Eighteen Again: The CEO's Wife was a Delinquent

Adrian didn’t falter.

With a hiss, he shot back, "And you’re already corrupted long before you could discover your potential, weren’t you, Grisham Donovan?"

Grisham flares up.

His eye twitches, the madness from before returning full-force, burning through his eyes like a coiled snake, sneering at one from behind the glass of a cage. He then went on to rant, "What makes you think you can get all critical on me? You think I’d actually accept your flimsy excuse of an offer? I’d rather die than allow myself to conform to your idyllic, irresponsible, incomprehensible, blasted ideologies! You hear, Adrian?!"

His fist slams against the table. The scratching sound of a chair scraping back nearly causes Adrian to flinch, but he holds his ground at the madness flashing in his grandfather’s eyes - the remnants of the family head that he had left behind. His greatest failure, right before his eyes.

Grisham stalks forward.

"I had hoped tonight would move along smoothly. Keith became the best of the best, you know. Managed to work undercover for years. I should’ve kept Sophie around. She’s practically manipulating him even though she’s in a comatose. Still, her ex-fiancé is no match for her supposed-to-be fiancé. Too many loose ends. You’re still a better puppet, Adrian."

From within his coat, Grisham reveals a revolver. He draws out the weapon, and he points his weapon at Adrian and Irish.

"Though, to be fair, his loose ends are you."

Anthony growls. Adrian holds out an arm to him.

"I should still thank you for coming to visit..." Grisham continued, his smile crooked and cruel and everything that haunted Adrian’s nightmares since.

"Gives us folks a great big advantage, you see."

Alarm bells ring in Adrian’s head. He opens his mouth to speak, but Irish beats him to it.

"Advantage, you say...?" Irish muttered, her gaze narrowing and shifting from Grisham to the stairs.

"What’s upstairs, Grandfather?"

"Nothing important. Just valuable merchandise-"

"Cassidy. She’s here, with you, isn’t she?"

The alarm bells ring louder. Adrian clenches his fists, stepping forward. Then, an SOS signal suddenly comes. From his spot in the shadows, he sees Anthony’s jaw clenching.

"Perhaps..." Grisham drawled, his voice dragging Adria out of his thoughts, while he shifted to the right and blocked the pathway to the stairs.

"In any case, that woman is close enough to dying-"

"Haven’t you killed enough...?!" Irish bellowed all of the sudden, her shoulders quaking with what Adrian and Anthony thought might be fear or anger or both.

"We gave you a chance. We said you could-"

"I could live?"

Grisham snorted then, his grip on his revolver perpetually tightening. The muscles of his hand strain against the turmoil that shows through his eyes. Irish stood still, unwavering.

"Don’t make me laugh, Irish. My head was meant for the guillotine the moment Adrian decided to reform the entire system. You don’t get to make choices like that. Everything is set in stone. We are the bearers of the future. Your flimsy little ideal - what was that? Hope for a better future? Through the destruction of everything our family has held dear for many years? I don’t think so."

"Grandfather-"

"You never cared about our family, Irish. You’re a hypocrite. So, shut up and go back to being a clown of the entertainment industry."

Grisham ploughed on, his tangent growing more and more distraught, more wrought with rage, uncontrolled, unhinged, as though he has nothing left to lose. Irish supposes he doesn’t – and that makes him dangerous.

"You, Adrian, Edward and Olivia! You all never cared about anything other than those faceless puppets and careless ideologies! Nothing mattered to you! Nothing! Not even-"

"I understand my own mistakes, Grandfather..." Irish said quietly, her voice trembling.

"You’re right. I’m like a hypocrite."

The guilt unfolds slowly.

Irish holds his intent stare for a moment. She then gives a quick glance at Anthony. That’s the cue. His hand reaches for his own gun that’s hidden in the confines of his suit.

"Still, I’m not like you nor my mother. I know my own sins. Do you know yours?"

"My only sin..." Grisham spat out.

"Was not killing you the moment you decided to walk in here!"

Grisham lunges forward without a warning, his revolver pointed beyond. Ready, Antony steps back, countering the attack. The SOS signal blinks urgently in his peripheral vision. With that, he makes his move.

Adrian also wastes no time.

"I’m going upstairs!" he told Anthony and Irish.

They nod quickly in understanding. He dodges the melee to run against the stone crates and break them with the force of his run, still making sure to keep safe from harm. He rams into the crates, breaking them open and apart and into splinters. A plume of dust surrounds him, making him cough and cover his nose.

Adrian continues on his way up, the clamor of bullets against bullets vibrating throughout the walls behind him. Despite his weakened state, he rushes up the stairs, his mind fleeting around with images of Cassidy’s probable condition.

’How would I find her? Would she be all right? Would she-’

Adrian bursts through the top of the stairs, through the door that stands in his way – only to find that the second story is an empty room. No Cassidy in sight.

"What the?"

He glances around, sweeping across the room despairingly, looking for any sort of clue. The room is inarguably bare. There are no boxes, no supplies. There is no furniture nor fixtures.

There’s no Cassidy.

Frantic and desperate, he clamors for some sense of hope and rushes around the room, looking for any sort of hidden doorway or hidden attic - some hollow space where she might be, where she might call out, where he might find her.

’No, no, no... I can’t lose her. Can’t lose her. Not again. I can’t lose her again.’

There’s no shipment today, he thinks disjointedly, his frail fingers trailing over the rough edges of the wooden walls, glazing over some termite nests, over holes, over hollows. All boats are scheduled for this evening. No one has left. She can’t be gone. She can’t be.

He checks.

He checks, more than once, more than twice.

’Everything has led up to this - to finding her again, and yet... yet-’

He coughs, his nose inhaling the tangy breath of dust from before, his body giving out on him, and as he sinks into the ground in coughing fits, he realizes something particularly distinct about the smell. He’s inhaled something similar before - something with this metallic scent, with this disgusting effect. Only then does he realize that the dust coating his hands are coarse, the grains sticking to his skin too thick to be considered dust.

At that moment, Adrian knows he’s screwed again.