Chapter 63

Chapter 63
A little girl. No more than six. Met the heir of the Frantz empire in the midst of peril.
Her knee was scraped, blood drying against her pale skin. While her other leg was stuck underneath a fallen log. Her face was soaked with her tears, seemingly crying for hours.
Her crying hiccuped, confusion swirling in her eyes. Possibly thinking she had died and Anthony was here, dressed in all black, to take her away.
Anthony dropped to his knees quickly after Kerri ignored his stretched hand. “It’s okay,” he said gently, assessing the situation. “You’re okay,” he said, lifting the log easily, finally freeing her.
Arlo hovered a few meters away from them, silently observing behind a tree with furrowed brows.
‘Why would my brother help a nobody?’ was what he was thinking the entire time as he watched from afar.
“Can you stand?” Anthony asked, still crouched, waiting for Kerri to lift herself up on her own… which she did.
Anthony didn’t rush her.
“See? I told you, you’re okay.” Anthony thought showing a smile would calm Kerri down, so he smiled.
Anthony’s features resembled his mother more, an angelic woman, so he was as angelic as Florence. Seeing his face, somehow, calmed the young Kerri.
“You should be proud,” he began, finally standing. Kerri’s gaze was glued on Anthony’s face, so she had to tilt her head backward to look up at him like a wounded animal.
Anthony’s smile remained, “You survived something big,”
All at once, Kerri’s tears came to a full stop. She didn’t fully understand what Anthony said, but she knew it was a good thing.
She should be proud because she survived something.
The two of them emerged from the forest a moment later, hand in hand. Anthony let their staff take care of Kerri, treat her injuries and escort her to town, to where she lives.
The staff took note of the way Kerri’s parents reacted and reported it back to Anthony.
Kerri’s parents were indifferent when she was handed over to them. A reaction not fitting for a mother and a father who had lost their child for an entire day.
“So, are you going to help that kid again?” Arlo was listening in behind a door.
Anthony sharply turned to face his little brother, quickly dismissing the staff he was speaking to with a gesture of his hand.
Now it’s only the two of them.
“No,” Anthony answered, fully facing Arlo. “I had already done my part. She’s strong, she just never knew it. It is up to her to figure it out.”
Arlo went quiet. He will never forget the way Anthony looked back in the forest. He saw an outsider, a nobody, being treated with dignity by his brother. And that concept felt new to him.
Years passed and everything ended for Arlo.
At nineteen, he found himself utterly alone.
It was swift and merciless, a car crash.
His family, gone.
Arlo had been sick that day, left behind by fate or destiny.
The funeral was flawless, and it was the problem.
Everything was swiftly taken care of, every detail precise.
The guest list was long, filled with politicians, tycoons, and some faces he didn’t recognize or ever see.
Arlo stood by the side, in his tailored black suit, staring absentmindedly at the crowd of people supposedly mourning his family’s departure.
He watched the men flick their gaze at him, measuring and judging. Whispering among themselves whether Arlo could handle the business at a young age.
At that instance, he remembered what his mother told him.
‘Never let anyone know what you’re thinking, Arlo.’
He finally understood what that meant. Perhaps his mother was preparing him for when something like this happened. That their family is surrounded by chaos all the time, and one wrong move could invite them all in.
As he watched all three coffins get lowered 6 ft below, he felt nothing but anger crawl up in his spine.
‘I’m not even allowed to grieve,’ he thinks harshly, tightening his fists.
The priest spoke, his voice echoing in Arlo’s mind. Something about endurance and strength. That the Frantz family would still stand tall despite everything.
Someone added a few words about his father’s discipline, her mother’s kindness, and Anthony’s promising future as heir.
Had it gone completely different if he wasn’t sick that day and went with them?
But Arlo had no time to think about it, he didn’t have time to mourn, or to cry, when people came to him like waves afterward.
Shaking his hand, offering condolences like transactions while his insides burned with pain.
“I’m sorry for your loss,”
“You are very strong, Arlo.”
“Let me know if you need any help,”
Not even an hour later, lawyers stacked folders in front of him, contracts that needed signing.
There was no mourning period when he had an empire to rule.
By night, Arlo was seated at the head of a long table. Sitting with him were middle-aged men, business partners, shareholders, eager to take control of his thinking, believing that Arlo was a simple-minded boy that could be manipulated to their whim.
“Your father’s shares—“
“Time is of the essence here, you have to decide—“
“Your father would have approved this project—“
Anthony should be the one here, he’s the one built and groomed for this, responsible and strict. While Arlo was the spare. The reckless one. The one who still resort to childish pranks. The one his mother always lectured about love, to soften him when she noticed his tendency for cruelty.
Days blurred and Arlo had to remain steady. He signed documents left and right, answered important phone calls, allocated funds, while something inside him had been screaming nonstop.
But above it all, Arlo’s breaking point was finding out about the other side of the family business.
Smuggling. Trafficking. And corruption.
At nineteen, Arlo buried his family and inherited an empire soaked in blood.
He couldn’t comprehend why his father would dabble in that sort of thing, and he wondered if Anthony also knew about this and accepted his fate.
Arlo could not breathe, so he left.