Neale reached home at 4:30 after school that day. After bathing and changing out of his uniform, Neale lay down on his mattress and took out his phone. Originally Neale had no phone but Lucas Blake immediately bought him a phone on hearing that he had no phone. The phone he had was an S-23 Ultra. Neale knew the phone cost more than anything he currently owned. Among the things that Neale had received were a bank card and a black card with gold letters. Apparently, with that card, he could enter any shop owned by his father and he'd receive VIP treatment.
Neale switched on his phone and pressed Lucas Blake's number. The phone barely rang before the call was answered.
"Hello Neale, what is wrong, did something happen?" Lucas Blakes's voice came from the other side.
"No," Neale said, pausing as he said his next words carefully. "Pa, I'm ready to move out."
Neale awaited an answer but all he heard was silence.
"Hello?" Neale asked, wondering what had happened to Lucas Blake.
"Ah, I hope you have your stuff packed...actually, don't worry about bringing your clothing. Just bring a few bits and pieces that you might need for yourself. Rachel will sort out the rest for you." Lucas Blake said he was speaking a bit hurriedly over the phone.
"Oh, Okay. But then what do I do with my clothes?" Neale questioned, not hiding the confusion in his voice.
"Keep them aside, you can give them away to someone." Lucas Blake's voice came from the phone.
"Sure thing, I also wanted to let you know that I'm ready to become The king of the underworld. " Neale said to Lucas Blake.
"We'll speak more about that when I meet you later in the day. Right now I'm in an important business meeting in Cape Town. I'll get back to you, for now, Joshua will arrive to pick you up so you should just get ready to leave. Anyways, I've got to go. See you later." Lucas Blake said to Neale.
"Alright, I'll see you then," Neale said in reply to Lucas. Neale cut the call and began to pack what he needed. Besides his clothes, Neale didn't have much so he didn't need too much. All of the things he had taken barely filled his bag. The only clothes did take were his 2 pairs of school uniforms.
In terms of stuff like hair products and skincare, Neale was never a big fan of taking care of his looks. Even though he had Lucas Blake's genes, because he never took much care of himself, his good looks weren't noticed.
"Neale picked up the bag containing his essentials and began taking the stairs, staying patient as he descended. Very soon, he reached the bottom of the staircase.
"FINALLY," Neale grumbled. Neale almost dragged his feet as he left the apartment in which he had lived for under a week. After reaching outside, Neale waited patiently, leaning on the wall of a building as he waited for his chauffeur to arrive. Soon, his ride pulled up, it was a beautiful elegant car, a Mercedes, but Neale could not identify anything more than that about the car. The car window rolled down and Joshua's face appeared from the window.
"Like it?" Joshua asked with a grin on his face.
"It's a nice car," Neale replied.
"Don't worry, you'll be seeing a lot more of these," Joshua said with a smile of amusement plastered on his face.
~~~
Lucas Blake ended his call with Neale and pocketed his cell phone. He adjusted his tie and his coat. Then he reentered the meeting room. The room he had just entered was a wide and spacious one and the walls were made of glass making one able to get a beautiful view of the city of cape town and the beautiful table mountain. Around the table, there were important-looking men, all of them seeming powerful and wealthy, but none of them had a presence that matched Lucas Blake.
"Is there anything wrong Mr. Blake? You seem pale." A businessman with receding hair asked. This was Mark du Plessis, the CEO of a large company in South Africa.
"Yes, and you seemed to leave the room a bit hurriedly to answer. I hope everything is alright," Another man asked, this person was an African male in his middle age, and he had a bald head together with a greying beard. He was James Zungu, one of the directors of the company.
"I'm fine, thank you for your concern, As for what we had been discussing, I am willing to accept your proposition and invest in your company. I will buy 40% of your shares to become the majority shareholder. I think this is all for today as I have to get back to Arkanis. So I hope everyone is satisfied?" Lucas Blake said to everyone present.
"40%! Alright, when will we finalize this deal?" The CEO asked.
"You can finalize it through my assistant a few days from now. I'll be leaving now, Have a good day." Lucas Blake said before standing up to leave. After shaking hands with everyone he left the room. An hour later, Neale Blake was sitting in his private jet with some coffee.
"So he finally decided to come home?" Rachel who was nearby asked.
"Yeah, not only that." Lucas Blake said failing to suppress the smile on his face. "I think he's finally decided to accept me as his father."
~~~
Neale arrived at his new house about half an hour later. As soon as the car stopped in the motor court of the house bunch of guards were ready to escort Neale into the house, soon Neale and Joshua were in the house. Neale realized when he entered that Alina Blake, his half-sister was sitting on one of the comfortable benches in the foyer. Her head was lowered and her eyes were focused on the screen of her phone
"Hello Alina," Joshua greeted. Alina's head whipped up at the sound of his voice.
"Ah, Joshua! You're here. Who is that with you?" Alina asked craning her head to see the person behind Joshua.
"It's your brother," Joshua said, a funny smirk on his face.
"Hello there," Neale said smiling awkwardly as he waved at the surprised girl.
"Huh!? Why is he here? Take him away!" Alina complained before pouting and turning away.
"Calm down, he's going to be staying here from now on so you'll have to get used to him," The driver said as he tried to reason with the child.
"Maybe I was a bit too cold with her that day." Neale thought to himself as he let out a nervous laugh. Suddenly his phone buzzed. Neale removed his phone from his pocket, when he removed the phone, he saw the messages from the class group which Felix had gotten him added on. Neale squinted his eyes to read what was being said.
Kamala88💖🦄[It's my birthday on Sunday! Everyone is invited. Bring your swimwear!]
"Birthday party?" Neale thought to himself. He remembered who Kamala Melik was, her father was the CEO of some big company overseas. He had recently moved to the country to do business. If Neale remembered she was one of the better people in his class. Neale decided he'd attend the party if he could. She said that they would begin at around 5 and they would be done before 11.
"Hey Neale," Joshua said turning to Neale, breaking him out of his thoughts. "Alina here will show you your room before showing you around. It's a pretty large house, so you could get lost if you're alone"
Neale nodded before pocketing his phone and waiting for Alina to reach where they were standing.
She glared at him for a moment, her green eyes burning holes into Neale's head before she turned and began walking through the hallway on the right, all of this she did without even speaking.
"That means "follow me"." Joshua translated, a playful grin on his face.
"So, you can speak teenager?" Neale said sarcastically with a smile before following Alina down the hallway. After ascending to the top floor and walking for what seemed like a while, they reached the room, there were about 4 bedrooms in that corridor. The first bedroom was the one where Neale would be sleeping. They entered the room and Neale was both amazed and not very thrilled to see that the room had glass walls on the 2 sides facing the outside. Neale had a perfect view of the city of Eagles Bay. It was already such an amazing sight, Neale couldn't even imagine what it would look like at nighttime.
Neale looked around the large and beautiful bathroom and noted down the fact that this room was probably the same size as his house back in Kennington. Neale left his back on the bed of his new room and took a moment to admire the sights before him. He also realized that there were glass doors leading out to a balcony that had glass as railings.
"Amazing," Neale muttered under his breath. The breathtaking view of the city had him stunned.
"So, are you going to just stand there, or am I going to give you a tour of this building?" Alina asked, she was leaning on the door with her hands folded, watching Neale like he was some entertaining monkey at a zoo.
Neale rolled his eyes and spoke to her, saying. "Let's just get going."
Neale was escorted throughout the house. He was amazed by the size of the house which had so many corridors that Neale had long forgotten where they had come from. Neale and Alina were heading to the bottommost floor when Neale decided to ask something.
"Hey, Alina. Do you guys have a gym?" Neale asked. His intention when asking that particular question was so he knew whether he could train. Neale was going to be on the boxing team headed to the Regional Boxing Competition so he had to do some extra training at home.
"I'm glad you asked! We have an amazing gym, Just wait until you see it." Alina said, smiling for the first time since Neale had spoken to her that day. She was suddenly enjoying her task of showing Neale around the home.
"Here we are," Alina said to Neale after they walked for quite a while without stopping.
Neale was shaken on seeing the gym. The gym before him was as grand as a small commercial gym, No, much grander. The entire interior of the gym was grandiose. There was a ring in the center and there were punching bags, treadmills, weights, and plenty of other gym equipment.
"Come here!" Alina said running over to a punching machine. "Let's have a contest."
"Sure thing. wow, a high score of 826. Whose score is that?" Neale asked as he examined the machine.
"It's dads. He's pretty proud of it." Alina said as she got ready to punch. She swung her fist, hitting the machine. Neale watched her punch and saw that she did everything perfectly. Her punching technique and everything were on point. The number began rising and soon her score showed. it was 703. Alina laughed as she celebrated. As she celebrated internally, she was thinking to herself", Yes! I beat 700 this time. Haha, beat my score! I have plenty of training so I can get such a good score!"
Neale stepped up to the machine and positioned himself into a boxing stance and then he swung his right fist.
bang!
The number on the machine began rising and Alina who was watching with a confident look on her face expected it to stop at somewhere around 600 but it didn't.
It kept rising.
"600,700,800,900!" The shock was evident on her face as she watched the number rising. It kept rising and stopped at 956. Neale had broken the high score in his first punch.
"Is that good enough for you?" Neale asked with a smirk on his face.
Alina turned away with a "humph".
~~~
Lucas Blake arrived at Eagle Bay international airport 3 hours later. From there he was soon picked up by Joshua.
"Hey Rachelle, I want to have a Barbeque, is there anything we'll need to purchase?" Lucas Blake asked his assistant.
"Maybe we should get some drinks, some vegetables for salad, and some meat," Rachelle said to Lucas Blake. I can make sure we get it all, Furthermore, I'll inform the kitchen staff to staff preparing everything we'll need for tonight." Rachelle said with her robot-like voice. She always seemed calm and professional when speaking.
"Miss Perfect is at it again. You're way too formal around Boss." Joshua said with a laugh.
"And you, are much too informal around Boss." Rachelle shot back.
"Now, Now, Calm down you two. Rachelle please do get everything complete, and thank you in advance." Lucas Blake said with a smile as he watched his two young employees squabbling. Although they were both some of his youngest employees, they were his best ones.
"No problem Boss, and no need to thank me, it's my job," Rachelle said with a smile, Lucas could've sworn he saw her smirk at Joshua.
"Nevertheless, still, thank you very much." Lucas Blake said smiling as he shook his head.
Lucas Blake reached home when it was quite late. A few minutes later, he had showered and had dressed up in a black turtleneck and jeans of the same color.
He only got to see his son, however, after the Barbeque had begun. Neale he heard, had been stuck playing Playstation with his sister.
"She grew up as a single child so she was always very lonely, although she won't show it, she must be very glad she has a brother." Lucas Blake thought to himself.
The barbeque took place on the patio behind the house. There was a seating area around there and everyone present had a magnificent view of the bright city in the distance. Lucas Blake saw Neale come out of the house, he was engaged in conversation with Joshua but when he saw his father, he said something to Joshua before walking over. As the boy walked up to Neale, he seemed like a younger version of Lucas. Everything about him seemed that way. The way he walk, stood, and spoke. Lucas Blake had no doubt the boy before him was his son.
"Hello son," Lucas Blake greeted.
"Hey," Neale said. "How was your day?"
"Eventful, but it was okay. What about you? How was school? Enjoyed your time here?" Lucas Blake asked.
"Very much, I joined the Boxing Club so I'll have to attend training every day but I'm happy. I will be part of the team heading to the Regional Competitions in a month. I'm also enjoying my time here, Alina is making sure of that." Neale said, both he and Lucas were now grilling meat. Everyone else was relaxing in the seating area watching something on the television that was outside.
"Oh, so you joined the Boxing Club, tell me more about that." Lucas Blake said. Neale and Lucas Blake were engaged in small talk for a while before they came to the topic they had been avoiding.
"I'm heading to Kennington tomorrow. I'll have taken over the streets by Sunday hopefully, but I have a birthday party to attend later in the day so I'll do my best to be quick." Neale said, Lucas.
"Tomorrow! By Sunday! You make it sound as easy as eating cake." Lucas said with surprise.
"Only because it is, those streets have been in chaos for long enough. It's time to take back Stray Tiger's streets, It's time to take back Artem's streets." Neale said as he turned a piece of steak over. His eyes were glowing. In it was the light of determination.