“There’s a second breach! They are liquidating assets again and selling customer information simultaneously!” Everyone’s head snapped back to the door, revealing Ramy, Haerin behind him holding up a tablet streaming the news. Caroline felt shocked, her own computer hadn’t gone off at this despite her programming. However, she didn’t let her shock slow her down. “Henry, get on the other computer!” Her son had already sprung into action, the older son not standing around uselessly either, neither the husband.

Samuel called his wife, within moments having her help the genius programmers hold fort so they could focus on the main priority, customer confidentiality. Meanwhile, Marcus was coordinating with the security to put the building on lockdown and start a hunt to find which terminal this second wave had come from; all thoughts of the former plan to weed out the mole with mind games were gone.

The Lore’s watched as the family seamlessly reacted to the crisis, minimal talking but somehow communicating perfectly, almost as if the whole family were telepathically connected. Each working on their own part yet somehow meshing it into a system that worked.

John knew that if it was just him and Hanna in a similar situation, they could coordinate in such a manner, but he was also confident that did not extend to working with him entire family. He and his wife were both amazed that the four person unit worked so fluidly, that the Reyes’s sons were both adept to working within crises.

Archer and Joshua were both equally shocked, however they couldn’t stop signs of amazement showing on their faces. They had worked within their parents’ company since graduating, both quickly rising to high positions, not just because of their family but also because of their leadership skills and specialisations. And while Archer – as the first son – got some training here and there on how to run the company as a whole, he was rarely involved so heavily during high stress situations such as this, it tended to be human resources or finances or public relations. He was more involved with overseeing projects within the company. Joshua was in a similar situation, even though he was younger, working with the shares and finances, he had seen his fair share of panics within the department, but like his brother he tended to be an overseer since their employee always seemed more than capable.

The young man was perhaps the most amazed by this. He knew that he was lacking in skills, in fact after the encounter with Henry that weekend, he was made painfully aware of it. However, he had thought that perhaps it as the man being of a social nature with a good eye for reading people. However, now that he watched him typing furiously fast, perfectly calm despite his family’s livelihood at risk, despite the responsibility of innumerable people being partly on his shoulder; Joshua could see that the young man was diversely skilled.

He couldn’t help but admire him, however he also cursed the slow inferiority complex that had blossomed since meeting Henry.

Meanwhile, his family had slowly shifted their attention from the well-oiled machine of the Reyes family to their own second son. Seeing him so intently looking at Henry, and only Henry, they just found themselves more and more assured that there would indeed be a marriage.

Their thoughts were not unprecedented.

Unbeknownst to Joshua, as he was staring in awe at his peer, the worry lines on his face from the last couple days had disappeared, his face now calm with a mellow smile faintly visible on his lips.

The image was almost serene.

Of course every one of the prestigious family members were beautiful, and it was no doubt that the Reyes’ were on the same level, however Joshua’s looks were unique even among them. His delicate features, lean body and translucent looks made him stand out amongst the others because while they were all good looking, he was perhaps the most beautiful of the bunch.

This wasn’t news to his family, they had heard numerous complaints from Penelope when she was younger, complaining about how her elder brother was more beautiful than her. However, the young man had been under a lot of stress due to the fire – and more predominantly, the marriage meeting, a fact they were still uninformed of – and even this morning he seemed a little worn down, even if the man himself thought he was back to his usual self. Seeing him reaching his former self simply from seeing Henry Reyes, it gave them an indescribable, good feeling.

Meanwhile, Marcus and Samuel had gotten a few laptops between them and set themselves up at the middle end of either desk, still both on the phone. The job they had taken under was damage control: emailing clients and investors on the situation, assuring everyone that they had the situation under control, calming the employees and guests of the sudden lock down procedure and making sure they were retrieving sold customer information before it gets into the wrong hand whilst compiling a list of those who had already been. They were in charge of making sure that the situation didn’t get any worse.

Essentially, the family had split into two groups, one side defending and attacking, ensuring to erase all the information the Q Group had stolen and stopping the liquidation – this was Caroline, Henry and Samuel’s wife, Meena; the other side was cleaning up. Between these five, the PR department, security and tech team, the situation was appropriately handled with minimal damage.

While to the Reyes’ it had been a gruelling amount of time before their company was safe, to the Lore family it had been a mere 30 minutes, a half hour that flew by as they watched the stunt the other family had put off. In fact, John was now starting to question how they had always been a step behind them, yet working at such an astronomical pace.

In reality, when the two companies were put side by side, they were both equally as capable. In the favour of the Lore’s however, their company had been established three generations above the current presidents, around the same time the Q Group had started to become big. The Reyes’ family was founded by both Caroline and Marcus’s fathers, who had been best friends and initially set the company up as a way to fund their university and living expense. This was at a time no one could even dream of competing against the notorious Q Group or the exponentially growing Lore Inc.

However, slowly the Reyes’ – both founders had the same surname by coincidence, it had been the seed to their lifelong friendship – grew until it reached unimaginable heights, Marcus and Caroline then bringing them up to the level of the same as the two ‘god-tier’ companies.

But the time difference meant that even if they were always on their tales, they could not quite catch up, purely from lesser experience.

That all being said, John and Hanna were both aware that the family had started to close the gap faster over the recent years. This had helped them with pressure, causing exceptional growth of their own company, however now that they had seen just how well they work, even with their youngest still in his training phase. There was no doubt in their minds that if talks about the merger hadn’t come up, within the next couple quarters, they would have lost their spot as the second most profitable company of the country.

“I am so sorry about this, we were supposed to have a talk,” Caroline finally said, standing up and picking up a file from her desk to fan herself with. Hanna smiled, shaking her head. “It was no problem, honestly quite insightful. The chemistry amongst your family with incredible.”

“That’s wonderful of you to say, however I can’t imagine it having been much fun watching us trying to stop our company being liquidated.”

“Quite the opposite actually,” Archer spoke up, “it really was amazing to watch. The merger couldn’t have come at a better time, you are on the brink of beating us on your own.” Henry felt like rolling his eyes at the pleasantries, almost finding it difficult to see them as truthful – the comments were, in fact, of the highest level of sincerity.

“I do not really think that is our priority at the moment,” Samuel interrupted. “The facts are that we plan to combine companies to essentially overthrow the Q Group, we need to figure out how to do that while we still have a company to merge with yours.”

“We can’t merge if they actually push the Reyes to bankruptcy. Even if they can handle themselves for now, this is the group’s attempt to ruin them before they become untouchable, we don’t know to what extents they will go to get rid of the company if they don’t know that they are on the same level as ours with capability.”

Joshua couldn’t help but find his brothers final comment a little rude, it was as though they were saying the Lore’s were above the Reyes, especially just after seeing the family work in a way that would put them to shame.

However, it seemed like all four family members seemed to have agreed with what Archer had said, the fact stood that the Q Group did underestimate them, the numbers have shown them that the Reyes’s company was below the standard of Lore Inc., it was not something they could refute when it came to revenue, profits or social power. They were well aware that this was what the Lore’s first son was talking about, and so none of them were even the slightest bit offended.

“How about we all sit at the table and then discuss everything?” Caroline offered, motioning to the white, oval, glass table, only ever used when excessive space was needed or a private board meeting was held. Everyone went over from where they were, sitting around the table with the two families facing each other.

“Haerin, Ramy, how about the two of you get something to replenish these four, they were working at quite a pace,” Marcus said, looking back at the two who were now stood idly at the side of the room.

Hearing the man mention it, all four of the Reyes’ family simultaneously became aware that they were all hungry – a bad habit of the family was that unless they had the morning free, breakfast was non-existent. Instead it was swapped with two cups of black coffee. It was nearing 10 and so, after all the work they had pulled off, it came to no surprise that they all just nodded.

Henry was a little confused, the families had acted close when he had arrived, however this whole situation seemed strangely intimate, what you’d expect from close friends or family. He couldn’t quite explain how or why he felt that way, but aside from him and Joshua, they all seemed extremely familiar.

The youngest Reyes’s son was not the only one with this thought in mind, Joshua could not help but feel exactly the same way. Of course he knew that Caroline and Marcus had helped his family greatly over the course of Saturday night and Sunday morning, however, he did not seem to remember anything that would lead them to being so close so suddenly. In fact, now that he was thinking about it, why had his parents been so welcoming to the offer of two potential business partner, and ex business rivals, coming with them to the hospital as moral support.

Had he blacked out the part of the dinner where the two families had a deep heart-to-heart over the table. Joshua was well aware he was quite out of it that night, especially after the shock of being set up with a man, however he was certainly not that far gone, not even after the revelation that his sister had been hurt.

Archer and Samuel were quite strange too. He knew the two must have met each other before but they were very different people, most definitely not within the same social sub-circles. Yet the two seemed to have a good sense of rude humour between them.

The more he thought over it, the less sense everything made.

‘Perhaps the marriage meeting was not just for the merger’s sake.’

For a split second, the same, mortifying thought flashed through both their heads, but it was only a flash, extremely brief and easily dismissed. Neither would ever have thought there would be any truth behind it.

Little did they know, that was exactly the case.