ARCANUS: WHO IS WHO?

MOVING FORWARD

MARGO'S POV

Many things had happened in the past eighteen years now, but not a single word about any of my girls had gotten to me. For years, I cried and cried, wishing Mateo was with me to help me bear this pain, but he wasn't. I always prayed that wherever they were, they should be safe and in good hands, but I never stopped hoping we would meet one day.

Over time, the pain slowly started to feel less immense. I started to focus on the company more, but I still searched for my daughters. The cops dropped the case long ago since they couldn't figure out where Lopez had run off to.

It was as if he had never existed. No traced of him was the found wherever clues pointed to. I knew he did not pull that heist all by himself but was assisted by someone with strong connections.

In this country, we, the Curtis's, owned the territory because Mateo's father, William Curtis, had built a business empire here, which no other family could match up to.

No family was as strong and powerful as ours. The second runner was not even close to matching our status. So who could have helped him. I was clueless.

The other rich and wealthy families were investigated, but under an oath, the swore they knew nothing about it.

Gerrit insisted that I dropped the matter and just moved on. He suggested that I just adopt a child since I had no kids and did not plan on getting married again so that the business would not be left without any heir. He suggested that I adopt a young child so that the grooming of the child would be fit for the next heir.

Katherine was against the idea. But she didn't argue much in front of Gerrit.

Behind his back, she suggested that I kept searching for the girls, that I should just adopt the child as a backup plan, and not get the child's hope up for becoming the heir of Curtis groups and associations, incase we got news about the young misses.

She was right. If I ended up finding my girls and they found out that someone else was to take their spot, it wouldn't be fair to them, and if the child believed that she would be the CEO one day and the girls appeared and the spot was suddenly taken away it could cause enmity. So, I agreed to Katherine's suggestion.

I knew Gerrit meant no harm with his suggestion he was only looking at matters from a financial perspective, and I knew he was worried that the board could start complaining as time went on.

Two months after Gerrit's suggestion, I adopted Rose. She was very beautiful she was nothing like me, though she had a very fair skin and red cheek, which contrasted to my slightly tanned olive skin. But I had already accepted her from the moment I met her. She was Gerrit's niece. Her father was gone a few months after she was conceived while her mother died at childbirth. Since we could not find a child around the age range I wanted, I adopted her, and she was already four months old when I adopted her.

I adopted a year after the girls were gone. Time flew by so fast. Eighteen years had gone so fast. I decided to go back to my country since it had been so long. The company over here was stable, and there were no real threats lingering.

Rose was already with her uncle over there. It was just I and Katherine who would be taking this trip.

She has always been by my side and always comforted me even when she didn't know how. She became a real friend to me these past years.

"Margo, we can leave now." Katherine told me.

"Okay." I said as I stood up and walked out the front door.

When we landed, it was just ten in the morning. And I was starving. I didn't eat much before the flight, and I was not a fan of eating meals on flight. I just had light snacks, but they didn't hold me for long.

When we got out of the airport, I asked the driver to take us to a café. But Katherine was already ahead of me she had found one close by and just directed the driver on how to get there.

It was not a highly sophisticated café, but it was more than okay.

As we walked in, a waitress greeted us.

"Good morning, ma'am. Welcome to Nessa's café. This way, please." She said, directing Katherine and I to a table.

"So what can I get for you two." She asked.

"She would be having a cappuccino and two croissants. As for me, an iced latte would do." Katherine said. She had mastered what I liked the most.

This girl, I just met her and she had this calm energy that I liked, it was as if I knew her from somewhere. Her warm smile intrigued me, I wanted to know more about her.

"Katherine, could you kindly find out if Diego needs anything?" I requested of Katherine.

"Sure, why not?" She said as she stood up.

When Katherine left, the young waitress brought our order.

"Here's your order, Ma'am. Would you like any other thing." She asked, adding a graceful smile as she spoke.

"No, nothing." I said.

As she walked, I heard her stomach give a low growl.

"Uhm, Samantha?" I called out to the young waitress.

"Yes?" She turned to me in shock.

"I saw your tag." I said.

"Ohh, I am sorry." She apologised.

"No problem. I just wanted to know if you had had your breakfast?" I asked as she gave an awkward chuckle.

"Order whatever you want and add it to my receipt. It's on me." I told her.

"There's no need for that Ma'am." She instantly objected.

"I insist."

"...thank you, ma'am." She wanted to say something more, but she paused and just said thank you. I guess she wanted to argue more, but she didn't.

Katherine walked in and came to sit right down.

"He said he was okay. I was trying to convince him to have something, but he said he was okay." Katherine reported.

"What were you telling her." She said, looking at Samantha's direction.

"It was nothing." I replied.

"Okay."

After we were done eating, Samantha brought the receipt. When I looked at it, I was stunned she just ordered a sandwich that cost nothing more than five dollars.

Katherine, seeing my expression, took the receipt and had a look. After Samantha left, Katherine asked:

"Is the sandwich to go or you ate it before I arrived here?" She asked.

"It was not for me." I said.

She instantly understood and looked at Samantha's direction.

"You bought her breakfast." Katherine asked with the most funny puzzled expression I had ever seen on her face.

"What?"

"Why the sudden kindness?" Katherine asked, furrowing a brow.

"What? Is kindness now a crime?" I asked her sarcastically.

"I didn't say that." She said.

"I noticed she was hungry, and since she had been nothing more than polite since we entered, I thought she deserved it." I explained, meeting a raised brown from Katherine.

"Really?" She said.

"Why the fuss? What she even got was not up to ten dollars." I defended.

"I was just kidding. Why are you so defensive? Relax." She said with a smile.

Before we left, I gave Katherine an envelope to give her as her tip. It was nothing much, but it would be enough for her lunch and dinner.