Fanny Luis and Melissa were back at home disgruntled, perplexed and downtrodden. Melissa tucked away at the fire place to warm up her body which was consumed by cold and shrill after her experience at the hospital. She couldn’t stop brooding over the impending vengeance I would spew at them in the days ahead. Avoiding me was as difficult as existing without me. She just couldn’t bear it anymore.
Fanny Luis paced up and down the sitting room, gulped mugs of heavy wine to see if he could get drunk and forget about my beasty vengeance. They had been discussing about ways of raising the money to offset the medical bills of Lisa Bake. Time was running out on them and delay was dangerous.
“I think it is high time we sold this mansion,” Melissa sounded amidst sniffing and clenched teeth. “This villa and the secretariat of the Fanny Group are the only assets we have now and we just have to sell either…”
Fanny interposed her by tossing his head in disapproval, “No!” he beamed, stroked his hair confusedly and beamed yet further, “No daughter! We can’t sell this mansion. Do you know what it means? We are going to fall back on rented apartment or a cheaper house that devalues our status. Despite our shortcomings I am still fanny Luis, the money bag…”
Melissa snarled almost quarrelsome, “Stop this father! Are you still talking about status here? We don’t have status anymore. Brian Patrick has defiled our status.” She stretched her hand to the desk close by and raised some newspaper, “On the front pages of popular newspapers you will find yourself prostrating and bowing to Brian Patrick. Media homes have given it different tags.”
She raised the newspaper in wrath,
“We have tons of them here, father even one of them says; Broke Father-In-law Bows To Rich Son-In-Law. Don’t you get it, we have lost our status. We are nothing and nobody now!”
“Enough!” Fanny stamped his feet on the floor and snapped yet further, “What arrant nonsense. The media can give it any tag. They can go ahead and join Brian Patrick to ridicule me. But I don’t give damn! I am still Fanny Luis, daughter. I once commanded trillions of dollars…”
“Uh…uh…really!” Melissa’s nose fluttered before she uttered, “Very ironical that this same money bag that commanded trillions of dollars can’t afford half a million dollars for his mother’s medical bills.” She drifted closer to Fanny and sounded, “You know they said money can’t save life but this time around you have been availed the opportunity to save the life of granny with your wealth and yet you can’t …”
She sniffed and warm tears leaked through her eyes the moment she caught sight of the sizeable picture frame of us, the one we had on our wedding day at the registry.
“I shouldn’t have listened to you and granny. I shouldn’t have divorced that boy. We never knew we were divorcing the world richest man!” she wailed harder.
Fanny Luis barked, “Stop opening healed wounds! Stop this horrible memory! You stand here nagging about the divorce but you forgot that you never for once rebuked the divorce. None of us knew he was a bad ass trillionaire. All his life he had been a poor, ragged delivery boy and an ex convict!”
Melissa was absolutely jaded. Gradually she held her head and sat on the floor as her lips trembled, “What is the way forward now, father. The doctor gave granny one month to live and by my calculation this is the third week. We just have one week to go…”
Fanny Luis grinned and cupped his jaw before saying, “I would have loved us to sell the secretariat, but then the world richest man has sealed it. If we could get it unsealed we could sell the building and the equipments in it. I believe it would raise more than half a million. We will settle granny’s medical bills and have enough to fall back on. What do you think daughter?”
Melissa grinned and tossed her head feebly, “Why don’t we confront Brian and request that he unseals our secretariat so that we can sell the building and equipments.”
Fanny rubbed his knuckles, “ I guess you got a point there. Since he has succeeded in shutting down the Fanny Group, he wouldn’t stop us from selling what is left of us, uh.”
I was about climbing the stairs to my private jet, when a taxi zoomed into the arena and the doors creaked, opened and slammed furiously.
My security sprang into action and dashed out to stop Fanny Luis and Melissa. But that didn’t stop them from calling on my attention.
“The world richest man!” Fanny and Melissa called at once and then bowed and remained thus obviously waiting for me to say a word.
I had a huge frown on my face but in my head I was all smiles just seeing these two enemies bow to me. I never knew this day would come and I perceived they never did either.
“Fanny and his daughter!” I called, “I can see you are so broke that you can’t even afford the cheapest car. Rather you move around in taxi. Anyways to what do I owe this visit? Speak! As you can see I am about flying to meet with my staff at the oil well!”
“Apologies, the world richest man,” said Fanny, “We have come to see if you could unseal the secretariat of the Fanny Group so that we could sell the building and raise funds for my mother’s medical bills .”
I chuckled mockingly and clapped irritatingly. “I can see you want to sell everything, including your lives. What is your price? I am interested. The money in my account is just too much for me alone. If you are also selling your lives let me know. I can’t wait to buy them!”I groaned.
Fanny and Melissa raised a think brow and lowered their gaze in shame…