G a b r i e l
Nothing is going right and it was only a matter of time before I was going to blow my top.
"Where is Noel?" I asked my wife, Andrea, as I saw her just lazing about in the family room.
"I don't know where that boy is, he's never in one place" she said, waving me off as she continued to watch whatever show was occupying her time.
I narrowed my eyes but didn't say anything. I didn't need to have an argument with this insufferable woman right now.
I hated having to look for someone when they should be where I expected them to, which for Noel was typically his room or the family room but since Andrea is in the latter, I decided to check his room.
Not there.
Looking across the hall, I noticed that room's door was slightly ajar. Heading over to it, I walked in and saw Noel staring at something in his hand as he stood by the window.
Noticing me, Noel gained a nervous expression.
"F-Father" he muttered.
"What are you doing in here?" I asked and Noel shifted in his spot, likely trying to hide whatever he was staring at but I couldn't give a shit about whatever it was.
"Nothing" he said.
Ignoring his unnecessarily suspicious behavior, I spoke up.
"Get ready, we're going to oversee the drop off at the shipyard" I said before leaving the room, no longer wishing to be in it or in Noel's presence.
Just being in there and seeing Noel's face reminded me of the reason for most of my problems at the moment.
Cole.
Ever since he took his little leave, trying to find him has been just one annoying roller coaster. I never thought the little bastard could have the gall to blatantly disappear on us, let alone manage to find himself associated with another group.
Just thinking about it made my blood boil.
I was doing his mother a favor by keeping him alive all these years when I should have just forced her to care for him on her own. But that pathetic woman couldn't even take care of herself, it was just sad.
I couldn't tell my family that I was keeping Cole because that woman asked me to, it's bad enough Andrea had found out I was cheating on her. So, I told them a different story, one that made her out to be some one night stand whore who threatened to expose me for money.
While the one night stand part was true, the rest wasn't entirely false. She didn't want the money for herself, she wanted it for Cole but she was afraid of parenthood. Laura didn't trust herself with the money or with the responsibility of taking care of Cole so she asked me to do it. I had no idea what she did with the money, maybe she stored it somewhere but who knows. And it's not as if I really cared either.
I guess you could say I felt bad, I was the one who got her pregnant, I had to take some of the responsibility. But taking Cole in was as far as my empathy towards her went. I made sure he could survive on his own and that's it, I didn't need him becoming attached to me or anyone else in my family.
He was a mistake that wasn't supposed to happen but the fact that my genes ran through him strong enough to make him look like Noel was just luck on our part. He actually had some kind of use other than existing.
I took care of him, fed him, and kept him safe all these years so you could say I was more than a bit pissed off when I came to find out Cole had run off. He has no idea all that I've done for him, it's a shame really. He'd surely be more grateful if he did.
After readying myself, Noel and I headed to the car and once the driver saw we were situated, he headed to our drop off location.
It hadn't even been ten minutes into the ride when I was getting a phone call.
"Hello?" I spoke.
"Limosa! Are you on your way here?" Jack, my main trader's voice had flooded my ears and he sounded a bit too cheerful for my liking.
"Yes, we are less than thirty minutes away" I said.
"Well, uh, about that...the trade's off" he said and I gripped my phone tightly.
"What?" I gritted out.
"Yeah, some guy offered to let us trade him the same amount for more money. It's a steal and we'd be stupid not to take him up on it" Jack said and his happy tone was only fueling my anger more and more.
"You're still stupid because when I see you, you're fucking dead" I seethed and Jack cackled.
"Hey, if you can top his offer then the trade is back on for sure" He said.
"Screw you" I said before hanging up the phone and tossing it on the seat.
"What's wrong?" Noel asked.
"Some fucker bought us out" I said and I kept thinking back to what he said. It's not as if they went behind my back looking for a higher bidder, this buyer reached out to them.
Someone is fucking with our business.
"What are we going to do?" Noel's hands were clasped in their lap, a sign of nervousness as he could likely feel my anger thickening the air.
"I'm going to find out who it was, even if we have to beat it out of them" I said.
I had our driver take us to the drop off place anyways, if we were lucky we'd catch one of those bastards there. Or maybe even the one who bought us out.
When we arrived, I saw Jack's car so I knew that fucker was still around here somewhere. I looked around until I saw him and one of his lackey's standing around and smoking.
Coming up on his six, I pulled my gun out and planted it right on the back of his skull.
"Who was it?" I said.
Jack paused for a moment before turning around and looked to me, a smug look sitting on his face.
"What?" He said dumbly.
"Who the fuck did you just give those drugs to?" I asked and Jack shrugged.
"Gabe, you know as well as I do that I don't speak about my clients. Privacy is a-"
Tired of hearing his bullshit, I aimed my gun at his knee and fired a round into it. Jack fell to the ground with a loud cry and his friend seemed to be pissing his pants from the sight of what I just did.
"I don't give a shit about your privacy claims. Tell me who bought me out or I'm going to kill you" I said, giving the deadliest glare I could muster but it didn't seem to be working.
"Then you might as well do it" Jack grunted.
Jack always took flight in tough situations, he never fought. Whoever was paying him must also be paying him to keep his mouth shut.
"Fucking hell!" I shouted when realizing this bastard wasn't going to talk. His greed for money was more important to him than his own life so I'd be wasting my breath trying to get anything out of him.
I fired another round into his head before doing the same to his friend.
"Sir?" I looked and saw one of the others who'd followed behind us handing me some kind of paper.
"This was left for you" he said. I snatched it from his hands and read the small letter.
'Having fun yet? I hope so!'
Reading the letter filled me with a sense of dread because I had one good guess on who was to blame for all of this.
Eros Azure.
It has to be him, he's the only fucker who would be able to pull off something like this. He's also the only guy with that kind of twisted sense of humor. It wouldn't even surprise me if he was the one who was also behind the hospital's investigation a few week's back.
Hold on.
"Noel" I called and Noel jolted a bit but looked alive as he responded.
"Yes?"
"What was the name of the group you said Cole was running around with?" I asked.
"The Azure Dragons" he said and I crumbled the paper.
Is this his revenge plot? How the fuck did he even manage to get someone as highly ranked as Eros Azure on his side? What the fuck did he offer him?
I no longer wished to just find Cole. I now needed to find and kill him. It's one thing to run away unannounced but to have another group try and sabotage my work?
It's unforgivable.
[A/N: double chapter since the update after this will likely be the Q & A! Thank you lovely readers for your patience and as always, I hope you're enjoying <3]