[Summit Partners: CEO’s Office]
Atlas sat in the armchair, the air around him still, almost unmoving. His naturally sharp eyes cast down, staring at the stack of folders on the table. Yet, his mind was drifting to his conversation with Lola this morning.
"That’s my baby. This is where he is."
Her smiles usually carried different emotions, which never failed to make him wonder what else she was hiding. After all, her smile didn’t always look the same. Thus, he often noticed when something was wrong or if there was something that was bothering her.
But earlier, while talking about her own child, her lips were curled up. Her voice was lighter than usual, but her eyes carried not sadness but longing. Deep longing.
"I lost him before I could even bring him into this world," was what she told him. "So, you can say I wasn’t fully a mother. Almost, Atlas. Almost. Had it not been for that car..."
He didn’t give her an answer and just studied the look in her eyes.
"What about the father?" he asked after a moment of silence between them.
Her reaction was different from what he had imagined. Lola chuckled at his question as if she were about to tell him a funny joke. Then, she shrugged and looked away, biting her lip as her answer formed in her head.
"Will you believe me if I said... I’m not a slut?" her voice somehow quieted. "Because my answer to that question is: I don’t even know who the father is."
Because, in a sense, saying she didn’t know the father of her kid naturally led to her character. Not knowing who the father of her child was only gave very few explanations, none of which were good.
"I didn’t know how I got pregnant," she whispered, lowering her eyes as she thought about it. "Nor do I know who got me pregnant."
Until yesterday.
Lola forced a smile as she turned to him. "This is the type of thing you don’t know, so before you bother me... think about all of this."
Think about the fact that she was once a mother to a child she didn’t know how she had conceived, or who the father was. That he was about to pursue someone... like that.
Pretty messed up, huh?
Atlas closed his eyes, drawing himself out of the memory. He cocked his head back until it was resting on the armchair. His hand crept up to his chest; it felt tight with each beat. The look on her face after telling him to think about pursuing her a hundredfold somehow pricked his heart.
"All these years..." he whispered, his eyes partially cracking open. "... I believed it was a mistake for you."
That she regretted that night and believed everything that had happened was a drunken mistake. Hence, she delivered the children to his parents’ home once she had given birth to them. It wasn’t like he hated the mother of his children. In fact, he had understood it if that was the case.
In his mind, she still had the decency to bring the children into this world and deliver them to him. That was enough for him not to hate her. But today, he understood that there was more to her side of the story — something he would never find out just by hiring an entire team to dig up her past.
"She had no memory of that night, and was surprised when she got pregnant," he whispered, tapping his fingertips against the armrest. "And when she was almost due, she got hit by a car."
According to Lola, the driver of the car was drunk. He was quickly apprehended by the police and locked up. However, it didn’t matter to her anymore because she had lost her child. Atlas knew there was more that Lola hadn’t told him, as she was being very careful with the subject. That was why he didn’t press her, knowing she was sensitive about it.
The only reason she had brought it up to him was because Lola didn’t want his interest to turn into hate. She meant it with every fiber of her body when she said she would rather they become friends instead of him getting hurt, or her opening her heart only for it to bleed again.
Knock knock...
After a moment of silence, a quick knock was heard on the door three times. Atlas didn’t move even when the door quietly opened, and footsteps approached him.
"Sir, you called for me?" Allen asked, stopping a few steps from where his boss was leisurely seated.
Atlas kept his silence for a good minute. "Allen, Lola Young had a child."
"Yes," Allen nodded. "It was in the report."
"Exhume the body."
"Sir?"
Slowly, Atlas sat up and gazed at his assistant. His eyes were sharp and focused, half of his face somehow shrouded in shadow.
"I want to know who the kid in that grave is," he ordered. "You still have Lola Young’s DNA samples. Use it to check."
Hesitation flickered in Allen’s eyes. "But, sir..."
"Do it quietly," Atlas cut him off. "Do you understand?"
Allen didn’t answer right away as he pressed his lips together. He had always trusted his boss, but exhuming a child’s grave just because of curiosity was crazy. After all, Allen was still slightly doubtful of Atlas’s claims because there were just too many things that didn’t match.
"Sir, I’d execute the order without fail. However, if Miss Young is important to you, please think about your actions," he said as he lowered his head. "She might not find out about it, but it would hurt her if she did. After all, that is the grave of her son."
Atlas knew that, because as a parent, he understood that much.
"Allen," he called, watching his assistant lift his eyes to him. "I never understood the depth of her sufferings until today, but even then, I barely had a glimpse."
He nodded, brows up. "The last thing I’d do is add more to her pain. However, once I find out all of this had anything to do with the Secret Society or someone in it, I’ll be declaring war. And it’s something I don’t want you to stop me from doing."