Andy’s silence irked Marico. He couldn’t help but be irritated by Andy’s continued silence and lack of response to his offers. Anyone in Andy’s place might already have accepted the deal. Yet, the man of the hour wasn’t willing to utter a word in response.

Marico felt humiliated. His family was also one of the top families of the city. He wondered when had his words lost their value? Not even a paltry police captain was willing to put his trust in him for his own benefit.

Since Marico didn’t get any response from Andy, he stopped talking altogether and just walked silently alongside Andy hoping that the latter might change his mind.

Andy felt Marico’s disappointment. His intention hadn’t been to discourage Windsor family from approaching him. Instead he just wanted to wait it out without revealing his allegiance until the right time. He needed to maintain an ambiguous attitude towards Marico and Hogan so that both could continue making him tempting offers that he could choose from.

Andy threw in a little tidbit to keep Marico’s shaking confidence afloat; at least until the time to choose came. This would also give Andy a way to back out at any time he felt the opposing faction losing their ground.

“Marico, you better take this seriously. Hogan isn’t playing this time. He is willing to go to any extent. You have pushed him so far that he is afraid now. Stay cautious and watch your back at all times; your time in the prison might not be as easy as you are probably imagining it to be. He must have some elaborate plan calibrated for you.”

Marico had been waiting for an answer from him this entire time but when Andy spoke, he pulled out Marico’s very soul with his words. It frightened Marico that Hogan had let loose and was willing to go to any extent now. Instead of being afraid of the suffering that was probably waiting for him in the prison, he was more worried about his two daughters. In his absence, there was a high chance that the three families might try to coerce them in some manner.

Marico turned into the epitome of seriousness in that instant. He thanked all the gods there were that he had already sent off Clara to warn Violet about the situation. Otherwise they might have been caught unawares by the schemes of the three families.

…

Just like Christina was busy dealing with the logistics of the entire sugar industry of the Windsor family ever since his arrival, Violet was busy taking care of the operations. She was making sure that the output of all the sugar production plants could be maintained at an optimal level without compromising the quality and the efficiency of the production process.

She was not only managing all the human resource of the production setups but was also busily calculating and estimating the demand of the sugar in all the various markets that Windsor family had already managed to penetrate. She was now in the process of locating newer and larger foreign markets to introduce her product in. The market research alone was taking up most of her time while the rest was taken up in solving the emergent problems in the production process.

Just when she was about to go look for Christina to discuss the congestion of the vehicle schedules and the working hours of the employees detailed as escorts with the trucks, Clara came barging into her office with tears running down her face.

In all the time she had been together with her sister this was the first time Violet had seen Clara in such a pathetic state. 𝒃𝒆𝒐𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝙘𝙤𝒎

Tears and snot were marring her face but Clara couldn’t care less about it.

Violet was shocked at first but quickly calmed down and held on to Clara’s hand as she pulled her arm to sit beside her on the office couch.

“What happened? Why are you crying like this?” Violet was concerned about her little sister. No matter how strong she tried to be, she was still a little na?ve when it came to most matters and sometimes didn’t understand the way of the world.

“Fa-Father…he is…” Clara stumbled on her words as she tried to tell Violet about what happened with her father. Her continuous sobbing didn’t allow Violet to make out what Clara was trying to say.

“Calm down first. I won’t be able to understand you if you keep talking in your current state.”

Violet poured a glass of water from a jug on her table and handed the glass to Clara.

Clara tried to swat the glass away because she was in a hurry to tell Violet about Marico so she could think of a solution. But Violet insisted on making her drink some water before listening to her.

Left with no solution, Clara hurriedly took a few sips to satisfy Violet.

When Clara had calmed down enough, Violet held on to both of her hands to comfort her to ease the information out of her.

“Now tell me what happened…step by step. Don’t be in a hurry.”

Violet’s comforting and mature voice allowed Clara to calm down a little bit. As soon as she felt more composed, she began to stutter the words she wanted to tell Violet.

“J-Just a minute ago…cops…cops came.”

Violet nodded slightly like a gentle mother coaxing her child to speak slowly at its own pace.

“They took f-father…forcefully.” Clara finally managed to narrate the crux of the situation and immediately caused Violet’s brows to furrow.

“Tell me everything you saw and everything you heard. Don’t miss out a single detail. Did they come to the house to arrest father? Did they tell anything about why they were arresting father?”

Violet was worried about her father as well but she didn’t act like Clara. Instead she was completely cool and calm because at least one of them needed to be. Otherwise, the two of them would end up becoming a crying mess together and the solution to the problem would still be very far away.