CHAPTER 4: The Invite
1098 Words
Xander couldn't believe the words he was hearing for a while, he was too busy thinking of what was going on to even care about Peter's emotional outburst.
'I am Xander Norman? The long lost child of the Norman family? Is this... is this real?'
"Are you sure you haven't gotten the wrong person, Mr. Seattle?" Xander suddenly asked. He didn’t want to get his hopes up for nothing only to find out it was a mistake, just like the story Peter told him about being switched at birth.
“I am sure. It’s all in there,” Peter replied, pointing at the documents.
The document he passed to him was the results from a blood comparison test, which confirmed that Scarlett was his older sister and her parents are his parents.
It felt unreal, fantastical even. But still, he didn't want to believe it.
If this was true, does that not mean he had lived his entire life in a lie? Does that not mean he had been suffering for nothing?! He couldn't accept it!
"We cross checked all night, I also had other hospitals from the capital check again, it is confirmed. You are the lost child of the Norman Family," Peter tried to regain his composure as he stood once more, "I know it might be a lot to take in. I looked into you and how you grew up… life has been unfair to you, and you might be mad at everyone and you have every right to be. You can take some time to digest this news, as long as you need. However, your sister gave me instructions so I have to fulfill them. She is still in recovery, so she couldn’t come herself. Once she is doing much better, she will schedule a meeting with you so you can get to meet the family."
Peter opened his briefcase again.
"Here," he passed over a sleek black card with golden edges, along with a new ID card.
"This is your sister’s credit card, she has decided to give it to you for now, just until we finalize everything and introduce you officially to the rest of the family.
“It has an upper limit of about a billion dollars and the passcode is your birth date..."
'Bi...Billion' Xander gulped loudly.
"I...I can't accept this. This is too much. I mean… she hasn’t even met me and… what if I just… I am sorry, I can’t accept this," Xander shook his head, trying to return the card.
'Are you trying to kill me? You want me to die early?' his thoughts began spiraling, imagining the dangerous things that could happen to him if he suddenly started walking around with a billion dollars in his wallet. This was a billion dollars we are talking about!
"This is nothing compared to what the Norman family makes in a day. The family controls trillions of dollars in assets as the largest investment company in the world. Your sister can be a bit heavy handed in terms of money, so don't let your parents know if they reach out to you"
'That's true, I still have parents' Xander almost sobbed at the thought of having parents again.
"When your parents hear about this, they will rush back to the country. You will be properly sorted out then, but Scarlet doesn’t want them to worry about her at the moment for a number of reasons, so she will be keeping you a secret for a while.," Peter pressed the card back into Xander’s palm.
After fulfilling all his instructions, Peter finally gave Xander his phone number in case he needed anything and left. He said he would be in touch, and his sister would love to meet him once she gets discharged. But since Xander was in school, they weren’t going to disrupt his studies. Xander had a lot of questions, but Peter promised that when the time was right, they would answer all his questions.
Xander looked at the card in a daze, and the document in his hand. Doubts were bubbling in his head about what had just happened.
‘It was probably a prank or something.’
‘Who just tosses a billion dollars to some random stranger?’
‘This card has to be fake right?’
The thoughts kept on bubbling in his head. It felt a little insane.
‘I… I have to confirm if this is real,’ Xander made up his mind and left for the bank, full of doubts, but at the same time, he was hoping it was real. He really wanted to be part of a family once again.
The doubts in his head just kept growing louder. It was only when he finally took out 100,000 in cash from the bank that he was fully convinced this wasn’t fake. But even with the proof, Xander felt conflicted.
He couldn't help but say a short prayer of thanks to his foster parents who had raised him. They had taken care of the wrong son till their last breath.
He was still having trouble accepting his new status, but he couldn’t help but think about his ex.
'Jasmine, if you hadn’t broken up with me, you could’ve gotten anything you wanted. And Matt, James… you both come from wealthy families, always surrounded by ass-kissers and sycophants. Maybe a little taste of your own medicine would be nice.'
Xander laughed at the thought of all the things he could do to get revenge on everyone that maltreated him because he was poor.
It was almost noon when Xander left the bank and got back to the campus. He was deep in thought when his cell phone rang. It was the dormitory head.
“What’s up?”
“Xander, are you okay? Why aren’t you in the dorm?”
“Oh, I just went out for a walk.”
“Okay. We were all just worried about you. You kinda seemed suicidal last night,” he joked. “By the way, today is Haley’s birthday, but she couldn’t reach you, so she asked me to find out if you’d go celebrate with her. Apparently, she mentioned it to you a few days ago.”
Hearing this, Xander scrolled through his missed calls. There were many, including one from Haley.
Haley was Xander’s coursemate. She was very beautiful, and he had actually had a crush on her before he started dating Jasmine.
Now that he’d broken up with Jasmine, Haley was the only female in his life. Well, now it was her and his sister, Scarlet.
- Writer
