LEVEL UP: HAREM EMPIRE

CHAPTER FIVE: LOST IN THE WILD.

He was still on the dirty floor with his back against the gate, when he suddenly heard movement behind him, like the sound of footsteps from about four people walking toward him in unison.

He quickly got up to his feet with his heart pounding, and when he turned around, to his greatest surprise, it was Elena, his stepsister, being escorted by three of the security men.

His late father’s loyal security.

His palms turned white as he gripped the iron bars of the gate with all the strength he had left. “You leeches,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice shaking with anger and disbelief.

Elena kept a small, practiced smile on her face as she approached, stopping just inches away from him with the gate being the only thing standing between them. For a long moment they stared at each other, neither of them willing to look away first.

“So it’s you who has been making so much noise here, isn’t it?” she asked, holding the hem of her dress in a stylish manner as though she had not a single care in the world.

Alex stared at her with eyes that were cold and bloodshot. “I want to come in,” he replied, ignoring her question completely. “Let me in.”

But it seemed that Elena was in no hurry to be serious with him.

“If I should go by the real logic, I’m not supposed to let you in at all,” she said with a shrug, “because you have no place here anymore.”

Alex could not believe what he was hearing. “I have no place in my father’s house!?” he asked, his voice breaking.

Elena rolled her eyes in disgust and mocked him openly. “My father, my father, my father,” she said in a sing-song voice. “The will has already been read, you idiot, and your father left nothing for you. Why can’t you just understand that and fucking move on?”

“Move on?” Alex repeated, stepping closer to the gate. “Don’t you fucking tell me to move on, you suckers!” he cursed, spitting the words out.

Elena ignored his outburst as though it meant nothing to her. “Now tell me,” she said calmly. “What do you want?”

“Where is your mother?” he threw the question at her without hesitation.

“My mother?” Elena answered, tilting her head. “She went for a council meeting. What else?”

“I would like to wait for her,” Alex said, raising his voice until he was practically shouting. “So let me inside. Into my father’s house!”

Elena locked eyes with him for about a full minute, and during that time neither of them said a single word. Then, without any warning, she finally rearranged her expression and turned to the guards. “Open the gate and let him in,” she said before walking inside and leaving him standing there.

Alex breathed a breath of relief that he did not even know he had been holding. He walked inside on foot, leaving his car outside the gates because he was too exhausted to drive it in, but deep down he had no idea that this was only the beginning of something worse.

He made it to the yard, and he was asked to stay in the waiting hallway until Victoria came back. But his waiting soon turned into something unbearable. One hour passed, then two, then three, then four, and even five.

By 2:00PM in the afternoon he had not eaten anything, nor had he drank any water. He was getting tired of sitting there doing nothing, and just as he was about to get up and leave, he heard the sound of a car coming into the villa, and he already knew that it was Victoria.

He rushed outside immediately, and just as he had expected, it was her, accompanied by some members of the board.

She stopped the moment she saw him, and her face curled up in disgust. For a brief moment the two of them locked eyes. Then she whispered something to the people behind her, and they excused themselves, leaving just the two of them standing there in the open.

“I heard you lost your job,” she said casually as she rested against the balcony and adjusted her hair.

“Oh no, Victoria,” Alex replied, looking straight into her eyes. “I know you had a hand in it.”

She chuckled and shook her head slowly. “It’s not me, darling. You were caught with fraud. Who would have thought you had been stealing from your own father?” she said with so much formality that it made his skin crawl.

“No… no…” Alex shook his head slowly, and his voice cracked with pain. “You know I can’t do that. You know I can’t steal from my own father. Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you!!” he snapped angrily.

She looked at him, really looked at him, before leaning closer to him across the space between them. “You want to know what you did?” she asked in a low voice. “It’s because you think everything belongs to you, just because you have been staying so close to my husband. But you don’t get it. My husband loves me, and I will put my children’s priority first.”

Alex could not even say anything after that. He could only look at her in silence.

“And I heard you’ve been sitting here for the past five hours now…” she trailed off, holding her pause for effect. “When there are so many other things you should be doing.”

“Other things?” he asked, confused.

“I guess you have to step outside into the outside world,” she said with a cold smile. “Check the news. The cops are looking for you. I think you have a lot of questions to answer.”

“The cops?” Alex muttered, feeling a chill run down his spine.

“Yes,” she replied. “And I don’t want them tracing you down here, so as not to cause too much issue. And I don’t think your house is safe either, or is it?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked away.

A loud shrill went off in Alex’s head. The cops were looking for him, and the only house he had in his name was not safe anymore.

Without thinking twice, he ran to the gates on his heels, got into his car, and the first thing he did was check the news on his phone. His name was everywhere, in every headline, attached to allegations of him embezzling huge funds of money that he didn’t even know about. “No, no, no. This is not good,” he said with shaking hands.

He realized then that he had gotten himself into a very big mess. He had sat there all day doing nothing, not knowing about the chaos that had been building around him.

He started the engine and headed straight to his house to confirm it all for himself. As he drove, more tears spilled from his eyes as he remembered his past life. Throughout all his life he had never felt inner peace. His mother had died during childbirth, and since then he had been living and surviving with his father, building the company with him until it had reached that stage. But then his father wanted a companion for himself and for him too, and that was how he married Victoria and her children. He never knew that these people would bring so much pain into his life.

He soon got closer to his house, and he slowed down, staying far away at a distance. From there he sighted his house, and it was surrounded and had been blocked off with red police tape, with several cops standing around it.

“What kind of mess have I gotten myself into,” he whispered to himself.

Just as he was still watching, he suddenly saw two cops approaching his car. Panic shot through him immediately, so he started the car and drove off as fast as he could. It seemed the cops recognized that it was him, because they also got into their cars and began following him, along with two other cars behind them.

He sped through the city, driving through traffic and ignoring everything around him. He didn’t even know why he was running, but he just knew he could not let them hold him, because he knew that all of this was Victoria’s conspiracy and that she just wanted to lock him up before everything was settled so that he would not cause any trouble.

He was able to escape from the cops by getting onto the lonely highway that ran through the thick woods. Only when he was sure no one was behind him did he finally stop, pulling his car to the side of the road.

It was already evening, and he was hungry, exhausted, tired, and sick of everything. He wished he could go back to how things were before, but that was impossible now. Too many things had already happened to him in just one day.

What is he supposed to do now?