ELIJAH [POV] :

"Mr. Elijah? Mr. Elijah, wake up." said my servant while cleaning my room. 

"Your father is seeking you." she said. Her name's Gloria and she's my house servant ever since I was born. 

She's about 62 years old and adores me so much. "You may tell my father that I'm coming." I said while trying to wake my lazy self. 

I am always lazy and my father never liked it. He always says that if I want to rule over the family business, I have to stand up, wake up early and study well. 

I do neither of those things to make him understand that I don't want to become a business man but he never understands what I'm trying to say. 

You're probably wondering why I'm only talking about my father and my mother. Well, I never met my mother because she died. That's what my father says but I don't think that that's the case.

One time, I snuck over to his office to find my report card but found the photo of a pretty woman. There was ink all over the photo. Either my father did it, someone did it or it was an accident. 

I really don't think it's an accident because there was an X on the woman's body written with red ink. It dated over 30 years ago. It is past my age.

I woke up and brushed my teeth. I put my black suit and my Louis Vuitton red tie on. When I came down, there was a woman with a yellow dress and her mom or aunt. 

Damn it! My dad arranged another marriage already?! I thought it would take about 6 months to find another woman! 

My dad is really unbelievable. "Oh, Mr. Lopez. Your son is absolutely handsome! I get where that trait comes from." said the woman while laughing. 

They were looking very.. chic. Probably just another spoiled brat that wants to marry me for money and because I'm good-looking. 

I hate those types of girls. Why does father even think that I'll marry those types of girls?! 

"Thank you very much, miss..?"

"It's Mrs. Martinez, dear." said the woman in the magenta colored dress. 

"And this is my daughter, Elena." she said. I never asked but okay.

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Martinez, but I'm not interested in your daughter. I have more important things to do than getting married, no offense. You and and your daughter may now leave." I said while trying to get rid of these cowards. 

"How dare you say that to my mother?! I came here because your dad and my mom made a deal and you're just kicking me out of your house? This is not how you treat important guests, Elijah!" screamed Elena. 

"First of all, you are not important to me at all. Second of all, who do you think you are screaming at me in my house and referring to me by my name?! And lastly, I do NOT marry spoiled brats. I especially don't like it when they give me attitude. Now get out of my house before I call security!" I said, mad as hell against her DISGUSTING attitude.

"Mr. Lopez! Look at how your son is talking to us! This is utterly useless. Tell him to stop immediately." said Mrs. Martinez, mad against my actions. 

"Do as he says and don't even scream at me, you disgusting woman! And I thought that you were kind and well raised as well for your daughter. Security! Come take this mad woman and her daughter out of my house!" said my father, furious about their bratty actions. 

I was relieved! I got myself out of that thing and convinced my dad not to make me marry that brat. 

I ate my high-fiber morning meal. Father says that it's good to stay healthy and strong. But maybe he's just doing this because he isn't healthy. 

My father was reading his daily morning newspaper. Mrs. Gloria gave me her homemade espresso. I took one sip of it and it already feels like heaven to me.

She used to be a barista at a coffee shop in her late 2o's. That is one of the reasons my father recruited her in his company has our family maid. 

"Your coffee is has great as always, Ms. Gloria." I said while savoring her magnificent coffee. 

"Aww, Mr. Elijah. Thank you very much for the compliment." she said while smiling so much that I could see her whitened tooth. 

"You're always welcome, Ms. Gloria." I said while waiting to take another sip from her coffee.

I told my father that I was going to Arnold's house. Arnold is my best friend since high school and he's the son of a multi-millionaire. We studied at the same business school, as well.

My father likes Arnold's behavior and sense of humor. He laughs at his every joke. At least there is one thing that my father agrees with. I used to have a friend called Jeremy but unfortunately, he wasn't rich like me and Arnold. 

My father told me to stop frequenting him and to not hang out with poor people. He wasn't even thinking about my feelings while saying his rude words. 

"Ok, Eli. But you have to come back for taekwondo class. Ms. Johnson? When does his class start?" he said while looking at his newspaper. 

"It starts at.. 3 o'clock sharp."

Ms. Johnson is my father's personal assistant. She arranges all of his meetings and cancels them if he's busy.  

She tells him if there's a meeting and drives him to work. She pretty much does half of the things Ms. Gloria does to me. Ms. Johnson was recruited a few weeks ago. 

My father's old personal assistant got fired because she was accused of robbery. Trying to rob someone's house while a person is awake is a very idiotic thing to do. 

Why the hell would she think that Ms. Gloria and dad are sleeping at 4 o'clock? Maybe dad but not Ms. Gloria.

I went outside to my driver. "What car do you want to choose, Mr. Elijah Do you want to go in the 2021 Lamborghini Huracan or the 2021 Lamborghini Urus?" said Mr. Syd, my driver's instructor as well as my family driver. 

He's simply the BEST! He aced the driver's exam and he used to be a race car driver, 12 years ago. When I was a kid, my dad would let Mr. Syd drive me to school. He is so fun! 

He always puts my favorite music and he drives fast but smoothly. "Choose whatever car you would like to drive, Mr. Syd. After all, you are the driver." I said. 

"Whatever car I want? This is the very first time that somebody ever asked me in 10 years! Normally, your father would choose his car and let me drive it. Hahaha! I am so excited. It would take some time because you guys have at least 25 or 30 cars in your underground garage." he said while already looking around to search for a car. 

"It's okay. You can take your time. In fact, I still have 8 hours. Plenty of time!" I said, trying to make him feel comfortable while choosing the car. 

If he knew that I was waiting around for him, he would probably panic and choose a random car. He chose the Land Rover defender. One of the coolest cars in my underground garage. Nice choice, indeed. 

While driving for around 10-15 minutes, Mr. Syd decided to stop the car because of the gas. There was no gas at all because my father just bought this car and didn't have the time to ask Mr. Robert to fill up the gas. 

Mr. Robert is the one that fuels up the new cars and old cars my father bought. He does it thoroughly. I decided to go take a look around the city, for a while. 

"Mr. Syd, I'm going to take a look around town. Just call me or text me if you need me." I said while stepping out of the car. 

"Ok, Mr. Elijah but you'll have to come back in 5-6 minutes. It doesn't take so much time to fill up a gas can. Is that okay with you, Mr. Elijah?" said Mr. Syd, worried that I would get lost.

I was so concentrated with looking around the city and said "Yea, yea. I'll come back in 5-6 minutes. I'll come back before you even fill up the gas can. Bye, now!" I said while wanting to go to the shoe store. 

When I came into the shoe store, there weren't my favorite marks, Nike, Jordan, Gucci nor Louis Vuitton.
Too bad. I really needed a new shoe. Mine are getting smaller and smaller everyday. I have a lot in my closets, but there isn't any black shoes. They're all white or a sort of red velvet. 

I left and was going towards a restaurant called MASA. It looked so expensive so I decided to go in. 

When I was walking towards the restaurant, a woman bumped into me. She had a bowl of cereal and had curly dark brown hair. 

She had a black coat with a yellow colored scarf. She was wearing Black Nike shoes. Looks like she didn't have breakfast this morning. This woman looks very familiar. 

Wait a minute.. It's the woman from my father's picture! She is supposed to be 45 years old. Is it her daughter? Or maybe she did surgery to look the same as always. 

But she looks a bit different. She had a beauty mark beside her right brow. She was wearing sunglasses so I couldn't really see her eyes. The woman looked at me and was surprised. I don't know why, though.. She looked at her bowl of cereal, apologized then left. 

I came back to Mr. Syd. He left me at Arnold's house. I greeted him and put my jacket on his couch.  

How is it possible that I saw a woman that looks so much like the woman on the photo from my father's desk? Why would father draw a X on that woman's face? What was their relation together? 

Why did they stop frequenting each other? Is that woman.. my mother? There are too many damn questions! My friend noticed that something was wrong. 

"Hey, Eli? Something wrong? Any problems? It looks like you have a lot on your mind, right now." said Arnold, trying to figure out what I'm hiding from him. 

"You remember the woman on the photo that I showed you a few years back?" I said while trying to make him remember It. 

"I don't.. OH right! The photo with that pretty woman with the brown hair where there was a X drawn on it, right?" he asked, while using specific words. 

"Yes! I saw that same woman, today. But she looked a bit different this time. On the photo, she didn't have a birth mark beside her eye brow but the woman I met did. 

The woman on the photo had wavy hair but the woman i met had curly hair. I wonder if It's her daughter, niece or something.." I said while trying to figure out If It was a relative of hers. 

"It can't be her because she'll be very old by now. She'll be about 48 or 46 years old. Are you sure that you saw a woman that looked exactly like her?" asked Arnold, questioningly. 

"Yes. I am a hundred percent sure! That woman looked around her twenties.. about 24 or 25 years old, I'd say." I said, trying to figure out her age. 

Arnold and I tried to figure out what was going and complicated our minds with a lot of crazy ideas. He said that he was going to research about that mysterious woman and that I should probably watch TV or something. 

He told me it would take a while. I was listening to music and eventually fell asleep. "Eli, wake up. Eli! Elijah, wake up! I found some info about that woman." he said while holding his computer on one hand and the other one, patting my arm. 

I turned off my music. "The name of the woman is Amelia Anderson. She's 48 years old and has brain tumor. She has a daughter named Scarlet Anderson. She used to have a husband but they're now separated. But there isn't the name of the husband. It looks like he's completely invisible in her life. Strange.." said Arnold trying to find some information about her husband.

 "What time is it, Arnold?" I asked, hoping I'm not late for taekwondo class. 

"Oh! It's already 1 o'clock."

"Ok. Thank goodness. I asked because I have taekwondo at 3 o'clock." I said, relieved that I wasn't late for class. 

"I know. You are the one that always forgets about your taekwondo class, you idiot. Hahaha!" he said with a smirk on his face. 

The thing that pisses me off from him is that he always gets the perfect timing to mock me. He acts all kind, traps me, then laughs at me. I don't like it when I fall for his tricks all the time.

 "Anyways, thank you. Do you, at least, know the address of this Amelia? I'm going to go and look around her house. Just to find out more about her lifestyle, you know?" I asked Arnold.

"Yea, ok. She lives on 999, Grey road. The postal code is A1B 9H0. Good Luck and try not to get caught, okay?" he said, worried about me. 

"Yes. Don't worry about me. I bet they have a pretty big garden so I can just sneak in and take a look. So, all good. Bye!" I said, while putting my jacket on. 

"Bye!" he said, waving his hand right and left.

I went outside and asked Mr. Syd to take me over there and wait for me outside. It took a while but we were finally there. 

"We're here, sir. Call me when you come outside so that I can get the car ready." he said while getting himself comfortable. 

I stepped out of the car and tried searching for a luxurious house but all I saw were apartments. Are they poor? 

I went in the buildings one by one. There were so many buildings so I just decided to use the map on my phone. I went straight then took a hard right. There it was. Apartment building #4.
I went in and saw on the big screen on which floor the apartments. There was a whole floor for apartments #950 to #1000. 

I didn't want to waste my time so I just asked someone who worked there to help me find the address. A woman named Rebecca led the way. She led me to an elevator that was between the secretary and the waiting room. 

We finally came there and the moment we got out from the elevator, I bumped into someone. Amelia Anderson's daughter, Scarlet Anderson. And there it goes again...