Donald's POV Judging by what was said, the situation at the hospital was more critical than she had opened up to me. It turns out that the medication that his grandfather had been taking before the surgery to help prep his body for the recovery period had a side effect. The side effect was supposed to be small and easily managed but it seems like one of the doctors in residence missed an essential detail in this medical report.It was small and negligible but still, it could be the thin line between life and death.After George had his breakfast, the food he had mixed up with his drugs had a very bad interaction. Now he's in the ICU and the doctor had to place him in a self-induced coma to help him ride out the symptoms.All they're doing now is just praying that he wakes up on his own so that he can go through with the surgery.The surgery was supposed to be stipulated for a particular period and if George manages to miss that window of opportunity…. let's just say things are going
Donald's POV At the back of my mind, I had concluded that stepping down to allow Rose to rule over her company wasn't such a bad idea. Like David said, I was rich and successful plus I had a ton of properties and companies that I could control and manage, so why do I have to fight over someone else's company?All in all, even though I would have liked to have control over Rose's company, something to hold over her head, it didn't take much away from me and I still had my wealth to sustain me so it was basically a win-win situation.Facing David, I said. “I'll give Rose back her company as long as you don't tell anyone about what you just found out. Do we have a deal?” I stretched my hand out, ready to shake it over with him. David stared at my hand for a minute, his eyes distant as though he was thinking over our deal but then he hesitantly stretched his hand out. “We have a deal but…”I almost groaned out loud in frustration despite having a feeling that he was going to come up wit
Donald's POV A knock sounded on my door making me look up. “Sir, there's one of your clients here. He says he wants to see you and he's due for a flight soon.”After a couple of weeks, in which thankfully things returned to normal, I was finally given an assistant to help reduce the workload and make sure everything smoothed over in my absence.Her name was Haley and she was pretty good at her job except for the fact that she's obsessed over cartoon characters always trying to get me to watch one with her.If that was her way of flirting, it was incredibly odd.I groaned, rubbing at my forehead. “Uh, what's his name again?”I was exhausted and in desperate need of some uninterrupted rest/ vacation time.The past couple of weeks have been draining. It seems that I might have underestimated what it would take to bring a company out of financial ruin. It's been nonstop meetings, back-to-back conferences with big-time investors trying to get them to invest in our company with the hope st
Donald's POV Wedging my way into David's dark, murky past was not as easy as I thought it would be. For one, all his social media accounts and presence are squeaky clean, this man doesn't have a bad picture on video or even people saying bad things about him.I went as far back as reviewing all the places is he worked both home and abroad and they don't really have anything and I was not able to get one bit of scandal, either from him or the companyEither these people have an amazing PR company or a new station under their web, because it was quite hard to keep your social media presence this clean.I was forced to contract the services of a…well, the legal term is ‘fixer’. People say he helps get rid of jobs or people that you want to take care of. Also, the upside is that they do help you farret out your problem.Due to my sudden elevated status even though I wasn't quite in the open yet I had a feeling that I soon might be and therefore had to be careful with all my activities/af
Donald's POV Things seemed to be looking up for me, as there was a slight pep in my step as I left the restaurant. The news that Jackson had just given me was the highlight of my day, or week if I was being honest.Things back up the company haven't been going as well as I wanted but it's the reality of any businessman.Sometimes things are high on a good note, and other times…it's not.Taking my usual route home, I had this strangest of impulses to stop by Rose's and for a moment, I acted on it needing something to pull me out of the constant mess that was my mind.Thankfully the security guard didn't question my appearance, recognized me, and greeted me warmly, thinking I was out of town for a while.Driving down to our old home, I parked a couple of blocks away just staring at the building. Being here was almost anticlimactic, leaving a strange feeling in the pit of our stomach.I wasn't so sure what I was expecting to gain from driving down here but it didn't change much of anyth
Donald's POV A week later, and I'm still trying to pin this thing on David growing increasingly irritated by his endless lists of demands.Just three days ago, he asked me to help him renew his house ownership permit, as though I was just a secretary and not the other way around.I was taking my time though, trying not to rush things, which was why I was just heading home by five minutes past 10 in the night on Thursday.Unfortunately, I had a ton of briefings with people under me in case what happened earlier repeated itself- Rose suddenly firing me- then the company wouldn't be amiss of quality leadership.The bad part was when I had to repeat one thing multiple times and in various scenarios before they could grab it.Quite a hassle, if you ask me.In the future, he would leave things like that to Haley.Speaking of said person, Haley knocked on his door before walking in to dump a fresh stack of paperwork. “Good night, Mr Greene!” She said in a chirpy tone, bouncing out of his of
The next day I set about making sure my plans were in place, with the help of Ricardo who was slowly becoming my friend. I managed to secure a young hacker girl who would help me hack into his computer and give me the sensitive information I needed.Once she realized that I was rich, of course, her price went higher than I expected but my freedom was equally important, especially when David called for a meeting in the evening.He'd said he had something serious to discuss with me but I knew that all he wanted was to extort more money from me, which was why this was very important. The one good thing that came out of the meeting we were about to have was that I could give Nalini the time to get what she needed.However, I still had my doubts about entrusting something as serious as this to a teenager. “Are you sure you can do this? I asked her while we were sitting in my car during my lunch break. “He can never know that you did something on this computer.”As a typical teenager, she
Donald's POV For the first time in weeks, I felt lighter than I ever had.The USB in my hand held all the answers I needed to get out of my current predicament. David and his extortions would soon stop, which would give me some breathing space.I went to bed that night, feeling better, and had the best sleep in a long while.However, with how great things went I wasn't expecting everything to crash and tumble before I woke up. The shrill ringing of my phone on my bedside table woke me up. I woke up from my bed, asleep and partially disoriented, reaching for my phone.Since I wasn't quite awake yet so I miscalculated the distance, almost ending up falling over to the floor.“Huh…ello,” I slurred into the phone, my eyes drifting shut.“Hi, is this Mr Greene?”Immediately my eyes snapped wide open at the unfamiliar voice. “Yes, this is him. Who is this? What happened?”“Um, hi! My name is Eleanor Drake, from County Hospital and I'm so sorry to wake you up but we need you to come down
Donald's POV The ‘beep beep’ of the monitors woke me up from my deep slumber.I open my eyes slowly to meet the white, sterile ceiling of a hospital. I knew it was a hospital because it had that familiar disinfectant smell to it…also because it makes sense, given the fact that I was shot at three times a couple of hours before and yeah, I remember every bit of that story.It was like a clip of a very bad movie except this happened to me, the distant yet eerily familiar feeling of being shot invaded my senses and I had to inch my hand up to see if I could check out the wound. “I wouldn't advise you to do that.” A pretty blond nurse wearing scrubs walked in, a clipboard in her hand.“Hel…Hello..” I croaked out, realizing that my throat was as dry as a desert.She must have come to the same realization because she walked over to my bedside, reaching for a cup of water and she handed it over to me.I greedily slurped it down like a greedy man dying of thirst, only stopping when I emptie
David's POV Just like I expected, the media circus around Donald's death blew out of proportion.As I'm packing my bags, the entire area in which Donald was shot had been taped off by the police.Apparently they were opening a case into the incident, searching for who shot him.I would like to feel relaxed on that point but it's just my luck that the homeless guy I usye turned out to be something else.For the rest of the day, I kept on trying his number but he never picked up soon enough, the number became unavailable which I took to mean that he had either discarded of it or he doesn't want anything to do with me anymore. When Boone asked me about the progress report, I lied to him stating that I had taken care of the homeless guy but I knew it was just a matter of time before the police found him and he blurted out the truth…which was why I was booking the next available flight and getting the hell out of this cursed city.The moment I left the borders of the city and I was on my
RoseTo think that it was Donald's death that brought me and my family together, it was mind boggling to say the least.I received the call from my sister early the next morning and to say I was surprised, is an understatement.“Hello, Tanya. Wh-hat's going on?”She was breathing heavily which made me worried. “Have you seen the news, Rose?” She asked.My brows furrowed in confusion. “The news?” I repeated. “No. What news? I'm just waking up!” I say, flipping the covers away from my body so I reach for my laptop.Suddenly the speaker went mute as I could only hear muffled words float through. it seems like she was talking to someone else.I ignored her, checking up on the latest news.I quickly scanned through a number of them, realizing that no one stood out to me. “Tanya, I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at here but nothing is making sense to me. Can you talk to me and tell me what happened? Is it Mom or Dad? Are they okay?”Immediately, my mind jumped into the worst sce
RoseI knew the exact moment I fell for David all over again was when I heard the words, ‘you’re free to go’.That faithful Tuesday morning, I was laying face up on my cot, thinking of new ways to distract myself from a boring and predictable day when the buzzer sounded.Unlike the last time when I ignored the guard, I turned around to look at him but this time he wasn't holding a tray of food in his hands.He had the bunch of keys in his hands and he was walking slowly towards my room, an unpleasant in his eyes.“Hey, you. Get up!” He boomed loudly, startling me.“I was already up…” I grumbled, flipping my legs around the tiny cot. “Where's my food?”He didn't respond, only grunted and shoved me not too gently toward the bars, handcuffing me. “Move!” He ordered and I obeyed, shuffling my feet.We did the same walk routine, similar to when I visited Donald but this time…it seemed different.“Where are we going?” I twisted my head around to ask him but he just shoved my head forward.W
David's POV Contrary to what Donald thought, I was right there behind him the whole time.He was so easy and gullible. Just one mention of Rose and he came running exactly like I thought.All I needed to do was play the pity card and he sucked it up like a starving man drinking water.It was quite hilarious if I was being honest.I wanted the first location, simply because it would be easier to dispose of him when the homeless guy was done with the job but Donald being a hard ass…he insisted we change it, probably suspicious of my actions. Well, at least he was smart… just not too smart to avoid dying though.My phone buzzed with a text.Donald: Where are you?Me: I'm right behind you. I'll be there soon.When I sent the text, I burst into laughter, muffling the sound.I kept checking my watch, waiting for the homeless guy to show up. This was not the agreement. He was supposed to be here a couple of minutes ago, do the job the moment Donald showed up and get out of here.I gritted
Donald's POV I was woken up by my phone buzzing needlessly.Groaning, I twisted around in bed to reach for the phone only to see a name I never thought I'd see flash across my screen.Immediately my eyes flew open, sleep deserting my mind and I nearly jumped out of bed.Wait, why the hell was David calling me?To make matters worse, shortly after the call ended he dropped the text followed by another.David: Hi, I know I'm the last person you want to talk to right now but I need your help. David: Please respond, it's urgent.I debated, responding, wanting to shrug it off but I sat up on the bed so I could think logically.From the little I've known and observed about David, I know that he's a snake and he's very cunning, always thinking three steps ahead of everyone else which is why it bothers me so much that he's texting me.What the hell does he want from me?While I was contemplating on whether to pick up or respond to his text messages, he sent another.David: Please.Because I
David's POV “Hey guys, do you have any news yet?” I asked barging into the basement. All through the night, I could barely sleep a wink as I tossed and turned, my brain producing new ways on how to help Rose.After I went to visit her, I became spurred on to double down on my efforts and for the past two days, my team and I have been up through out the night, working tirelessly on breaking into David firewalls.At this points, I didn't care about whether it was illegal or not, all you wanted to do is to get Rose out of that filthy place.“We don't have any leads yet.” Shawn spoke up. “We still haven't gotten those parts that we needed and decrypting the messages by hand is taking us way longer than it should. At this point, we'll probably get done by the end of the year.”Groaning, I slapped my hands over my face. “That's not going to work. You're sure there's no other way to get this going faster?”If I could get my hands on some incriminating messages that David exchanged with his
David's POV Popping a chewing gum, I sucked it back in, tapping my feet impatiently on the brakes.I decided to make use of Boone's advice, doing the extra work to cement the plan that I have already started and that begins with…A loud honk from a passing car jolted me out of my thoughts and I popped my head out, raising my middle finger as a response.“Fucking asshole!” I muttered under my breath, stealing a glance at my watch. It's been over an hour and this guy is nowhere to be found.He's got to know that he's playing with his life.I am a gentle and mannered man until I was pushed to the wall forced, to do certain things…one of which is to make good on the threats I told him.A couple of days before I decided to meet with the homeless man who placed the tip in the police station for the cops to find, I spent some hours out of my day to watch him and like clockwork he always appeared at the same time every day.It was tad boring and predictable but it saved me time to look for h
RoseThe minutes turned into hours and the hours into days, each day more horrible than the last.My nightmare of being trapped in here was slowly coming to pass and I was too helpless to do anything to stop it.Reaching out to my family wasn't an option and none of the guards agreed to let me use their phone to make one more call to Donald, leaving me stranded.The food was probably the good thing about the place.I don't know who the chef is but he's doing a really good job of keeping me happy…temporarily though.I sighed for probably the hundredth time, staring vacantly at the ceiling.You know, when you first have your freedom taken away from you, you think that the first few hours or days at the worst but it's not. It's actually quite easy because there is a list of ways you can distract yourself but as the day grows longer, that's when reality sets in and the sadness begins.The possibility that this could become your new normal starts to haunt you and in as much as your mind w