RETURN OF THE FORGETFUL HEIR

ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT

Cade Milton walked over to the private jet waiting on the airstrip to take him to a different country for his business trip. He had been planning this for about a week. Their head company abroad that had been left in the management of his half brother, Alex, was having several issues. Cade was the rightful heir of the Milton Conglomerate because he was the first son of their father, Mackenzie Milton. Alex was the product of Mackenzie’s affair with an actress he had met on one of his numerous business trips.

Cade and his mother hadn’t known about the affair or that Mackenzie had an illegitimate child till about seven years ago when the scandal had been exposed. Cade had just been 19 years old then, about to enter his second year in college. The scandal had ruined his family. So many things happened at once, his mother filed for a divorce, the board of directors voted his father out as the CEO because the scandal made their stocks drop so low that the company almost went out of business. Amidst all that chaos, the board of directors made a unanimous decision that Cade would step in as the new CEO even though he was in college.

It had been tough to deal with everything back then, handling school, being there for his mother, handling the media and handling the company at the same time, but he scaled through it all. Now he was 26 years old, already done with school after graduating top of his class in business administration, and he was the best CEO the company had ever had since it was founded by his great grandfather years ago. MILTON CONGLOMERATE was now the leading company in the world with other major companies under it. He moved from being a millionaire’s son to becoming a Billionaire just within the space of his five years as CEO. His father was still a board member even though he was no longer a CEO, though his shares in the company were just 2 percent compared to Cade that had 60 percent of the company’s shares.

His father’s mistress, Cassandra, had insisted on making her son, Alex, part of the conglomerate since he still had Milton blood in him despite him being illegitimate. She had taken the matter to court and caused so much ruckus that they had to give in to her request and her son Alex was assigned to head their office in a different country. That way Alex would be too far away from the international headquarters and would not cause more trouble but also be in a high position to satisfy Cassandra.

Alex was a lazy bum, and an entitled prick. He didn’t care about the job, he just wanted the prestige, the money and the fame even if he didn’t deserve it just because he had Milton blood in his veins. Cade didn’t blame him, it was just the way the idiot was raised by an equally selfish, entitled mother who only cared about money and fame. To make sure that the branch Alex was managing didn’t crash, Cade had also sent Gale, one of his most trusted executives with Alex,. Alex would occupy the position of general managing director, while Gale would be his assistant. But Alex was just a figurehead, the person that would actually be running the company was Gale.

This method had worked for the two years since Alex took over, but for the past few weeks, Gale had reported to Cade that Alex had decided to be more involved in the business for some reason. And since he had no real work experience or the smartness needed for business, Alex had been dragging the company branch down. That branch was just one of many that the Milton Conglomerate owned so the fall of one branch shouldn’t affect the whole company. But that branch was also one of the major branches which was why it was the headquarters of the conglomerate in that country.

Initially, Cade had wanted to put Alex in one of the lower branches, but his mother had made a fuss about it, demanding that her son deserved a better position. She didn’t care that her son had almost failed out of college and was a general nuisance who was more interested in smoking, drinking, wasting money and chasing women. Now Cade had to travel there and fix the problems caused by Alex by himself before they would escalate and drag his company down. He wished he could just cut Alex off but that would just cause more problems.

Cade had taken proper measures to ensure that Alex’s extravagant lifestyle wouldn’t affect the company. There was a strict team of financial auditors who went through every transaction under Alex’s branch to make sure that there is no case of fraud. And to prevent Alex from embezzling any money from the company, he was not the sole signatory of the company’s accounts.

They had to first get consent from Cade, then Alex had to sign for release of money with two others in the company, Gale and the Financial officer. That was the only way to get money released from the bank. With this level of scrutiny there was no way for Alex to falsify records or steal money for his own use, whatever he spent was the salary he earned. Yet, even though Alex earned millions monthly, he always ended up in debt by the end of every month and had to get money from his mother, who got money from their father. That wasn’t his business as long as his company wasn’t affected.

Mackenzie Milton had tried to take back the company after the scandal died down by appealing to Cade to hand it over to him, but Cade had refused because he knew that his father would only get into something that would finally end the company. Because of that, Mackenzie Milton resented his son and always tried to demean him in front of the board members.

Cade had so much on his plate and to add to it, his mother was now insisting he start looking for a wife now that he was approaching his thirties. He knew that she was just saying it out of love, she didn’t want him to end up alone. But he didn’t know how to explain that he was just too busy right now to start a family. He didn’t want to be an absentee husband or father so he would have to be more settled first before thinking of marriage or children. He knew that having a family was important but he was smart enough to know that now was not the time for one. But soon, he would be ready to settle down.

After spending hours on the flight, Cade finally arrived at his destination. There was a car waiting to pick him up at the airstrip, sent by the company. Standing outside it was a man in a suit, wearing an earpiece and Cade immediately knew that the man was a security personnel.

“Welcome, Mr Milton. We are to escort you to the company premises. Your brother sent us.” He said to me and flashed his ID.

Cade frowned after hearing that. He hadn’t imagined Alex doing such a mundane task. Organising transportation was usually left to the logistics department. Alex was too lazy to get his own coffee much less do something for someone else. He was even reluctant to do his assigned duty, much less do the duty of another person. But Cade just concluded that maybe Alex just wanted to get on his good side after messing up the company branch.

He got in the car, and apart from the driver, there was also another guard seated up front at the passenger seat.

“Welcome, Sir.” They greeted.

As the driver started the car, Cade took out his tablet to go over all he needed to address once they got to the company. They were almost halfway on the journey and were about to cross a bridge when Cade noticed the man seated next to him fidgeting and checking his watch frequently like he was timing something. Cade didn’t think much of it at first, but then the guard at the passenger seat also checked his watch. He wondered why they were both being so time conscious.

He wasn’t in a hurry to get to the company after all. It was while looking forward that he saw a flash of metal in the rear view mirror. If he hadn’t been looking at that exact time, he wouldn’t have seen the man seated next to him bring out the gun. That was the flash of metal he saw in the mirror in front of him. There was no reason for the guard to be bringing out a gun when there was no danger except he wanted to use it on Cade. It was at that moment that Cade realised that this was a trap. His half brother hadn’t sent these men to accompany him to the company, Alex had sent these men to kill him before he even made it to the company.

Cade reacted quickly as the man brought out the gun fully and pointed it at him, he held onto the man’s wrists and moved the muzzle of the gun away from his direction. So when the guard pulled the trigger, it shot the other guard in the passenger seat. The driver yelped as the spray of blood from the man seated next to him splashed over the side of his face and on the dashboard. The man on the passenger seat immediately slumped forward and Cade didn’t need to look to know that the man was dead. The bullet had pierced the man’s skull. At least that was one less assailant for him to deal with.

While he struggled for the gun with the man in the back, Cade could see the driver trying to take out his own weapon while driving one handed. Cade knew that his only option of survival was to leave the car. So instead of trying to drag the gun out of the man’s hands while they were struggling for it, Cade directed the muzzle to the man’s leg and pressed the man’s finger that was still on the trigger.

The guard yelped as the bullet went through his knee. Cade didn’t wait, even though the car was still moving, he unlocked the door and jumped out of the car. But he forgot that they were driving over a bridge so instead of dropping onto the floor, he dove over the railing and hit his head on the iron bars before dropping several feet through the air and landing in the water with a loud splash.

He was immediately assaulted with a blinding headache, and his limbs felt so heavy that he couldn’t move them to try and swim out of the water, and his lungs burned due to lack of oxygen. His last thought as he sank was that his mother would be heartbroken when she received news of his death because he was her only child.