Atlas Black

Chapter 8

A T L A S B L A C K

"Yes dad, I'm well aware."

My fathers been reluctant to keep tabs on me and the progress I'm making. Since landing, his entire focus has been on me abducting Llana. Because fuck education, right? It doesn't really matter when I'm heir to the Black Corps, I'll be produced already with everything my fathers ever built.

But that's much harder when the girl you thought was her, turns out to be completely different. To be tricked into believing otherwise.

"Well, what's taking you long? The more we stall the more The Morozov's have an advantage over us and they'll think we're backing down. In a matter of time, he'll take our sign as a sign of weakness and his target will lie on us instead of protecting his only daughter." He seems more agrivated than usual.

I've hated my father for the longest time, since being a child I would be brought up in a hostile way, being beaten up raw and the only times he'd show a sliver of human emotion was rare to say the least. Though I try my hardest every day to mask my feelings. To put on a fake face in front of him.

"Dad, have you ever considered or even thought that maybe Xander has been setting us up? That all the information we possess have merely been a lie? Have you?" I can't control the boiling rage I'm feeling. All my father wants me to do is: Fly, abduct, bring back, use as leverage. But is it that easy?

"What do you mean, son?"

"I'm talking about the fact that the photograph of his daughter is an ordinary girl from Stanford who has no relations or ties to The Morozov's whatsoever. He's been using someone else's identity; a girl he sought fit, to hide his daughter from us. Making us kidnap someone else in the process whilst the real Llana is at Stanford, right now. With absolutely no clue about all this crazy shit that's going on." I'm catching my breath, breathing heavily.

"You mean to say the girl on the photograph isn't his daughter? What kind of bullshit is that?"

You fucking tell me, dad. My only answer is that he's no empath. He's a sociopath who doesn't even care about the lives of the innocent. All in the name of protecting his property and his possessions.

"-And you know what the worst part is? That she has absolutely no fucking clue. None. She has no idea that her fathers alive. She has no idea that he's a killer, a murderer. She's immune to the dangers of the world because that's what he's fucking protecting her from. He's protecting her from himself because he knows he'd cause her danger. And look where that fucking got him."

My fathers silence is loud on the other end. Until he finally voices what he's going to ask of me.

"Son, you know what you have to do. It's the right thing and you know it." His voice sounds so broken. So distraught. It physically pains me how he's in as much suffering as I am. Though I don't have a reason to empathise with him, we share the same loss. The pain is never ending, it's endless. And I have no idea how to stop it from tearing me apart fully.

I sigh, long and hard, because I know he's right. I know I have to do what I must. All this isn't for nothing. It's for my mother. I'll be damned if I ever let Xander get away with anymore shit. And if I don't do something about it. I fear it'll eat me up inside and that'll be the end of me.

"Atlas?"

"..Yeah dad. I promise."

"Your mother would be proud of you, son." That was the first time in a very long time for that sliver of emotion I'd be hoping for to show.