BRING THE CEO DOWN!

9. A BROTHER

9. A BROTHER

Ara's POV

The inside of the house looked like someone at least tried to clean it. In a rushed way, like a child who rushed to put all his toys together because his father just arrived home, just to show his father that he was serious, but the father could still very well see the stack of toys under the table. I felt so angry as I saw the house, so angry that it took me a little while to see the man that was standing at the door in front of me, my brother.

Quincy looked like he was kidn*pped by a human trafficking ring, had been living in poverty and with abuse for the past few years, and just managed to make it out of his hellhole. The beard was the first thing I noticed. He was sporting a beard, a very full and long one; it wasn't even relatively well kept. His clothes looked like they hadn't seen a washing machine in years, and his eyes looked glazed. He had lost so much weight that I forgot all the anger that I felt and worry that hit me for him.

What the hell happened to my brother?

Why was he looking so different? Almost like another human being?

"Ara, how are you doing?" My brother asked. He was the first person to speak, and he was scratching the back of his ears like he was anxious, like he was a little ashamed about how he let himself go, and he did.

"I am doing fine, great. What happened to you? Why do you look like this? Why does this house look like this?" I couldn't stop the questions once they started, but I also knew that Quincy would not answer my questions like this, that I had to be calm and ask him one at a time if I really needed his replies, and I did, so I paused.

"Come inside," he said, and I stepped into the house, feeling very weird. I didn't like the way the house I grew up in looked. It was empty. I could see lighter paint on the walls, the places where my father's paintings had once stood. Did Quincy sell them? I looked to my brother to ask him the same question, and I saw how pitiful he looked. My head was rolling with questions, but I had no idea the one that was supposed to come out first. I already asked a lot of questions; I remembered, I was just waiting for the answers, and that was what I did; I waited.

"Come have a seat," Quincy said, and I moved to sit down. I wanted to tell him that this was my house too, and I was not a stranger, but this wasn't my house anymore. I was even a little scared to sit down. It looked almost too dirty.

"The chair doesn't bite Ara," Quincy said, and I could hear the unspoken words behind them: Stop being a brat. Quincy was always saying that. I glared at him and sat down. I was grateful I was wearing jeans and a turtle neck top, every part of my body was covered.

"What happened, Quincy?" I asked again. He looked so different from the brother I grew up with

This time when I asked the question, my brother's mood changed. He looked angry. The empty look that I found in his eyes was gone. What was left was anger and what seemed like the thirst for revenge.

"Your f*cking husband happened. He is the reason why I am in this sh*t, he took everything away from me, from us. We can't let him get away with it. We have to bring him down; he has to pay." The words spoken with so much hate and anger by my brother sent chills down my spine.

"He will pay," I agreed.

"Tell me everything," I continued.

"Oh, I will."

"It started almost the minute that you left. He was just waiting to push you away so that he could destroy everything that we built. After you left, he started siphoning the funds to the company, little by little. He had the CFO on his payroll; everyone else was forced to submit to what he was doing. He was just relieving people of their duties. I could tell that he was thinking of himself as a god, and I told him off. I went to speak to him, to tell him I knew what exactly he was doing and that he would not get away with it. He was treating my staff terribly. There was even an alleged s****l assault with one of the secretaries." On hearing the word s****l assault, I gasped. I thought back to the day I found I was pregnant with his child. I thought about catching him with his secretary. Maybe that was what was going on. Maybe Fabian forced himself on her, maybe he drugged her. I would have realized if that were the case, wouldn't I? I am pretty sure I would have known. But the seed was already planted in my mind. Assault? Every single conversation I could remember with Fabian I began to analyze, over and over again, just to get something from it. I had a child for this man. For a potential r****t. I already hated Fabian because of the words he used, because he played with me and just discarded me like I was not important after I managed to convince myself that we had something for each other. That there was something there between us. But now, after hearing this, the hate was multiplying; it was becoming something even more than hate.

"And that's not all. After then, he just threatened to cut me off; he asked me if I liked my job. I kept fighting him, I swear. The company belonged to our father, but he was running it to the ground. I had to use my inheritance to try and salvage the company; nothing was left to take care of the house." My heart broke at that. Quincy reached out and held my hands. He looked so sad that I would be a devil to still hold it against him after all this while. I wasn't going to be that kind of person.

"I am really sorry about the house, Ara. I know that it means a lot to you, but the staff had to go. I couldn't pay them anymore, and some of them volunteered to stay and take care of the place for free, but there was no way I could make them do all that without pay; it would not be fair on them, so it was best and more preferred if I let them go. I tried doing all the work myself, but there is only little I can do. I had to try and hold the company over water, and then there was the house, so much to be done." While I listened to my brother, I felt tears well up in my eyes. He sounded so sad and broken, and it felt as though I should have been able to do something to help him, but I failed. I was on the other side of the world. I left my family because I was too weak to face heartbreak, and because of that, what my parents built was broken.

"It was working, Ara; after a while, it began to work. The progress was slow, and it felt like I was starting the company from scratch," Quincy laughed when he said that. He almost sounded out of his mind, but I understood; I got him very well. I would be out of mind too. Nothing as bad as what Quincy was explaining happened to me, but I already felt out of my mind.

"Things were getting better; the employees were happier. Fabian seemed to have forgotten about us, and he was focused on some other company; things were good. That was until they came forward to change the sign. Fabian Lewis was changing Erikson's advertisement to his own. He saw the progress I was making and wanted to make it his own. He saw that the company was getting better, and now he wants the company to be a part of his enterprise, but that's not going to happen. Fabian would go down before I would let that happen." I was shaking with anger and betrayal. This entire conversation made me remember the day I found out that Fabian was cheating on me. I remember the level of mortification I felt, and then I even managed to convince myself that he loved me. Now I am very sure that he doesn't love me, yet I felt even more anger than I previously did. He had no right, no right whatsoever, to take what was my family's as his. Quincy was right; Fabian Lewis had to go down, and fast. His fall from glory had to be so fast that it would break him. I was hungry for blood at that point. I was angry at him for ruining what my father built over the years, for making my brother break, for destroying my mother's home, for making me this heartbroken girl, and for making my son grow up fatherless. I was angry at Fabian Lewis for existing.

"I would like to see Fabian burn in hell," I said. It was exactly how I felt. I had no idea how I would do it, but just thinking about it made me feel good. Fabian was going to fall, and I would be the one to push him over the edge; he would never mess with a redhead ever again.

Quincy smiled at my words.

"I would love that too, and I have a plan to make it happen."

"What's the plan?”