Life Bank: Exchanging life for money

Chapter Eight

Daniel came to office one day and saw the door and walls were splashed with red paint. There was a short sentence explaining: 'Owe $, Pay $.'
"What the hell!" Daniel fumed as he ran to the office. He would need to make a few calls, but then someone was going to get hurt, badly.
He managed to get Zachary, but before he said anything, Zachary blurted out, "Daniel, I have got some bad news for you."
"Me too."
"Let me tell mine first. Adrian had siphoned money from the company and ran off."
"What the f-"
Zachary interrupted before Daniel could continue his swearing. "And there is more."
"What more?"
"He used the company name to borrow money from loan shark."
Daniel felt faint. "How much did he owe?"
"From what the loan shark tells me, half a million. Hello? Hello? Are you still..."
The sound from the mobile began to fade and the room began to spin. Daniel dropped his mobile before losing consciousness.

***

Daniel woke up on the couch; he had been found by the office cleaner. "Oh, my head," he groaned. "How long was I out?"
"I don't know. I found you on the floor about two minutes ago," the cleaner replied with a shrug.
Daniel rubbed the back of the head and found it sickeningly sticky. "Yeeks, what's that?" He felt faint when he saw his bloodied hand. "Oh my god."
"You will need to get it clean up. Should I call an ambulance for you?"
"No need. I will just get a cab."
"You sure?"
"Yes, leave me alone. Clean those up and lock up the place. We are closed for the day." Daniel sulked before continuing, "And night."
He got patched up in an emergency room before returning home.
"What happened to you? Did you get into a fight?" his mother exclaimed, seeing the turban version of him.
"I fell and hit my head. And it's nothing serious." He added, before his mother could ask.
Daniel's mother nodded and went about cooking dinner. "I will cook your share."
"Okay." Daniel went into his room and started working on his calculator. He did have some savings, but it wouldn't be enough. He would need to let go of the pub or borrow money from the bank.
He sat back and shouted, "Ouch!" To stop himself from cursing aloud, he grabbed a small pillow from the couch in his room and rested it behind his head. "That's better."
He sighed and began working his cerebral cortex, trying to figure out what was going on.
He had neglected the company for the past few months, and Adrian had taken over the management, surprisingly with much eagerness. Now Daniel knew why. He rubbed his temple to ease the headache that was creeping up, but knew it wouldn't help. It was going to be really bad headache.

***

"Why should we do this?" Zachary almost shouted. The crowd of breakfast eaters around him turned in his direction. His cheeks flushed red, full of both embarrassment and anger. When he spoke again, it was softly. "We cannot sell the company."
"Why not?" Daniel answered nonchalantly, clearly without much interest in holding onto it any longer.
"Because it was our hard work." Zachary eyes began to glow, and looked as if they could shoot lasers soon.
"You mean it was my hard work. You are just a sleeping partner."
"Erm yes, you are right. But it is earning us good money."
"It's only making a trickle of what it used, before the two new pubs popped up in the corner."
"Okay, but we don't need to sell the company. We just sell one of the three pubs." Zachary gave up trying to convince Daniel about keeping all the pubs, but he thought maybe he could salvage one or two.
"No way, I am not going to manage the pubs any longer. If we sell them, I can retire with a neat sum of money even after paying off the debt Adrian acquired."
"Why should we pay for him? Can't we just call in the police?"
"Sure, if you want the loan shark's people to pour paint on your place or burn down your house."
"But it wasn't our fault."
"Well, why don't you try to convince them of that? If you manage to do it, I will consider not selling."
Zachary kept his silence. He knew that there wasn't any point in trying to talk to the loan sharks; they didn't speak reason.
"So, how do you want to do this?" Daniel asked.
"I don't know."
"Then do it my way."
"But, but..."
"No buts. It is either you settle it with them or we sell the pubs and pay them off." It was Daniel's turn to be impatient. "Do you know how many times they came to create trouble at our pubs? We can't do business at all with them bothering us, so don't even think about your profits."
"I know." Zachary hung his head in defeat. "We will do it your way, then."