palpable as he searched for answ
Ivan listened to his Dad's explanation silently, but he was already going through many turmoils inwardly. He had started to believe that his parents were really the owners of SOHO, but he never expected that they had gone through so much.The whole matter was like a fairytale to him; it seemed unreal, but all the evidence was placed right in front of him, and the fact remained that his parents would never lie to him.They could keep the truth a secret like they did, but the one thing that he was sure of was that they would never lie to him.Ivan realized that it had also been very hard on his parents to make a name for themselves and do well in life. Thankfully, they had each other.If only Lucy could also...Ivan quickly pushed aside that thought, berating himself for thinking about Lucy in such an important matter. He cast his thoughts aside and continued listening to Liam. He wanted to know what went wrong after all the precautions his parents took."Anything we do, we do it secret
"Thankfully, before I left, I made sure to increase the security around your mother. I just did it in case, but I never expected that those people would really attack her when we were so vulnerable. But at least, she was able to escape, although not without some wounds.""The security around her was very tight, and even though the assassins were martial artists, they were still outnumbered. The bodyguards were very skilled, but they could not take on any of the assassins head-on, so they just used their numbers to defeat them. Elena was only able to escape then purely due to luck.""When I got back from the business trip, we also started hiring martial artists for the first time. I was not really scared of those people, but I was anxious about Elena's safety, so I had to be cautious and less reckless because I knew that it would affect both mother and son. She also had some wounds, but they were superficial ones and did not affect the baby.""After this attack, we got tired of it all.
"The news did not reach people in order to avoid affecting his image, reputation, and the Company's image. He didn't want anyone to know what happened within the Company, and only a few managers and shareholders were aware of it," Liam continued as Ivan listened attentively.Liam's words seemed like a dream to Ivan. He couldn't believe that his carefree parents had gone through so much, with his father even getting shot in the process."So, what happened next? Did Mother give birth to me?" Ivan asked slowly, and Liam shook his head slightly."Not yet. Many things happened before Elena gave birth to you. Alex continued to send men to assassinate us, and we were constantly on the run. No one knew about all this, and we went into hiding. We did everything we could to escape from Alex, but he kept tracking us down. We lived in fear every day, with no peace of mind.""I knew we had to do something because of your mother's health. She needed rest and peace, not the chaos that was happening
"Our lives went on normally, and Robert, oh sorry! I forgot to tell you about him. Robert is your mother's younger brother, so he is also your uncle." Ivan was slightly surprised that his mother had a younger brother because he had always thought that his parents did not have any family members. Hearing that he had been mistaken and believed in another incorrect assumption was enough to make him feel numb.He also did not know that his dad had a foster brother at all. He had been kept in the dark for years, and he felt unsettled by this fact. However, he still continued to listen attentively to Liam's detailed explanation because he did not want to miss any important information."Because Alex froze our accounts, we could not use them or withdraw the money we had. Moreover, we did not even dare to because if we did, Alex would surely track us and find our location. It was something he could do without stress. We also lost contact with many of our friends and family, but Robert was dif
"We did not want to risk your safety, and we also could not sit and watch what Alex was going to do, so we made the most difficult choice." Liam confessed, and Ivan turned rigid. He knew that it was when his parents made the decision to leave him."We did not want Alex to know about your existence or get his hands on you to use you as a pawn for his malicious plans and also to get rid of us. We did not want to go back to the time when we were helpless and could not do anything about it.""If it was just me and your mother, we would have found something to do, but you were also involved, and you were just twelve years old then, too young to be involved in all this complicated matter. We did not even want you to know about it at all. Moreover, even if we wanted you to know, you wouldn't be able to understand anything. You were very young then.""Moreover, because of the attack that happened when your mother was pregnant with you, you had a weak physique, and we knew that if we involved