Protect Me

Chapter 01

Chapter One

Addilyn

Good morning, New York City! What a stunning sunny August morning it is! Traffic is moving at a leisurely pace as everyone begins their day, so stay tuned because our weather update is just moments away. First on breaking news this morning, reports have just confirmed that Steven Brown, the son of Max Brown, the CEO and owner of Brown Enterprises, has been reported missing. The news of Mr. Brown's sudden disappearance has sparked intense speculation on social media and the location of this entrepreneur remains unknown... police are urging the public to...

Blah, blah, blah. I sighed under my breath as I turned off the television mounted on our kitchen wall and went back to eating my breakfast, completely uninterested in the droning of the newsman whose words went in one ear and out the other. My father was sitting next to me, completely immersed in his smartphone as usual, completely oblivious to my lack of interest in the world outside our home. So many negative stories. Journalists were always drawn to reporting the bad and sudden disasters of the world to draw in their audience. My father must have noticed the look of indifference and lack of enthusiasm on my face as the room fell silent, but to my surprise, he simply brushed it off with a small shake of his head. It seemed like he had resigned himself to the fact that I would never develop a keen interest in the stories of the world as he does, but I knew that it wouldn't stop him from pursuing me one way or another.

"Seriously Addilyn," he began trying to engage me in a conversation, and I could already hear the concern and disappointment in his tone that this was going to be yet another lecture type of discussion, "if you're to be the heir of the family company, you need to pay attention to our city headlines. Stories like these are very concerning to people like us."

His words only seemed to irritate me further, as if he was attempting to drill into me the importance of something I simply couldn't find any interest in. I let out a sigh of frustration and rolled my eyes at my father's insistence. People like us. This was a familiar conversation between us, with him constantly placing us in a separate class from the rest of New York City as if we were somehow superior to everyone else. In my mind, such an attitude was ridiculous and arrogant, but I was simply accustomed to this.

Well to be fair, I couldn't deny that my father, Bernard Jones, was a successful and wealthy man. As the CEO of his own insurance company, he had built a formidable reputation and business in Manhattan, New York. He had always been a driven and ambitious man and expected nothing but the best from those around him. His focus was always on maintaining his wealth and status, and he lived his life by the rules and expectations of the elite society he belonged to. I understood that He had a very strict reputation to uphold. He had always been a man of great responsibility and influence, with many people depending on him and his business. I knew that he worked tirelessly to build our family name in the cutthroat business world, and maintaining that was of paramount importance to him. It was true that his attitude towards me was somewhat frustrating, and I understood the pressure he faced as a successful businessman since he was trying to mold me in his image and prepare me to take over the family business, I had no intention of turning out in any way like him. I had a very different personality and set of values than him. He cared for me like any parent would for their children in their own way, even though it had become increasingly difficult to see that side of him since I was a child. I learned to accept and deal with him as he was. My father and I have had a very aloof type of relationship, distant and strained over the years, especially since my mother died. I knew that had hit him hard, as it did me, and he would seem to just engulf himself in work to deal with it. He had always been a workaholic, but work seemed to become his only priority these days.