Malcolm Merlyn was not happy. In fact, he had not been happy since Oliver Queen had announced his plans to build a community center in the Glades. While Malcolm respected Oliver, honestly, the fact that Oliver had survived those five years in what he could only assume was hell and he had to admit, there were days, however brief, that he did feel a little bit of guilt over putting Oliver through all that, but he justified that by saying that it had been necessary to sink the Queen's Gambit and Oliver wasn't supposed to be on it.
But he'd come too far and was too close to completing his Undertaking to allow Robert to interfere and now Oliver was clearly repeating his father's mistakes, just in a different way, since while Oliver wasn't knowingly attempting to stop the Undertaking like his father had, but by building a community center in the Glades, he could bring attention to that area and give those people hope. Hope that they don't need or deserve in his opinion after they allowed his Rebecca to die on that street. A crime for which all of the people in that miserable part of this city would pay.
Which meant that steps would need to be taken to ensure that Oliver's community center failed before it got off the ground and he knew just the man for the job. Someone he'd used before for sensitive issues like this, though Malcolm was always sure to take precautions to make sure that this independent contractor never knew the identity of his employer, but made sure that he was paid enough to not ask any questions. And to know that failure would result in him being on the opposite side of the assassination instead of being the assassin.
Laurel smiled as she and her fiance finished getting ready for the big opening ceremony to Oliver's community center, since he'd been preparing for this day basically since he'd gotten home and it was such a good cause that she was proud of him for it.
Like she'd suggested, Oliver had reached out to John about running security for the center and John had immediately gotten on board with the idea, since he preferred the idea of actually protecting people who needed it as opposed to babysitting trust fund brats like he'd been lately, so obviously, as the center's head of security, he and his wife Lyla would be attending the ceremony tonight and so would Thea and Helena, since Helena was representing the Wayne family and Thea was representing Queen Consolidated, since depending on how the opening ceremony went, she might be able to get QC to invest in the center in the future and also in attendance would be various staff members, including Laurel's friend Abby Sawyer, who'd be the doctor in charge of the medical department of the center, along with other influential people in the city, including Laurel's parents, since her father was staunchly in support of Oliver's initiative and had even offered to give the event police protection, since anything that could help cut down on crime in the Glades was welcome and her sister and Ava would also be attending, as would several members of the city's elite, since the reason the opening ceremony was being treated as such a fancy event was because even with the budget city hall gave him and the support of the Wayne Foundation, Oliver was always looking for more donors to help fund his center.
Anyways, Oliver was wearing the kind of suit she was used to seeing his father wear back when he was CEO of Queen Consolidated while she was wearing a stunning black dress that was strapless and went down to her knees and she was wearing the canary necklace Oliver had given her back when they were in high school, though that wasn't anything special, since she rarely took it off.
"You ready to go?" Laurel asked.
"We're just waiting for Raisa to get here to babysit, since I don't want mom spoiling Jasmine and the rest of our babysitters are going to be at the ceremony with us." Oliver said.
"Did you invite your mom or not?" Laurel asked.
"I did, she said she wasn't coming, which isn't a surprise since we both know she wasn't in favor of the center in the first place." Oliver reminded her.
"Fair point." Laurel said as there was a knock on the front door and Oliver went to get it to find Raisa on the other end.
"Hello Mr. Oliver, you look very handsome tonight." Raisa said.
"Thank you Raisa." Oliver said as he showed her in and turned to see Jasmine pouting at her mother.
"Why can't I go with you and daddy?" Jasmine asked and both of her parents couldn't help but smile at hearing Jasmine call Oliver daddy.
"Because Jasmine we're not going to be home till late after your bedtime and besides, it's an adult thing. You'd find it really boring. You're gonna have more fun here with Raisa." Laurel explained.
"Ok." Jasmine agreed reluctantly and hugged both of her parents goodbye.
"We'll see you in the morning Jasmine." Oliver said as he kissed his forehead before he and Laurel headed out.
Since I know people are wondering when there will be action in this story, hopefully we'll start getting them in the next chapter.
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Lauriver Chronicles
FanfictionAfter 5 years in hell, Oliver Queen is finally returning home to his family, his friends, and the woman he loves, but he's no longer the man he used to be. Now that he's home, he has one mission, to save his city. As he learns to navigate his new do...
