Chapter 177 WELL...PASS THE PEAS?
AURORA’S POINT OF VIEW.
The silence that followed Kai’s last words?
It was lethal. Everyone stared at him with a mix of anger, tension, and fear. Dad looked lively but had been quiet for the past three minutes now. He only stared at Kai with a look as if he realized he could not do anything.
The thing is, while my family had money, we did not have wealth. The only reason the De la Vista name holds any merit in this world was because my great-grandfather was able to strike gold one day on an exhibit overseas. He pulled everything he had into it and was able to create money for his son and my father. However, nothing built with hands as inexperienced as my father’s could last.
They thought I did not know, but my uncle made sure my mother knew everything. He sympathized with her because she’d built the company to what it was before she left. Dad knew nothing about business or management. Mom did all of it.
Once he kicked her out of his life and business, the company started to fall to ruins. Hence, his desperate need for a match with the Mercer line. If his daughter married the only son of the Mercers, he could get the company out of the brink of bankruptcy.
Morgan stared at Kai with her mouth agape; her eyes shining with anger, regret, and twisted longing that made me grip onto him tighter. I do not know why I did that….my body moved before I could stop it. When I did, Kai tensed slightly under my grip, probably because he never expected it before he settled again.
“Armando…will you really let this boy speak to me like that?” Denise hissed, her own fake sobs starting now. Morgan really has competition. If I had not lived with and known Denise, I would have thought she was truly sad. She gripped onto my dad’s arm, begging him with her eyes to talk back to Kai for her. However, dad would never dare do such a thing,….not to the son with ties to so much wealth, power, and influence.
After all, the Mercer family was number two of the most influential families in the world, just after the Ravenscrofts, and the Everhart tie.
Dad moved slightly, probably to speak, but then, we heard another voice. “Looks like the party started without me.” I turned to the sound of it. The sight of a man who looked like a much older Kai, his dark hair with grey highlights shining in the light as he gripped his cane with each step.
Kai tensed again, this time, even more so than the last few times. I could tell that he no longer felt so much at ease, almost as if he was ready to head into war the second he heard this man’s voice.
I had never seen the patriarch before….but now, he looked nothing like I could have expected. I’d thought he would be come aging, blundering man who trembled like a bag of bones with each move. However, he did not look like the man in his late fifties that he was. He rather looked in his thirties. His skin was smooth, his hair perfectly jelled, and his dark blue suit looked impeccable.
“Mr Mercer.” Dad smiled, clearly nervous as he pulled himself from Denise’s hold and rushed over to this man.
I watched as my father, the man who had discarded me like trash in a thunderstorm, scrambled across the room to play the part of a loyal dog. It was pathetic. Armando De la Vista, a man who once seemed like a giant to me, looked like a child trying to please a king.
Silas Mercer didn't even look at him. His eyes, those sharp, cold, and calculating orbs resembling Kai; a were fixed entirely on his son. And then, slowly, they shifted to me.
I felt Kai’s posture change again. He stood straighter, his shoulder muscles coiling as if he would snap with just one touch. His hand moved from my back to my waist, pulling me so close that I could feel the rapid, steady thrum of his heart against my arm. It felt like another claim, this time in front of his father, who followed the action with a sneer of disdain.