Marius Gabriel Laurent, my father's younger brother, vice chairman of Laurent & Cie, and my father's most trusted man, is also the one who is currently after my life to become the next chairman.
Crazy enough, my uncle has two daughters, and in the Laurent family, women usually don't become the family leader for various reasons — mainly because women are meant to live a comfortable, easy, and safe life, unlike men who can bear the shit.
I don't know if it's backward thinking or feminism in a twisted way, but every girl in our family has more freedom than any of us. While men in the family are basically after each other's necks, the women hold some of the wild cards.
My uncle and father share a strong sense of brotherhood, mostly because of how my father took care of my uncle after my grandmother died while giving birth to him.
But that uncle of mine is after my life for the next patriarch position.
Standing right under the pine tree, city far from sight with no human being in my hundred-meter radius, my blood dripping down from my knuckles, I hear my uncle muttering curses under his breath.
"You seem to be in a good mood," I say mockingly, and it only adds fuel to his anger.
"Aren't you running too wild, nephew?" He growls low and dangerous, full of malice.
I chuckle.
"I have been raised into wildness, Uncle," I sneer arrogantly. "Why not say something new? I won't mind sending twenty more coffins."
And he snaps, ragefully knocking down something in front of him.
"AARON WILLIAM LAURENT! YOU LITTLE—"
He doesn't finish. My ears perk, trying to guess where he might be right now.
The only place where he doesn't curse is when Aunty is around or in the next room. I click my tongue, a dirty thought crossing my mind.
"You know, Uncle? I really pity your wife," I say coolly. I hear his breathing stop for a little while before his rage radiates through the silence on the other side of the phone.
I continue pushing his buttons. "I mean, she thinks you are some good man who goes to work at 9 AM and is home by 5 PM," a low whistle leaves my mouth. "What would happen if she knew how her husband is a—"
"Don't you dare finish that sentence, nephew!"
A twisted smirk and beastly satisfaction make me feel lighter.
"I was just kidding."
"Then don't kid." He threatens coldly.
I shake my head, smirking. "Then don't make me show your true colors to your wife, Uncle."
He groans in frustration. I'm sure if I were in front of him, I would have gotten at least three ribs broken, given how protective he is over Aunty.
"I'm going easy on you only because you are my nephew," he says with his voice low and cold, as if he's doing me some mercy.
And he is actually doing me some mercy. If Uncle goes all out on me, with Julian holding his gun at me, Sebastian's vengeance, and that person's constant eyes staring down at me from places I have no idea about...
I am already too fucked. My smirk slowly disappears, replaced with my usual façade of coldness.
"Why did you put spies in my teams within Laurent & Cie?" I ask coldly.
Uncle sneers in annoyance. "Of course, to find dirt on you, or even better, to kill you."
I inhale sharply, my throat tightening with a strange gut feeling. Julian placing ten spies is more straightforward than Uncle's.
"Oh really? I thought you were following my father's whim," I say casually, but there is nothing casual about it.
For two seconds, Uncle goes silent, and my heart drops in a very silent, subtle way, because those two seconds of silence are enough to tell me...
My gut feeling was right.
It's my own father who is using Uncle to bait me and harm me.
"It has nothing to do with Chris," he denies firmly, masking the slight turmoil in his voice.
I don't know why, but something inside me creaks — just a little bit. There are so many scars on my body, but I carry more unseen scars than my body has ever seen.
My eyes grow heavier despite me telling myself again and again...
I won't look for family love.
But whenever situations like this arise, I become the four-year-old Aaron who was begging his father to save him from his mother's tortures...
Only to hear, I would never fight for you. She hates you, so I hate you too.
My blood goes cold, pain in my knuckles forgotten.
"Nephew?" Uncle nudges from the other side, his usual voice full of disdain.
"Don't keep messing with me, Uncle. Next time, I will send the coffins to your mansion with records of your misdeeds for your wife to see."
I hang up the call. It was a childish threat but enough to keep him in line for a while.
The silence of the woods makes the noise in my head grow louder.
["You look like him! You look exactly like him!"
"It's all because of you! It's because of you that I am stuck with this psychopath!"
"You should have never been born! I hate you! I hate you! I hate your blonde hair and blue eyes! I hate that you reach out for me! WHY DON'T YOU JUST DIE!"
"How could you stay alive even after I set fire to your hair? Why does your father stay unaffected even after seeing you in this state!"
"Aaron... never fall in love. You will ruin any woman you fall in love with, just like your father ruined my life."]
I hold my ears tightly, my legs glued to the ground, breathing feeling like the biggest chore.
I remember my mother's monstrous green eyes staring at me, laughing at my pain, calling me by my father's name like she was hurting him, not her own little son.
And my father... he saw it all, yet never came to save me.
I was a kid, but I wasn't clueless.
I was never loved.
Never cherished.
Never wanted.
And here I am again... unable to cry, unable to scream, unable to mentally step out of that mansion that ruined my childhood.
I pull out my phone and call Li Zhao. In that particular moment, I realize how numb I have become... how dangerously inhumane I am becoming.
Li Zhao answers within three rings, his voice laced with his usual playfulness. "What's up, Ron? Missing me?"
I don't return his playfulness. "How many spies are we left with?" My eyes blankly stare at my rough, blood-patched knuckles.
"Hmmm... eight spies from Sebastian's side, eleven spies from your uncle, and around twenty more spies from several other rivals and secret intelligence forces included," Li Zhao informs casually, as if he isn't holding the key to the information that could destroy me.
"Kill Uncle's spies and..." I pause, my heart hardening with intense emotions too raw for my usual self. "Send them to Laurent Manor in Geneva."
Li Zhao gasps, sitting up in one swift move. "Wait... you want me to send the coffins to your father? But why?" His voice is full of confusion until he connects the dots.
"It was your father..." Li Zhao whispers, almost inaudible.
I say nothing. Or maybe I'm just too tired to speak.
He doesn't ask much. "I'll handle it." With that, he hangs up the call, and I know he means it.
A bitter, heavy laugh leaves my mouth.
I always had my doubts that the main hand behind the dangers I face every other day isn't actually my uncle himself.
God forbids, that man would rather spend time with his wife and chase away boys from annoying his daughters than come after me in such a subtle way.
If he truly wanted to kill me or just take over the chairman's position after Father, he could do it by snapping his fingers. That old man is one of the most powerful men in Europe, after all.
But every danger and threat I face comes one by one. While it might seem harmless at first, in the end, accumulated — it would become my death.
"You have the most fucked-up luck, Aaron," I mutter to no one.
As I close my eyes, head still resting against the pine tree, all I can think of, other than the negativity, is Nova.
Well, even she doesn't seem to want me. My mother said I should never fall in love because I would ruin that person, just like Father ruined her.
And she isn't wrong. I can feel this innate madness, this moral-less feeling of just caging her and forcing her to love me.
I am thinking of making the same mistake my father did. But what can I do?
I never planned on falling in love, wanting love, wanting someone to just give me a chance to treat her with all the love and tenderness I have locked away within myself.
However... life never goes according to plans.
I am in love, and the woman I love doesn't love me. And that realization is killing me — and making me hate myself.