“Father, do you know that man?” Charlie asked this question when he saw how intensively Bensen was looking at me along with the way he spoke to me.

Bensen didn’t answer him. I didn’t give him a chance to. I interjected by saying, “Your son is quite young compared to your old age. It’s surprising your pecker still works.” I mocked the old coot with an arrogant smile sitting on my face. “What kind of Viagra are you taking to make that wet noodle stand up?”

“You disrespectful cur.” An angry woman came up from behind Bensen and shouted in my ears. “How dare you speak to my husband that way? Who the hell do you think you are?”

This bad bitch was Pearl. I briefly looked over her appearance. She was average at best. “This must be the misses. As expected, she is young, but you could have chosen better.” I told Bensen.

“What did you just say about me?” The lady got so upset about me mocking her beauty that she reached out to claw her dreadful fingernails at me.

“Settle down, Pearl.” Old Bensen pushed his woman aside for her safety then gave his eye back to me. “You speak as if you are familiar to me. Who are you really?” This geezer was wracking his brain trying to figure me out.

Before he had a chance to grasp my identity, Razi fessed up, “He is, Pink Diamond. My boyfriend. He is very hot-tempered so I suggest you all watch what you say around him.”

‘Boyfriend?’ I was surprised when I heard her call me her mate. My brow was raised instantly. I specifically told her to label me as her bodyguard, yet she went and said this out loud for all to hear.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered in her ear.

“I don’t know. Just go with it.” She told me.

“That man dressed in pink is your boyfriend.” Charlie and the others were surprised when they heard this. “Isn’t he a bit too old for you, Razi? What would your father say if he was still alive? I’m sure he would have been disappointed.”

“Shut your mouth and don’t ever speak about my father!” Razi lashed out at that punk for making fun of her old man. He got so frightened that he hid behind his aunty.

From where Razi and I were standing, we heard certain gossip passing among her family members about the controversial dynamo of our fake relationship. Many of them acted repulsed, even though their hearts were blacker than pitch. They were all gathered here to steal a child’s inheritance, yet they had the audacity to criticize her on top of it.

The animosity tossing about wasn’t just directed at us. It spread among their sphere of influence because they knew that only one person could claim Big Red’s properties.

The tension in that small space grew to such an extent that the air became toxic to breathe for Razi. She was genuinely intimidated by her family members. Their competitiveness was much fiercer than her own.

Before the situation could have led to a physical confrontation, we heard footsteps coming from behind us. Shifting my head to my rear, I noticed a small squadron of security guards following closely behind a man dressed elegantly in a dark suit. His grey facial hair was shaven neatly to accentuate his seasoned business acumen. He carried a briefcase in his hand which contained sensitive documents.

Coming closer, Bensen went forward to greet him. “Manager Kim, you’ve come. I was starting to think you’d forgotten our arrangement.”

“Sorry I am late.” After apologising, Manager Kim washed his gaze across all of us and uttered, “Everyone is here I presume?”

“Yes, we are.” Answered Bensen. Being the senior in the group, he spoke for all of us.

Manager Kim gestured to his men to unlock the bronze door. The locks were of a sophisticated nature that it took them about a minute to unlock them. “If everyone is ready please follow me inside.”

As soon as we enter, the door was closed behind us. Only a handful of guards joined us inside to make sure that whoever ended up winning the deed didn’t get attacked by the losers.

The space we settled in wasn’t that grand with decorations nor extremely spacious. A golden table was situated in the centre of the room with enough chairs to seat everyone. An additional feature was the several screens aligned in a curve at the upper part of the room. They were displaying real-time trading tables and graphs until they were turned off by Manager Kim to garner our complete focus.

“Now then, I assume all of you know why we are gathered here today.” As he spoke, he placed his briefcase on the table where he could better open it to unload its contents. He took out a cluster of papers and placed them separately on the table. He also unpacked a stamp and a pen along with a closed wooden jar.

After getting his items out, Manager Kim glanced at all of us again and spoke, “We are here today to select a sole blood-related beneficiary who is most deserving of the transference of assets in holding formerly belonging to Darius Spiegel Campton.”

He hovered his hand above the separate sheet of paper, “These documents before me represents everything that remains in holding after subtracting the necessary liquidated funds. Please peruse its contents then pass it back to me when you are finished.”

The documents were passed around the table for everyone to inspect. I observed their reaction one by one as they read the fine detail. Some of them perused the documents for a longer period than others, however, none of them had a look of disappointment. What I observed was greed glittering in their eyes. I knew the feeling all too well to be mistaken.

When it became Razi’s turn to inspect the documents, I leaned into her breathing space to read along with her. “Hmm…?”

Razi ran her nail across a couple of lines that caught her interest. “Aside from the funds that papa had in his accounts, these properties also belonged to him.”

“Is the estate listed there?” This was what I was most concerned about and it also seemed to be the highlight for the others. Out of everything listed on the documents, Big Red’s min estate was worth the most Crowns. The value had much to do with its location in the valley as well as the mining facility that was there.

“It is on here, see.” Razi showed me the specific content that I was pleased with. Some objects were struck from the list. I reckoned these were resources for the subtracted liquidated funds. Either way, it didn’t matter. Enough value was on those documents to make my Value Meter spiralled to the maximum.

The entire procession of inspecting the documents took about 15 minutes. When we were satisfied, they were passed back to Manager Kim for the last overview. He arranged them in their suited order before asking--

“Does everyone agree with the allotted terms?” No one voiced any complaint, thus the meeting continued. “Ok, now that we have that matter settled. I believe we should get straight to the deciding factor of who these should belong to.”

The moment Manager Kim spoke these words, everyone bent their heads to stare at Razi. They felt that they had to compete with her in an unfair game due to her being Big Red’s sole heir. However, Bensen’s influence rendered the effectiveness of Big Red’s will to a null result, now the beneficiary list was broad enough for the senior members of the family to compete.

This was a competition between Razi (Big Red’s daughter), Bensen and David (Razi’s uncles), Clary, (Razi’s aunty) and Diana (Razi’s stepmother).

Diana was a genuine gold digger who was in control of Big Red’s 3 penthouses in the city. This was before Bensen pulled some illegal strings and got all of Big Red’s assets to be staked in a trade.

Other members of the family who were currently sitting in the room were previously in possession of certain assets gifted to them by Big Red on a temporary pretence of his lively hood. Now that he was dead, everything he owned was on a greedy market for the sharks to bite at.

Bensen also put himself at a disadvantage by initiating this trade, but because of his confidence in gambling, he was sure of himself that by the end of the day, he would be the sole beneficiary. That geezer was way up there in age, so I reckoned he wanted to claim everything for his incompetent son. Sure enough, his wife wouldn’t be having all the spoils to herself.

“Ahem…” Manager Kim gained our attention again by sounding a low cough. I watched him pull the cap from the jar that he took out of his briefcase and tossed 2 dice in his palm. With a straight face, he glanced at us and uttered-

“Ok, ladies and gentlemen, let’s get down to business.”