The God of War Comeback

Chapter 6

"Calm down, Alfred."

"Calm down while you flirt with my wife right in front of me? Something is seriously wrong with you, Julius."

"Bark all you like." Julius folded his arms, unbothered. "You need something from me, and I'm handing you an easy way to get it. Take it, or walk out that door."

Before Alfred could respond, the office door burst open without a knock.

A young man in an expensive tailored suit strode in, phone still pressed to his ear, waving off the receptionist trailing behind him with an apologetic look on her face.

"Julius, I need five minutes; my father's expecting the loan paperwork by." He stopped mid-sentence. His eyes landed on Alfred, and the colour seemed to drain right out of the room.

Everyone went still.

"Well, well." The man's mouth curled into a slow, cruel smile as he lowered his phone. "Look who finally crawled out of his hole."

Alfred's jaw tightened, but his voice stayed firm. "Gerald."

Gerald William, His second half-brother, the boy Alfred had once stood beside and fought for, before the Williams family decided he wasn't worth the ground he walked on. He had grown into his father's arrogance like it had been tailored for him from birth.

"I heard about last night." Gerald dropped into the empty chair beside Julius's desk without waiting to be invited, his eyes crawling over Angela with open interest that made her stomach twist. "The whole city's talking about it. The convict who crashed a Clinton wedding and slapped the groom in front of two hundred guests."

He laughed. "Bold move, for a man with nothing left to lose."

"What are you doing here, Gerald?" Alfred kept his tone flat, refusing to give him the reaction he clearly wanted.

"Business." Gerald leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. "My father's business is expanding. We're finalising a partnership with Redmond Kingston in a few days. It's going to make us bigger than we've ever been." His smile sharpened into something almost gleeful.

Alfred's fingers curled slightly against the armrest, but his face gave away nothing.

Gerald's eyes dropped to the open folder still sitting on the desk. He reached over and flipped a page before Julius could stop him, scanning it, his eyes narrowing with every line.

"Wait a minute." He looked up sharply, disbelief curdling fast into anger. "This address! This is one of my father's old properties. It was supposed to be sold off years ago, but the paperwork went missing." His voice climbed, cracking with fury. "How the hell do you have documents for land that belongs to my family? Did you steal this? Is that what you did while you were locked up, forge papers to rob the people who raised you?"

"Careful," Alfred said quietly. "That property was bought with money I earned, every deed clean and legal. You'd know that if your father ever bothered to look past whatever's convenient for him to believe."

"Convenient?" Gerald's voice cracked with indignation. "My father took you in when you had nothing! Fed you, clothed you, gave you a name to hide behind, and this is how you repay him? Stealing behind his back?"

"Your father took credit for a company I built with my own two hands," Alfred said as anger brewed in his voice. "He let his real son sit at the head of the table while I watched from the doorway like a stranger. Don't lecture me about what I owe him."

Julius cleared his throat, clearly enjoying the scene unfolding in front of him, and reached for the folder to close the conversation. Gerald wasn't finished.

"You know what I think?" His eyes slid back to Angela, lingering in a way that made her skin crawl. "I think you're desperate. A man with real money doesn't beg his old buddy for a loan." He smirked over at Julius. "You should be worried, Alfred. Word is the Clinton family is already making calls. You humiliated David in front of two hundred people. Men like him don't forget things like that."

"Is that a warning, or a threat?" Alfred asked, unmoved, his eyes cold as stone.

"Call it whatever helps you sleep at night." Gerald shrugged carelessly. "Don't come crawling to us when the Clintons come for you. We've got bigger things to worry about than an adopted brother who thinks he's still one of us."

He turned back to Julius. "Hand me that document. It belongs to my father. You know what happens if it ends up in the wrong hands, and you know exactly what my family is capable of."

"Gerald, I can't help him," Julius said, waving a hand. "He already turned down my offer. As for the document, take it. I think it was stolen anyway."

Gerald reached for it, but Alfred's hand closed around the folder first, faster. His jaw tightened, his other hand curling into a fist at his side.

"You don't take what isn't yours," he said, his eyes burning with restrained fury.

Angela watched the tension coil tighter in the room, praying silently that it wouldn't explode into something none of them could take back. She already knew, deep down, that she would never let Julius's demand happen. Not for any amount of money.

"Give it to me right now, or."