Chapter Four
Lucas
"Lucas darling, don't fire the housekeeper for an honest mistake. Save your energy for dealing with work and your father. She paused and looked straight at me. Most importantly, visit your therapist."
Yeah, I knew she was going to say that. I nodded and continued eating my food. In the Marines, fasting was a regular thing.
Since the incident, I have not skipped a meal. Not once. However, I exercise for three hours daily to stay fit and in shape.
Cars are one of my favourite things in the world and the thought of driving my BMW M6 sport car to work made me giddy. I temporarily forgot about my housekeeper and that my father and his new wife will be in the stakeholders' meeting. At thirty, one would think that I was mature enough to handle the family business but daddy dearest, like the military, still thought I was unfit.
While the Marines had result-based evidence, my father had no reason to keep ruling the family's empire. I broke the agreement that I made with my father by not returning from the Marines after five years, but it was an act of rebellion and not a valid reason for stalling to make me the head of the company as said in my grandfather's will.
I am not an entitled bastard that you think. Quite the contrary, I had no interest in being in charge of the organisation until I found out about my father's shady businesses. Over the years, he had diverted the company's wealth to fund a drug-trafficking group, support political campaigns and breed mistresses.
Illegal drugs were everything that the company stood against and my father knew that. But between the eight years that I was gone, he thought he could mismanage the company's fund without anyone finding out. In fact, a few of the financial advisors were on it with him.
If he supported the right political campaigns to build power and gain access to authorities, both of which would benefit the company, it would be good. Instead, Father was a charity for helpless politicians and fruitless campaigns.
The era of mismanaging the Ferguson Empire would come to an end. I will make sure of it. I just needed to lay low and wait for my father to fall into my plans.
The drive to the office was quick. There was no time to admire the beauty of the city but I liked the brightness of the sun and the fresh breeze as I drove through the streets of Los Altos Hills.
The Ferguson company was situated in the heart of California. With a whopping seventy floors, it was one of the tallest buildings in the state. The size of the company also points to the array of businesses that we deal in.
The first Ferguson, my great-great grandfather, started the company as a construction company that supplies building materials and manpower. At the end of the century, they were experts in building construction machinery that was shipped to countries across the world.
Today, we are not just in the construction and machinery industry.
We have moved to become sharks in the production of machinery of all kinds, hotels and real estate, tech industries, financial institutions, beauty chains and law firms.
It is important to uphold the vision and objectives of the organisation and since Father has clearly forgotten what constitutes legal and illegal business, it was time for me to step in. Do I have the skills to run the empire? Running an organisation as big as the Ferguson empire is a tacky business. A business that I have had to learn since I was born.
Before my grandfather passed away. While other children were having a science fair, I was in my father's home office sorting out the money. Finances brew in my veins like blood. My grandfather was wise to recognize my strength early and build on it.
I had no real friends in school, most of the students wanted to be friends with me because of my family. Disloyalty and dishonesty were the order of the day. I never had any real friends except Brit, who doesn't exist to me anymore, and guys in the military. Those guys were my family.
Like any warm-blooded man, I enjoyed the company of women. I liked to derive pleasure in a certain kind of way and I got it every time. Girls were available in high school, in college and definitely in the Marines.
My mind was tending towards a dangerous part. The part that I have buried since I left the country. Brittany was everything to me.
At one point, she was everything I wanted and needed but like everyone else, she left. Hers pained me the most. I thought we were going to be friends together but clearly, it doesn't rain pigs.
I thought of the kind of woman she would be now. If she were alive, would her low sensual voice change? She was a bit on the busty side, thanks to chocolate. I wonder if she still had the freckles and glasses. The greeting of the security man brought me back to the present.
There was no time to entertain people who don't exist, it was time to focus on what matters, saving the Ferguson Empire.
The meeting was to be held in the main conference room and I hated that room. It had the least lights in all the other conference rooms in the building. As an advantage, it fitted just all the stakeholders and their assistants.
Today, I chose to sit close to the head of the table close to my father for two reasons. First, the angle was the brightest in the room. Two, it demonstrated that I would soon be seated at the highest table in the room.
The main shareholders, twelve in number, piled in one after the other, some had their assistants in tow. My father strolled in last.
Carlisle Ferguson was a big man. Being over six feet tall and weighing some heavy amount of pounds made him huge. Age has not been careful of him though, you could tell that he was over sixty by merely looking at him.
His salt and pepper hair with blue sharp eyes made him attractive. No wonder, he had rows of mistresses, one of whom he called wife. My father loves being in control. Maybe being in control gave him advantages, respect and fear in business but it did make him a horrible father.
It was not the day to dissect my sad childhood. I was holding it together so that I would not drown the whole bottle of water in front of me or get lost in flashbacks that were threatening to start. Instead, I picked up a pen with my right hand and kept the left, shaky one in my pocket.
The meeting went on and on. The financials, struggles and reports of the analysis were discussed. I noticed how my father controlled the conversation. While the shareholders were talking, he was quick to cut them off.
I noticed that my Uncle Mathew was getting annoyed with the constant interruptions. My father was trying to emphasize who was in charge. It was laughable because he doesn't have the biggest share in the organisation. I did.
My grandfather surprised everyone by leaving his share in the company to me after he died. Everyone including myself was surprised, they thought the shares would go to my father or his brothers instead I got it. My father was not ecstatic at the news, he reduced my "free hours" with the excuse that I needed to spend more time learning how to run the company.
"The financials on our CSR Projects don't add up. I would need a better financial analysis," I said while looking directly at my father. The whole table was quiet. I had the kind of voice and have worked with these people enough for them to know that I knew exactly what I was doing by making the request.
Their eyes darted between me and my father. He cleared his voice and made to speak but before he could, the lights in the room went out. 1…2…3…4 and then it came on. Unlike the conference rooms that I preferred, this room didn't have floor-to-ceiling windows so the room was not bright for four seconds.
Four seconds were enough to catapult me to those months in darkness. Soon, my eyes started closing and I made to stand up. I staggered a bit before leaving the room and proceeded to walk to the bathroom. The hallway swirls in my eyes, I could hear voices of employees coming from the other offices on the floor but my brain could only process 'nothing'. Someone I didn't know led me to the bathroom.
It must have been twenty minutes or more before I broke from my trance. In the early months after my rescue, I only got episodes at night or immediate incidents like too loud noises. Now, meagre things like the light going off for four seconds ruined my perfected demeanour.
I had started questioning my father but fucked up. I just hope the stakeholders don't think so much of my leaving. It would be bad if my father found out about my PTSD. But it would even be worse if the other shareholders got a whiff of my secret.
The quiet takeover that I was planning was going to be ruined. I rinsed my face and made to go back to the meeting after I did something that I should have done since the night I broke my side lamps while in a nightmare. I called and scheduled a session with Dr. Thompson.