**Days before the Wedding**
It all started when my phone vibrated in the pocket of my pants. The casino felt extra lively on that day, and everything seemed to be progressing smoothly. Anthony gave me a call last night asking if I was free to have dinner with him. Unlike his usual self, Anthony sounded worried and a little anxious as he spoke to me on the phone. Although I wasn’t certain, I could sense that there was something that he wanted to talk to me about that couldn’t be said on the phone.
I reached for my phone while half expecting the call to be from my brother. The name displayed on the screen of my phone was one that I dreaded. I connected the line without saying a word of greeting because it wasn’t necessary.
“Where are you?” my father’s voice asked through the phone.
“The East casino...” I replied.
“It doesn’t matter. Come over here right now,” my father ordered impatiently.
The impatience in his voice bordered panic and that made me sense that something was wrong. My eyes narrowed slightly instinctively as I wondered what he needed from me so urgently that I needed to head over to see him.
“Where?” I asked in short.
“The hospital. Come right now,” he replied.
I sucked in a breath but when I was about to ask him about what was going on, the line clicked dead. After removing the phone from the side of my face, I stared at the screen as a strange sinking feel formed inside of me like an uncomfortable void. At that time, I might have guessed already that something serious must have happened to one of the two people that I cared about in my life.
“I’m leaving,” I told one of my men while walking past them.
The man said something in response, but I completely ignored him. At that moment, nothing was more important to me than heading to the hospital as fast as possible. Although I didn’t want to even start imagining it, I had already begun worrying that something might have happened to either my mother or my younger brother.
“Where are your manners?” Anthony’s mother hissed the moment that I entered the hospital room.
Annetta, Anthony’s mother and my father’s legally wedded wife hated me more than anything. It wasn’t like I couldn’t understand why she felt that way. The fact that she became pregnant after my mother must have felt like a slap to her face. She tried so hard to conceive a child to produce the heir of the family just to find out that one of her husband’s mistresses had beaten her to it. Of course, a child born from a mistress could never become the heir of the Vulkan family but that probably did not make her feel any better about the fact that I existed or the fact that I was born before her only son.
Upon arriving at the hospital, one of the doctors that worked closely for the Vulkan family was there to brief me on everything while we covered the distance to the hospital room where my father was waiting for me. I opened the door quite loudly before rushing into the room. It felt like time paused and I was suddenly oblivious to everything and everyone else safe for the figure lying on the hospital bed.
“Tony...” I called my brother’s name in a broken whisper.
The doctor did make it sound like Anthony wasn’t in great shape, but the sight of his body bandaged and connected to various life-supporting machines while lying on the hospital bed wasn’t what I was mentally prepared to see. I’ve seen men lose their lives and hurt much worse than this before, so it was only fair to say that I was used to it. However, I had never expected to see my younger brother and the heir of the Vulkan family in such a state.
“Anthony! Anthony! Tony!” I started yelling his name at the top of my lungs.
I approached his bed while calling his name. Just as I had expected, Anthony was no longer able to respond to my calls. It just felt so unreal to me. His body looked so badly hurt that I didn’t dare lay a finger on him.
“That’s enough. He’s not going to wake up...for a while...” my father stated coldly.
Despite his attitude, I knew that he was the most worried out of the three of us there and that was because on top of his personal worries, he had the future of the Vulkan family to worry about too. Anthony’s mother had begun sobbing and crying in the corner of the room as she turned her face away.
“What happened?” I asked while reminding myself to remain composed and calm.
Anthony was unconscious but he wasn’t dead. For me, that should have been be enough.
“He was speeding and got into a car accident,” my father stated regretfully.
A car accident?
“I see...” I murmured.
“We need to talk,” my father said, and it wasn’t an invitation.
I just nodded my head slightly before following his lead out of the room. My father’s wife silently left the room along with us. Maybe it was because I grew up without being able to trust anyone, including my own biological parents, that I developed a skill earlier on in life in how to read people. That was probably the reason why I could tell almost immediately that my father and his wife were about to ask me to do something that I would absolutely hate. My father’s wife wasn’t talented at hiding her emotions and her over-confident attitude always made her the easiest person to read. We took our seat at a set of black leather sofas located in a meeting room that had been prepared for us.
“You needed to talk to me...” I stated passionlessly.
“There’s something that I need you to do,” my father said as he stared directly at me.
My biological father, Alfred Vulkan, always started our conversation in that way for as long as I could remember.
--To be continued...