THE FORMIDABLE LUTHAN KING IS BACK

Chapter 11

As soon as Luthan was told this news he rushed to the room where the man was staying.

He stood at the bed side, tears prickling his eyes as the man smiled. His body was frail and weak-looking like he might simply wither away in the wind the next second.

“Didn't anyone ever tell you not to look at sick people like that?” Stanley said still smiling. “Try to look happy to see me will you?”

Luthan shook himself and drew closer. “How did this happen?”

“It's a disease,” the man said. “Those things happen. You can't protect me from everything Luthan,” the man whispered. “Can you do me some good and not look at me as though you're already at my funeral.”

Luthan forced a smile and Stanley's grew wider. “Now will you introduce the lovely lady by your side?”

“This is Mary Lynn,” Luthan introduced. “The lady I told you about.”

“You didn't mention she was this pretty,” Stanley teased. “I feel stronger just looking at her.”

Mary Lynn smiled and drew closer to his bed. Stanley took her hand and drew it to his pale chapped lips. He kissed it softly. “You've been through way too much my dear. I hope you learn to enjoy good things. It'll be hard to allow yourself that but promise me you'll do your best.”

Mary Lynn looked up at Luthan and he simply shrugged with a look that seemed to say ‘don't hurt the sick man's feelings’. She looked back at the man on the bed and nodded slowly.

After she stood back up Stanley gestured for Luthan to draw closer and he did.

“Luthan, what's the one question you kept asking me in jail and never got an answer to?”

“Are you secretly in the Mafia?” Luthan teased. Stanley laughed a wheezy breathy laugh that looked almost painful to get out. He has asked Stanley that question many times because the man seemed to be good at everything, was a genius and was extremely connected outside the prison even if fellow inmates had treated him like a punching bag while they were still incarserated.

“The other one,” Stanley said when he was done laughing.

“‘What are you in here for?’” Luthan answered truthfully.

“Yes,” Stanley nodded. “I never told you the truth. I think it's time I do that. Actually, I wasn't in prison because I committed a crime. I was actually innocent just like you and I got into prison to find someone just like you.”

“What do you mean?” Luthan asked.

“I was just like you when I was young, betrayed, beaten and left for dead but I never gave up. I had that fire in me that I could do so much more, just like you have. That fire that was stoked by Ms. Mary Lynn over here.” Stanley gestured at Mary Lynn. “I only became who I was because there was someone who saw me and pulled me out of where I was. I was lucky, so many people had the same fire that I had. The same will to keep moving forward and keep doing more but they never had someone to help them out of the ditch life had left them in to die.”

Luthan sat on the bed carefully and hung on to every word Stanley said.

“You see I don't have any children, I don't have anyone to carry on my legacy, all the wisdom that I have gathered in this earth and I don't have anyone to inherit all the money that I have made. That was why I was in jail because there is no better place to find a man that have been beaten down by life and left to die. Someone who had the will and who would use a second chance in the ring properly. You were better than all of my expectations.”

Luthan could feel the emotions returning, he remembered being in jail and the time when he and Stanley looked after each other. They had gotten close to death many times. More than once the fellow inmates had ganged up on them for a revenge beating them because Luthan wouldn't take s**t and he wouldn't take them treating Stanley like s**t. To think this man went through all of that just to give someone a second swing at life.

“I don't have much time left,” Stanley continued. Luthan was going to argue but just looking at Stanley he could already tell that it was true. “I have left all of my assets to you. All I want is that you promise me two things.”

“What's that?” Luthan asked, gripping Stanley's hands in his.

“Not much,” Stanley said. “One, that you grow the Flair Consortium into the number one consultant consortia in the world.”

“Cheeky old man,” Luthan pretended as though he was going to smack the man and got a small laugh from him.

“Come on, I know that's a small task for you. Promise?”

Luthan nodded because Stanley was right, if he put his heart to it, it was an easy task for him. “I promise. What's the second thing?”

Luthan saw the man's eye flicker to Mary Lynn for the tiniest split second, almost unnoticeable. “You know I never had children of my own right?”

Luthan raised a brow but nodded.

“Would you have grandchildren for me? Many, many grandchildren.”

Luthan stared at the man's sickly face, at the small smile there. This was an easy enough promise as Luthan had always wanted children of his own before his family and Camille had killed that dream. Lucky for him however, Stanley had shown up like an angel and given him the chance to look at the world with hope and dream again. He nodded.

“Say it out Luthan,” Stanley said.

“I promise, Stanley.”

Immediately, Stanley's body looked lighter. His eyebrows relaxed, his body eased, slacked completely like a piece of cloth on the floor. His eyelids slowly drew close and his last words came off like a whisper.

“That's good.”