Ava is a quiet, fiery and impassioned twenty-one-year-old, paralysed with fear at the thought of her impending adulthood. She dreams of travelling the world and acting in breath-taking plays all over the globe. But she is finishing university soon a...
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The waves lined up along the beach and disappeared. One after the other like soldiers marching through a manned valley but refusing to give up. But eventually, each and every one of them fell or retreated back to the sea, planning their retaliation. This was an age old dance between the sea and land, sometimes the sea won and sometimes the land lived to fight another day. But one had only to look at the world as a whole to realise that eventually the ever persistent sea would win.
Devin sighed as he thought to himself that perhaps this was the way of the world. That some people were always meant to rule and others to serve. He knew which he'd prefer to be. Often he found himself empathising with the waves on days like this. They moved alone. One after the other? Sure but when they crashed onto the shore. They were alone. Like he was.
Taking another swig of his beer he ran his fingers through his soft curly hair and grinned wriley. It was as unruly as he was and would undoubtedly have to be cut before he went back.
Rarely did he follow rules or listen to his aunt. But he had to admit what she said made sense. He was the sole heir to a company that was now worth billions of dollars. Or at least he had been, until his aunt, who had power of attorney had merged his part of the Oil Company with her daughter's husband's.
Manning's Oil.
The legacy that belonged to his grandfather, his father, the man who Devin had barely known, and his brother, the man he had trailed and idolised until his dying breath. They had been inseparable. Despite their twelve year age-gap his brother had been his best-friend.
He threw the beer bottle beside the blanket and it clinked against the growing pile. A pile that indicated that he'd had more than enough.
He opened another.
Manning's Oil. The company he would inherit on his twenty-first birthday no longer showed any evidence of its Brazilian heritage. It now had that bloody American's name and he was powerless to change it. Now he owned sixty percent of the newly merged company which may sound like a small amount but not when you were talking about a company worth close to forty billion dollars.
Taking another swig he knew exactly what he had to do. He found it extremely loathsome. Devin Damianos Calvacanti was not born to serve under anyone. His lips tilted in another smile, this one somewhat sardonic in nature. The tides were slaves to the moon's beams and the sun determined the land's habitability; too hot and we'd face the same fate as Mars.
Standing up he went tothe edge of the water and walked along the shore, letting the waves lap hungrily at his feet. It was somewhat of a challenge to the sea, the moon and the land. Do your worst he thought. For what could posssibly be worst than being alone in the world. Even if the Oil company were to disappear, he still stood to inherit a sizeable empire which was so diverse it made his somewhat of a living god. His mother was another person he'd never known, having been killed in the same car accident as his father.
She had been the third daughter of a Greek tycoon who had gone against her father to marry a much older Brazilian man. Maybe that's where his rebeliousness came from, he mused. Maybe. He had spent a good year of his life in a downward spiral, not wanting anything to do with the Oil business. But he'd changed his mind after entering numerous nightclub ventures with a friend of his brother. Devin had found that he had a nak for business and he relished the power that came with it.
He was nineteen and had dropped out of his final year of highschool to drink, party and fuck All the things his money afforded him. In order to play his cards right he had to size up his competition and also work to gain some credibility with the board. He grinned as he thought about how his aunt had no idea how he was going to fuck her over.
He'd avoided his cousins religiously when he'd attended the elite boarding school but perhaps it was now time to get to know his enemy. There're no friends in business, not when there're billions of dollars on the line. Flying here had been very impulsive on his part but this was the place he felt closest to his brother. Four members of his family had died in car accidents and either million dollar cars were getting shodier in their make-up or there was something sinister happening. Someone had it out for his family, be it fate or man, whatever he was , he was determined on being its sole surviver.
Aunt Araceli would have to get used to his more hands on approach, because despite her taking him in, she had always made it known that she'd rather her grand-children have the lion's share of the company.
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"How do you not know where your husband is?" she screamed.
"Mother, keep your voice down, he's just attending a funeral, honestly! You are just-" she threw a vase across the room as she fumed at her mother who was making old doubts resurface. She was happy. Why couldn't her mother just leave it at that.
"You were always estúpido." she spat, "Heavens be blessed my grandchildren are mnore like me than you, you're such a disappointment. How hard is it to keep a man in your bed. It's a job you can do whilst lying down."
"My children are nothing like you." Diedra said even as a picture of her sometimes impetuous daughter came up. She never should have named her Araceli, it was like begging the gods to make her a soulless thoughtless creature. A mother would always try to guide and love their children as best they could, well most mothers, she thought bitterly of her own. At least her son was salvageable.
"I'm going to go see what that husband of yours is up to!" her mother threw back at her as she stormed out, "since you obiously can't!" with that she slammed the door shut.
And that is it ladies and gentlemen, a short introduction to the world our Ava is about to enter.
