Chapter 74 - What do you want?

POV: Aiden

So much for the one year of nicotine patches. This family is out to kill me through mental torture, burning out my lungs, and deteriorating my liver.

I looked out to the front garden, appreciating the reflection of the moon and the stars against the manmade pond. I puffed out the toxic tobacco and immediately took another swig at the bottle.

Seeing Hugo up close after so long shook me up a lot more than expected. You might be thinking that he beat me or something but that wasn't the case. The only physical violence I got were from my brothers. Hugo's was more emotional manipulation and mental fuckery.

His words, his demeanour and his existence was always hostile against me. It probably wouldn't be as bad if I didn't look like my mother with the blue hair and eyes but alas, that wasn't the case.

His approval always meant the world to me after mother disapproved of me. His acceptance was something I was dying for after my mother's rejection.

I quickly learnt that both things were unachievable.

I snorted out loud. "Talk about trip down nostalgia lane."

The only response I received was the wind brushing by.

Puffing of the cigarette and taking a drink out of the bottle in a repetitive cycle seemed to be the only way to calm myself down, so I went down the path of early death.

It was peaceful and my brain loosened up to the point where I thought about how cool it would be if spiders could fly into people's hair and style it with the accompaniment of their web. It would be absolutely bizarre and something that should be invested upon.

The thought was quickly put to a halt however when there was a large shadow that befell over me and the empty spaces around me. Their aura and scent were enough to identify who they were, so without turning around, I calmly greeted them, while taking another hit of the cigarette. "Fancy seeing you gentlemen again. To what reason do I owe the pleasure of thy presence?"

Thy? Fucking THY? Am I medieval drunk now?

"You smoke?" Alex said, rudely ignoring my question.

I let out a large amused snort before turning around to face my audience, promptly leaning against the barricading with the bottle of alcohol sitting next to me. Sober me would've faced them with a blank expression, giving nothing away, but this was medieval me and medieval me was confident and smiley.

I studied their stance and appearance of my dear brothers, instantly noticing that they were not here with their dates. Furthermore, other than Alex, they all seemed tense and on guard, which nearly got a giggle out of me because I never thought I'd see the day my bullies would be alarmed by me. Luckily, I didn't have a death wish and managed to keep the joy under control.

I looked Alex dead in the eye (sober me would be jumping off the balcony by now) and gave him an entertained smile. "I actually did quit a year backeth, been on nicotine patches and ev'rything. But it turns out yond coming in contact with thy nightmarish family seemeth to undo all thy hard w'rk. Who woulda thought?"

Wait this is more Shakespearean than medieval

Bradley's jaw clenched and his fists curled by his sides but that was about it. Alex seemed to be humoured as I am by this entire confrontation and Marcel's expression didn't change.

I commented on Bradley's change in manner. "Confused and outraged that I'm able to talk back at you guys? Don't worry, I'm just a bit intoxicated. Sober me would very much be shaking in my Gucci shoes. But that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you haven't answered my question yet. Why the fuck are you guys here?"

Bradley moved forward as if he was about to bite at me but Marcel brought up a single hand in front of him and the former immediately moved back. Funny how the third youngest wants to murder Marcel but still backs away from him like a little bitch.

Marcel looked at me, and then presented his fake smile. "Why can't we be here? We're just curious about how our little brother has been doing all these years. We haven't seen you in so long."

The smile dropped from my face and I scoffed. "Bullshit. Anything that's got to do with me has either been ignored or destroyed. Now tell me the truth please." Wow, how very polite of me. I've grown to be a fine, mature man.

"It is how it is," Marcel said, refusing to relent, "we just want to catch up with you and know of your wellbeing."

"And seeing my face triggered this sudden onset of care?"

"Now, I've always wanted to know, ever since you left."

Yeah probably to keep tabs on me. in case I become a threat. "Ok, then why not call?"

"I was busy."

"You were busy?" I asked incredulously, raising one of my eyebrows.

"Yes," he answered, leaving no room for argument.

"Right, well regardless of whether you were busy or not, you can find out about my wellbeing through your varying connections and power, so your excuse doesn't work. Now, will you please cut the bs and get to the point, I have a date I need to talk to and a home I need to go to."

Bradley had enough of my sass and attempted to intimidate me. "Aiden, you're pushing it too far. If you don't want your neck broken within the next two minutes, I suggest shutting the fuck up and answering our questions like the good little boy you're meant to be. You know, the one that's always dying for our approval."

I looked at him impassively and responded even more impassively. "You just contradicted yourself, genius. You want me to talk or not?" Your idiocy makes you a lot less intimidating.

Bradley, once again, tried to grab at me but a single call of his name from the eldest rooted him in his spot, so he growled at me like a feral dog instead.

Feral is definitely a suitable adjective for the guy.

The growling was redirected at Alex when he snickered but the latter wasn't phased, choosing to talk for his eldest brother and answer my question truthfully.

"In that case, we can't keep you waiting can we?" He said condescendingly, "We're here to feed our curiosity for our selfish reasons."

"THANK YOU!" I cried out, "finally, some honesty. Ok hit me, what do you want to know? Be warned however, I may not answer your question or lie in my responses because I still don't like y'all."

I sat on top of the barricade, stubbed the cigarette into it (Marcel's eyebrows twitched) and took one last swig of the bottle.

"Right... what's your relationship with George?" Alex asked, his playful tone disappearing.

"Uh... he's my grandpa?"

"Tch, that's not what he means," Bradley interrupted, "what's your intention with him?"

My eyebrows furrowed in mild befuddlement. "What on the bloody hell are you on about?"

"Let us retry this," Marcel said this time (do you really need three brothers to ask a single question? Simpletons I tell you), "it's come to our attention that you and George have been quite... close for the past couple of years."

"I mean yeah, it's no secret that I've been visiting him once a month."

"Once a month? I didn't realise it was that frequent."

"You can just call them and they'd tell you. Seriously, where are you going with this?"

But Marcel refused to pick up the pace. "That would make sense why he'd want you here tonight. It also seems you haven't told him about the bad blood between us."

Oh, now he acknowledges it. I nodded instead of expressing my thoughts out loud.

"Ok, why?"

"Huh?" That wasn't expected.

"Why didn't you tell him and what are your intentions?"

"I- uh- hold on, do you want me to tell him?"

Marcel shook his head. "Of course not, that would be detrimental on our behalf, which is exactly why I expected you to expose us. Why didn't you ruin us when you had the chance? What are your intentions?"

With each question, Marcel was slowly losing composure and it baffled me because I thought it was something that wasn't encoded in his brain, losing any sort of composure.

"I- wha- huh?" I stammered out, "I- I'm sorry, the sudden round of unexpected questions is too much for my drunk ass, so give me a moment to process all this."

They surprisingly respected my wishes and gave me the silence I needed to coherently sort out my clusterfucked thoughts.

"Ok," I breathed out, "Let's start with the big question of why I'm close with George. Clearly, you think I have some sort of mastermind plan behind every action I do so let me clarify that. There is no evil plan behind why I hang out with gramps. I'm not you guys. It's simply because he's the only one who ever acknowledged my existence and accepted me as his grandson. He was there for me when you guys weren't and for that, I'm very grateful. I show my appreciation by visiting him in the expensively pretty hellhole you guys threw him in. He's great company, entertaining and the only other person who doesn't make feel lonely."

"What the hell do you mean we threw him into a hellhole? He's retired and he said he needed a change in scenery," Bradley viciously growled out.

I laughed to scorn at his explanation. "Don't be ridiculous, we all know why George was kicked out of the mansion and it sure as hell isn't because he wanted a change of scenery. It was most likely a passing comment in which you took as an opportunity to get him out of the main picture. Even gramps knows it, he isn't as dumb as you guys make him out to be, but we'll get to that later.

You guys came to me with questions and I haven't finished answering them. Now, why haven't I exposed all your... misdeeds? If you think it's because I don't have enough evidence, you're wrong. I have pretty incriminating stuff."

This time, Alex's face paled but pulled a fake, unconvinced look. "You're bluffing. you couldn't even get circumstantial evidence, let alone hard."

I shrugged nonchalantly. "I have my ways. I don't care whether you believe me or not but in case you do, you don't have to worry about exposure since the reason I didn't destroy all your hard work is quite selfish. I just simply want to live an easy and average life, well as much as I can with this blue hair of mine. If I were to put all your wrongdoings in limelight, it would, in summary, put me in a position where I would have to get involved with the family business and that's the last thing I want to do. I don't give two shits if it thrives or burns to the ground but if it is going down, it's never going to be in my hands or else I have to deal with the aftermath.

Moreover, if I were to destroy, the wrath of my brothers' would be intensified and I'll now have three more people actively wanting to kill me and twenty-plus people is already enough."

Bradley and Alex choked on their spit and Bradley sputtered out, "Twen- you have how many people that are trying to kill you?"

I looked at him, bored, and picked at my ear with my pinky. "Dunno, stopped counting after twenty but don't worry, most can't kill me anyway since they're all behind bars."

"Huh?" uttered Marcel for the first time after his outburst of questions.

I waved him off. "That's another conversation and none of your business. I still need to answer the last question, what are my intentions. If your inferring skills are rusty, I have no ill intent for getting close to gramps. If you haven't figured from the blue hair or the last name, I'm nothing like the Trophs, where they'll use their resources and wits to outsmart the other for selfish gains."

Although, I did just say I didn't expose them due to selfish reasons but I feel like that's on a different spectrum.

The previous anger returned in the youngest of the three, with Alex joining the bandwagon, however, it was Marcel who further enquired about my words, with his usual emotionless tone. "Care to elaborate on your words?"

"I mean I could," I smirked out, "but it would probably get me killed and I'm not really feeling that tonight."

"It seems I used the wrong tone and made it look like you had a choice," Marcel's tone dropped several temperatures as he demanded, "elaborate on your claims."

Smiling, I stated with a nostalgic tone, "god, your voice hasn't changed a bit and it makes me feel kind of nostalgic. Can't say I miss it though. But to comply with the demand, you have to promise me that I'm left unscathed."

"No promises," the feral scowled out.

"I wasn't planning on it anyway," Marcel said, overwriting Bradley's words, "it's not exactly the best setting to do so and we have an image to uphold."

I snorted out again in humour. "Oh yeah, reputation. I forgot you fuckers give a damn about that. Thank fuck I left that lifestyle. Imagine if I was still trying to win you guys over. The thought gives me chills I tell ya."

I knew Marcel's patience was running thin when his mask began to break and he warned out my name with a hint of Swedish. "Aiden... du testar mig verkligen (you're really testing me)."

I couldn't help but bark out in laughter. I put my hands up in mock surrender and stopped playing around. "Alright, alright, no need to lose your composure Mr. I-am-always-composed. What I was trying to get at is that you guys are no family men, you guys follow the policy of everyone for themselves and you're hella greedy. Which is weird because the Trophs are literally one of the richest family in the country, maybe even the world. But I think you guys are more power greedy than money-hungry, hence why you remove any obstacle in your road to power as soon as you can. Like gramps for example."

The topic of George darkened my mood and this time, I growled out, "You three and Hugo all immediately kicked out George when you got the opportunity, all so he had no more say in the family." I pointedly looked at Alex and Bradley as I said the next few words. "I never thought kids and teenagers could be so mean and disrespectful to their own grandpa, until I met you two."

I looked at the sky, opting to not face the red faces of my brothers. "You guys may have thought, or still may think, I was too stupid to understand what's going on but anyone from a mile away could see your intent for getting out gramps. It's for more power and nothing more."

Silence settled between us temporarily, with all of them looking at me in shock (except Marcel but that was to be expected) before all three fought back at the same time.

"I'm going to kill you Aiden!"

"You know nothing about us, little one. Stop running your mouth before it's been punched in."

"It seems our bad history has got you to think up absurd theories and stories. We are not as bad as you make us to be."

It's funny how it was Marcel's comment that irked me the most, when I just got threatened twice. His comment did a good job sobering me up and anger rushed through me. I sat up straighter and sent them my meanest glare.

I'd come to the conclusion of giving them a little taste of what I knew.

"It seems I'm not convincing enough and seen as delusional. Let me enlighten you three a bit more. As stated before, I'm not as stupid as you think of me to be. In fact, I've never been dull. This family declared me to be incompetent off the bat just because I was a whore's kid and I didn't possess any sort of power. But that's beside the point. The point is, I know things. Many things about many people and many places. I discovered these things through my own skills, and the Trophs fall under the category of people who I thoroughly researched in my free time. You want to know what I discovered?"

It was funny seeing all three men paling, with one clenching his fist, the other turning a darker shade of red and the other shaking his head in answer to my question.

Smiling, I joyfully declared, "Too bad, I'm telling you anyway! I need to prove my credibility after all the bullshit you gave me. Make sure everyone tunes in as you may discover something about your brother that you've never known about and family should NEVER keep secrets from each other." My voice was condescending, and boy, was I having a lot of fun having something over their heads. I could kind of understand the whole power-hungry business.