THE HEIR'S REVENGE

Chapter 12

I heard the small sound that gave me joy even before I saw her.

She was running, coming towards the direction of her bedroom door. I was halfway with my coffee when I stopped and looked back. 

Lily stood at the doorway with her school uniform, white blouse, her socks pulled up to her knees. Her dark curls were neatly brushed and gathered into a puff. 

She wasn't crying but I knew she was holding back and trying not to cry. 

“Hey,” I said to her. 

“Hey.” She responded, very quietly.

I heard her before I saw her.

I bent to her level with a smile on my face. Her emerald eyes kept moving from my face to the floor, back to my face. 

“Are you ready?” 

She shook her head. “No.” 

I wasn't expecting any other answer. 

“No? But you look ready.” 

She shook her head again. This was my cue. I sat down on the hallway floor, my back was against the wall and I stretched my legs out in front of me. She looked confused, trying to figure out what I was doing. Then suddenly she joined me, her shoulders pressing into my arms. 

We sat for a while saying nothing to each other. 

“I don't want to go.” She said, finally.

“But you have to.” 

“What if nobody talks to me or wants to be my friend, can I not go?”

I gave her a sad smile. 

“Someone would definitely talk to you. You are too pretty and intelligent to ignore, you know.” 

"What if they don't?"

“Then you speak to them first.” I glanced down at her. “Remember you talked to me first in that alley. Didn't you? And you didn't even know me.” 

She didn't say anything but it seemed like she was considering what I had said to her. “That was different.” 

"So I was the scary one."

I could see that she was trying to smile but she pulled it back.

“You just have to go. When you come right out, I'll be there.” 

“Promise?” 

“Yes, I do.”

She stood up, brushed off the front of her skirt and then looked down at me still on the floor.

"You should get up," she said. "You look silly."

Henry had arranged a car. I had made sure to tell him that we needed one that wouldn't draw attention outside a kindergarten gate but he had already arranged it without me asking. 

Henry was just like that. Quiet but articulate. 

Ly sat at the back of the car with her rabbit toy on her lap and her school bag beside her. She was looking out of the window. 

I watched her without making it obvious. 

She was like a sister I never had and a daughter sent to me by God. 

She was just five years old. Losing her parents at that age was terrible even for her. She had lost her parents even when she didn't know what it meant to lose someone. 

She had been passed from one arrangement to another until her grandfather was the only person willing to take her and still he died in the hospital room with a stranger holding her hand. 

That stranger was me. 

Richard had handed her to me and I'll make sure to do exactly what he wanted. 

Today was her first day of school and I was taking her there. 

I honestly didn't know what I was doing but I was doing it anyway. 

The school was a small one. It had all red brick and iron fencing all over. Tall trees grew over the front path. Henry had arranged the enrollment when I was busy with meetings.

He had decided to pick a quiet school, one that didn't know the weight of the Blackwell name. He wanted Lily to experience and enjoy childhood first. 

I agreed with him, totally. 

When the car stopped outside  we met other children arriving with their parents. Most of these children were excited to go to school. One boy was eating from a paper bag, and two girls were in deep conversation while walking. 

I saw Lily watch them but she didn't move. 

"Ready?" I asked.

She clutched her rabbit tighter as she got out of the car which I held open for her. She stepped down carefully to stand directly behind my leg. 

I looked down at the top of her head. 

“You can't take your rabbit inside.” I said gently, stretching out my hands to her. “Henry told me.” 

“I know.” She said but still held on to her toy. 

“I'll hold him for you. I'll make sure to keep him safe.” 

There was a long pause, then she held out the rabbit to me without looking up. She was trying so hard to be strong.

“He'll be watching so go make us proud.” I carefully tucked the rabbit toy under my arm. Together we walked towards the gate. I was glad that she finally stepped out behind my leg and she was now holding my hand. 

“Good morning.” First Day?” It was a young teacher who stood at the entrance smiling at each child as they walked in. She was warm looking, her hair was packed in a bun and she had patient eyes. 

"Yes," I said.

She looked down at Lily. "And what's your name, sweetheart?"

"Lily," Lily said, very quietly.

“Aw. That's such a beautiful name for a beautiful child. I'm Miss Adler and I'm going to be your teacher.” She said with a smile. "Do you want to come see the classroom? We have a reading corner with beanbags, and the beanbags are very good."

Lily looked up at me like she was afraid to say yes to Miss Adler. I crouched down too, so we were all three at the same level.

“Lily, you don't have to be scared. I'll be at the gate. When the bell rings for the day, you'll walk out and I'll be standing here.” 

“Here?” 

“Yes. Right here. You'll see me.” 

She stared for a while, maybe searching my face for certainty, then she turned to Miss Adler. 

"What colour are the beanbags?" she asked.

Miss Adler smiled. "Purple and green."

"Okay," Lily said.

She didn't look back at me as she went in. I stayed crouched on the path, watching her small navy figure disappear through the door, and felt something move through my chest that I didn't have a clean name for.

This felt divine. 

____________________________

I didn't plan to stay all day waiting for Lily. I mean I had a full schedule today. 

I had three calls with the legal team about the east district acquisition, a briefing with Anderson from the tech division, and two hours of reading the Reeves pharmaceutical filing that I'd carried home the night before and worked through until past midnight.

Everything I had to do, I had to figure out how to get them done while in the car. I read the Reeves filing at a small table by the window with a coffee I kept forgetting to drink.

I didn't go more than 20 minutes away from the gate and even around mid morning, I unconsciously kept track of the time since we dropped Lily off. It wasn't like I was anxious or anything. 

I just had a goal in mind and it was: Lily goes in and she'll be out soon but before then, I'll do everything I can do.

I thought about my mother. I couldn't stop myself from thinking that things would have been different if Victoria Pierce hadn't poisoned her and stolen her memory. 

If she had known that her father was looking for her, everything would have been different. If she had known that her name meant something bigger than money. 

She would have loved Lily as well. 

That thought arrived quietly and stayed.

I knew that whatever I was building, the company, the connections, the power it was all about justice, Revenge, which was real and it was about this little girl too. It was about her living fully unlike what I did when I was her age. 

Now she has someone to back out to. I wanted her to have something neither my mother nor I had. I wanted her to come out of that door today and know that someone was going to be standing and watching her. 

I heard the bell ring at half past two. I was standing at the gate already even before the first child came through the door. 

Children poured out, many of them running towards their parents, some calling out to their older friends and siblings and some telling stories about how their day went. 

The noise was joyful, too beautiful to consider unpleasant. 

I stood at the gate and watched the door.

Lily came out near the end.

Surprisingly, she was walking beside another girl who looked smaller than her. The little girl had short red hair and a gap on her teeth. I wasn't quite sure I was seeing well but when I looked close enough, they were holding hands while walking side by side. 

Lily was talking. 

Another surprise. 

I knew she was a smart girl and would adapt anywhere but I wasn't expecting that she had already made friends. Not on the first date. 

But yes, she was talking, her hands moving in small gestures as it always does when she was explaining things. 

Then she looked up and saw me at the gate. Her face lit up quietly. She didn't run or shout. She looked like she was finally letting go of everything. 

She quickly said something to the red haired girl and then she walked to the gate at a pace that was almost running g but not really because she was five and five-year-olds have dignity to maintain.

She stopped in front of me.

"You're here," she said.

"I said I would be."

She looked at me for one more second, probably impressed that I had kept my word. Then she held out her arms.

When I picked her up, she wrapped her hands around me completely. Her chin was on my shoulder and she smelled like crayons. 

“”How was today?” I asked, hoping to get positive reviews. 

She waited. “Em.. it's fine. There's this girl named Mia,” She turned to face me. “She also had a stuffed animal at home that she couldn't bring to school. She has a cat. When I told her that I had a rabbit, she said that rabbits are better than cats.” 

What a solid reason to start up a friendship. I smiled

 

“We sat together to eat lunch too.” She paused. "The pasta was okay. Not as good as what the cook makes."

"I'll let him know he has competition." I nodded. 

She held my face in both her small hands the way she sometimes did when she wanted to make sure I was paying attention.

"You need to give him back now," she said.

"Who?"

"My rabbit." She looked at the rabbit tucked under my arm with an expression that suggested she'd been thinking about him all day. "He's been waiting."

I sighed and handed him over. She took him and smiled at it so purely that I wondered what connection she shared with this stuffed animal.

Then she looked at me again, and she was smiling. Fully this time. No pulling it back.

"Can we get ice cream?" she asked.

"It's February."

"Ice cream doesn't know what month it is."

I laughed. I hadn't expected to, but it came out easily, and it felt clean.

"Okay," I said. "Ice cream."

She took my hand as I set her down, and we walked back through the gate together, her school bag bouncing against her back, her rabbit under her arm, telling me everything that had happened in the correct order of importance with the thoroughness of someone filing an official report.

I dared not ask her to stop talking. I listened to all of it. It felt like music to my ear hearing her talk about school like this when a few hours ago, she didn't want to get ready to go to school. 

And for a few minutes, on a grey February afternoon on an ordinary street, the anger in my chest was quiet, and everything else was still. I wasn't angry or upset, anxious or even nervous. 

I had a small hand in mine and a voice explaining the definitive ranking of pasta versus rice, and the absolute and inarguable superiority of purple beanbags over green ones.

It was enough.

It was, in fact, everything.