Race With a Heart
Chapter 191: A Grain of Sand

Chapter 191: A Grain of Sand

"Yes," admitted his secretary. "Terrence is said to have a soft spot for gambling and has incurred debts with the wrong people. Consequently, he lost his company and at this point is only a puppet president."

Michael took a deep breath.

"So Terrence has been taken over by some gangster. Do you know by whom?"

"Nobody knows. No name came up. None of the bosses known to us started to show more dynamics. Everyone starts to wonder who the gray eminence is."

"Like in a fucking Monte Cristo" Michael expressed his displeasure and his use of an ugly word met with surprise from his secretary.

"Except there’s no between them, I mean, between Simmons, Fergus, and ... no dark secret, no dead body, right?"

Moore looked at him with a thoughtful smile. He knew that after ’and’, where the break had occurred, his secretary meant him, Michael Moore.

"As far as I know, they all survived," he replied mysteriously. "And dead bodies only rise from their graves in cheap productions."

"But sir ..." the secretary insisted for some reason.

"I was joking with that count. Where’s your sense of humor?" Michael Moore shook his head.

"Sir, if someone is targeting Fergus’ Stable for personal, not financial reasons, it can get very ugly, then so will your son ..."

Michael slammed his fist on the desk.

"You have been my employee for years because I value your intelligence and commitment to the development of the company, but do not exceed a certain limit. Have I allowed you to meddle in my private life or my son’s private life?"

" With all due respect, sir, now the internet has more of an influence on public opinion than the traditional media and the reputation of the only son of the Moore empire..."

"You don’t have to lecture me about reputation!" Michael became seriously angry. "One more word about my son and you’ll be fired. Understood? "

"Yes, sir!"

"Now get out, I have work to do!"

The secretary bowed low and left the chairman’s office. Michael Moore was left alone.

Michael was not such an old man who did not understand the changes in the world that his secretary thought him to be. He was well aware of the fact that now information is being transferred to the web, where access to it was faster and available from almost anywhere in the world. It just so happened that Terrence, quite recently, launched a gossip platform that quickly became popular with young people.

If Kevin, as some say "only son of the Moore Corporation", was an ordinary young man from an insignificant family, no one would care who he dates and who he loves. However, Kevin had the misfortune of being born the only son of Michael Moore, and many people did not see him otherwise. Thus, while Kevin preferred a different, simple life, where he could pursue himself as a person, not as a corporate symbol, there were forces in the world that denied him that right. Michael knew how absurd it was, and yet he couldn’t help but see Kevin as once perceived as the heir to the throne. So he was under constant observation and in the constant interest of the financiers. His marriage was to be a political marriage from which a new heir to the empire would be born.

Kevin had always been a special child, and his mother always worried about what his adult life would be like. Their son was very intelligent, independent and had a great sense of the law and the rule of law, which made him an honest and pure boy disgusting with lies and deception. The woman did not know that Kevin looked like Michael when he was his age. So Michael knew perfectly well how cruel the world can be for people who choose to live according to moral laws, not according to majority decisions. One day, young Michael faced a false reality and made his own decisions paying for it multiple times. He knew that Kevin would face similar choices too, but he wanted to minimize his conflict with reality and simply protect his son from the greatest suffering and shock.

Kevin made bold and good choices, and Michael was proud of him. So was his mother, although she did not stop worrying about her son until her death. Kevin was already an adult, he had already established a career path, but still did not have a stable personal life with a partner he would love. Kevin just didn’t have a romantic interest.

Michael wanted a grandson, but even more he wanted his son to be happy. He wanted his son to lead a quiet, good life. One day, however, Jack Lambert showed up and brought madness and chaos to Kevin’s life, and Kevin, paradoxically, was happy with it.

But his father couldn’t be like that. The only heir to the Moore empire, could not be gay, he could not seek happiness with a man, not because he brought shame to the family or because he could not bring the ’heir to the throne’, but because he was under the scrutiny of too many powerful men who would not rest until they would go to the butt of the empire by destroying its heir. Young Moore’s relationship with a man was the perfect reason for them to tear the corporation to shreds. And they’ll tear Kevin himself apart on the way.

So Kevin could either be an obedient son of a corporation and marry a daughter of an another corporation, or seek his own happiness by trying to cut himself off from that corporation. But was the second possibility even possible? Even if Kevin changed his name and went overseas, one day he would be hunted down and his private life would turn against the corporation.

All this was undoubtedly the fault of Jack Lambert, the driver of the Fergus Stables, who, when associated with Kevin, had no idea how much trouble he had got himself and his beloved man into.

If the new alliance involves Simons and Fergus, it also involves the Moore. A war was brewing, it would be ugly and bloody, and neither Kevin nor his beloved man would escape gunfire. It didn’t even matter whether the first target was the Fergus Stable or the Moore Corporation. Regardless of whether the sniper targets Kevin or Jack, both of them will be injured.

But Michael was not such a senile old man as his secretary thought him to be. Not only was he the head of a corporation that had business in over a dozen countries around the world, but he also had the mind of a general who is always prepared for battle.

The time has come for Moore’s Corporation to enter the world of online information too.

***

Karl was as pale as Steve sitting across from him. Although no, Paxton’s face was the color of chalk, and Walton could feel the flush on his cheeks.

"How...? How could this happen?" he asked, still trying to understand what he had just heard from his friend. "Is this because of the track accident?"

Steve shook his head, which was not easy as his forehead rested against his hand. Paxton sat leaning against the table, giving the impression of a man utterly depleted of strength and... hope.

"The doctors have no idea," said Steve weakly. "There could be a thousand reasons. It could have been a physical trauma, it could have been an ear infection that I had in my childhood. If you think right about it, I have always had a problem with height. Tell you something funny? The doctor said that if I were a woman she would forbid me to wear high heels."

Steve did laugh, but it was as bitter as if he had just drunk a whole cup of strong wormwood. Karl wasn’t laughing, he didn’t even smile.

"Is it curable?" Walton asked hopefully. The doctor’s instructions were a huge blow to the Fergus Stables, but for Steve himself it was a direct thrust to the heart.

Karl’s heart was breaking when he saw his friend like this, and he would have clung to the slightest hope to help him, even if it were a razor or one particular, little grain of sand that he had to grab during a sandstorm.

"Drugs and..." here Steve made a strange, vague sound like a huff and an expression of contempt for "exercise. Maybe they’ll help in a month or two, but to what extent... There’s still surgery, but only if..." Steve couldn’t find his words. Perhaps he was too depressed, too shocked by the information he had received from the medical examinations. "Three, maybe five percent of all cases are eligible for surgery. The doctor just spread his hands."

"Five percent ?!" Karl exclaimed in surprise.

"At best."

These numbers were not very enthusiastic. Karl felt his spine ice up.

Three to five percent ... That sounded like a life sentence that can’t be appealed.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.