Chapter 307: 307/A Torn Pride Behind the Mask
Chapter 307:
Robert’s POV
I leaned my body back slowly, resting my weight against my luxurious brown leather chair behind the desk, and let out a quiet, deep, and exhausted sigh while distributedly watching the business papers and reports scattered before me. In that quiet moment, the wooden door opened with complete calmness, and Carlos entered, his sharp eyes carrying features of stern seriousness and worry, and he uttered my name in a low and measured tone: "Robert."
I raised my head and looked at him with steadfastness and sharp glances, then pointed with the palm of my hand toward the empty leather seats opposite me and said in a loud voice: "Yes, Carlos... come, enter."
Carlos advanced inside with balanced steps, then sat on the chair directly opposite me, and rested his elbows heavily on the polished wooden desk surface while interlocking the fingers of his hands with slight tension and an anxiety that appeared clearly in his eyes before he spoke: "Don Morgan is trying to completely paralyze our work and movements in the market... he is a man who does not tire or weary of pursuing us!"
I maintained the coldness and complete dryness of my features, and moved my silver pen very slowly between my fingers without any shaking, fear, or retreat appearing on me, and said with complete confidence: "Leave him alone... he will not be able to do anything real to demolish our empire."
Carlos leaned his body forward more toward me, and the lines of his face tightened with increasing anxiety, and he knitted his eyebrows in distress, saying: "But there are distributors who have already stopped providing raw materials and drugs to us because of his threats, and we now have a sharp shortage in productivity and distribution."
I swung my pen for a few moments in the air, then placed it on the table with a complete calmness that shocked him, looked directly into the depth of his eyes with a sharp, confident, and scary glance, and said: "He is simply retaliating in this manner because we spoiled and destroyed all the recent weapon shipments that he carefully distributed to the local gangs."
Carlos nodded his head with comprehension and knowledge of the events, and his tensed shoulders relaxed a little, but the tone of his voice remained serious as he said: "Yes, that is correct, and because those gangs became resentful of him indeed, and he lost his credibility and prestige before them... now he is trying to strike us at the core of our work and trade as well to regain his balance."
I adjusted my seating on the leather chair, and crossed my arms firmly over my chest with stern and harsh features that did not carry a single atom of fear of Morgan’s threats, and said in a decisive, dry tone to end this discussion: "I told you to leave him... he will not do anything capable of budging us."
At that moment, a light and hesitant knocking sound on the door reached our ears. I spoke in a dry and commanding tone: "Come in."
The door opened slowly and Olivia entered with soft, heavy steps, and stood before our huge desk, gathering the features of her face with affectation, and said softly: "Good morning, Mr. Robert," then turned her head quickly toward Carlos and added with a light and fabricated smile: "Hello, Mr. Carlos."
I darted a vacant, cold look at her, devoid of any interest, and said briefly and with detachment: "Yes, Olivia... what exactly do you want?"
She interlocked the fingers of her hands with slight confusion and pressed upon them, and said with amiability: "Sir, I only came to see if you want anything from me or if you need me to finalize some transactions."
I answered her coldly and without blinking my eyes that were settled upon her: "Nothing, I am not in need of anything."
Her feet moved with noticeable anxiety and tension on the floor, and she asked with urgency: "Shall I bring you a cup of hot coffee, for example?"
I replied with firmness and distress: "No, I do not want any."
Olivia took another step with an audacity in which she approached the edge of the desk, and tilted her head with coquetry and a miserable, failing attempt to draw my attention toward her, saying: "Sir... do you want me to bring you something else other than coffee?"
In that defining moment, I narrowed my eyes with malice and looked at her with a sharp, piercing, and scary glance that made her shoulders stiffen completely in their place, and I said in a low, crushing, and stern voice: "Has your provocative stupidity increased excessively these days, Olivia?"
Her eyes widened in terror and the stone of shock, and the color of her face paled completely, so she retreated a quick step backward and said in a trembling voice, frightened by my tone: "I... I am very sorry, sir, I did not mean to."
I pointed with my index finger powerfully toward the exit of the room and said with a decisive command and a tone that accepts no argument: "Go... get out quickly!"
Olivia turned around very quickly and went out running with fast and fearful steps, and shut the wooden door behind her powerfully, making a sound.
I turned my face toward Carlos, and found him leaning his back comfortably backward, looking with amusement at the closed door, then he directed his cunning, wicked glances toward me and said in a provocative tone: "She is trying in every way to get close to you and win your satisfaction."
I moved my head with complete indifference and said with detachment: "I know that already."
He raised his eyebrows mockingly, asking with clear slyness: "Do her charms not please you? She is a beautiful woman."
I fixed my sharp eyes directly into his eyes and said with detachment and harshness: "You know the answer already, Carlos, so there is no need to mess around."
Carlos sighed deeply and his patience ran out, and the features of his face changed quickly to complete seriousness as he asked with caution: "Are you still actually searching for Julie’s place?"
I pressed powerfully with my iron fist onto the surface of the wooden table and said in a decisive and stern tone: "I have never turned away and I have never braked from searching for her."
He leaned his body forward again and asked in a low voice and with vagueness: "Do you still truly love her after all that happened?"
I averted my sarcastic gaze from him toward the small shark tank and said with a false coldness I was trying to convince myself with: "No, I do not love her."
He knitted his eyebrows in confusion and wonder at my hesitant reaction: "Then... if you do not love her, why do you consume your men and your effort and search for her with this madness?"
I turned to him quickly, and the features of my face tensed with extreme harshness, and I uttered from between my teeth with malice and hatred: "So that I can teach her in my own special way how she can play a man like me and get away with her deed!"
Carlos fell silent for seconds, recalculating his accounts, then scratched his jaw in deep thought and said: "And why did you believe Morgan with this simplicity when he told you with confidence that he did not kidnap her or hide her from you?"
I took a deep breath and answered him with realism: "Yes, I admit that I suspected him and his men in the beginning when Julie disappeared suddenly without a trace, but Morgan has a principle and pride, Carlos... if he does a thing or undertakes something, he will say with the fullness of his mouth that he did it and will not hide like mice."
Carlos shook his head with slight conviction and said: "Then you, by this talk of yours, are saying and confirming that she ran away of her own will... but why would she do that? She used to love you madly and hold onto you!"
My chest contracted with a stormy pain and a burning heartbreak that I tried to conceal, and I said with a bitterness that filled my inside: "She was never like that... she only wanted to take revenge and destroy me."
Carlos’s eyes widened in real astonishment and shock, and his seating adjusted with a sudden rush, and he shouted in complete denunciation: "Take revenge on you?!! And why for hell’s sake?!"
I nodded my head and clouded my hateful glances, saying with confidence: "I strongly suspect that she knew from the beginning that her real mother is the cursed Violet."
Carlos waved his hand with a lack of conviction and a refusal of my idea and said: "Yes, you have told me this story and these suspicions before... but I never think that Julie knows of this complicated matter; even Marcus, my nephew, told me himself in detail that Julie was surprised and shocked by the existence of a twin to her mother and did not know."
I let out a sarcastic, bitter, and harsh laugh and said mockingly: "She is just a brilliant actress and a deceiver of a high caliber... I suspect that she knew every detail and piece, and agreed with her mother in secret, and ran away and disappeared completely just as she is now in cold blood."
Carlos sighed in distress and impatience, looked at me with a look of regret, and shook his head in helplessness: "I truly think that you are exaggerating excessively and imagining things that have no existence, Robert... for Julie’s disappearance in this manner is making you lose your sanity and balance gradually."
At that exact moment, violent rage exploded in my veins and went out of control, and I raised my heavy palm and brought it down with a violent strike that echoed like thunder on the desk surface with a force that made the papers and pens shake violently, and I screamed with features congested with blood and eyes flashing sparks: "I have not lost my sanity yet! I am not a reckless teenager whose feelings are played with, Carlos, for you to say this nonsense!"
Carlos retreated hastily with his body backward on the seat and raised both of his hands quietly and in an attempt to absorb my raging anger: "Okay, okay, calm down... I say this because you have become excessively angry and revolt quickly in these recent years, unlike your usual calm and stern habit."
I narrowed my eyes and looked at him with challenge, doubt, and clear suspicion, and my jaw convulsed violently while I asked him in a terrifying tone: "What exactly are you hinting at by this talk of yours?"
He moved his shoulders with simplicity and a suspicious coldness: "Nothing, I am not hinting at anything."
I advanced with my body rushing toward the edge of the table, and my glances ignited with rage and threat, and I said in a roaring and scary voice: "Are you insolently hinting that Julie and her intelligence are what make me angry and lose control? Ha... say it clearly, Carlos, and do not be ashamed!"
Carlos replied with complete calmness and balance while looking into the depth of my eyes with challenge: "I did not say this talk or hint at it... you are the one who uttered it and said it by yourself."
I averted my face with a burning nervousness, and struck the table with my fist a light strike filled with oppression, and said with a sharp shouting: "Close this cursed and toxic subject immediately! I do not want to speak about it or hear her name again!"
Carlos nodded his head in complete submission: "Okay, as you wish, we will not speak about it or bring up her mention... just be calm so we can follow the work."
I adjusted my stance, and tried with difficulty and distress to control my successive breaths with difficulty, and said with a convulsion that exposed my reality: "I am calm already... do you not see the calmness in my features?"
Carlos looked at me with a piercing look of deep meaning, and shook his head with clear mockery and sarcasm: "Yes, I see... I see that calmness clearly..."
Then he fell silent for a brief moment, and the glances of his eye changed completely to become sharp, serious, and devoid of any joking, and he added in a dry tone that surprised me and shocked my mind: "I am also searching for her in my own special way everywhere, but I have not told you of this matter before."
As soon as he uttered his final words and that reality, I felt a violent, booming, and fatal shock that tied my tongue; and the temperature of my body rose suddenly, and blood rushed profusely in my veins with a violent rage and madness that I had never experienced before; every muscle in my face and jaw convulsed, and I stood up rushing violently from the chair and shouted with dread, shock, and glances flashing sparks and fires: "What are you saying, for hell’s sake?!"
Carlos remained settled and fixed in his place without any fear, and fixed his eyes with steadfastness and challenge in my ignited eyes, saying with complete coldness that poured oil on the fire: "I want to find Julie’s place at any price."
I gripped with all rage and oppression the edge of the desk with both of my hands with a force until my knuckles turned white and the bones of my hand protruded, and I bent with my entire body toward him with a violent rush and blind madness, and shouted in a roaring voice that shook the entire corners of the room: "What do you mean by this cursed talk?! And why are you specifically searching for her basically, and what is your interest in her?!"
[This Chapter is from Robert’s point of view, requested by my sister who’s been eager to read Robert’s news, lol. ]
