The Head That Wears The Crown

by D D Bridges

  “Are you going to tell me who you are?” I asked becoming impatient.

  “We will get to that,” he claimed before walking past me and going toward the windows. I was already starting to dislike him. I was beginning to see his arrogance and I didn’t like the way that he was walking through my office as if he owned the place.

  “Well, why don’t you tell me why you’re here,” I said putting a little more force behind my voice so that no one in the room would forget who was in charge.

  Mr. Debonair was standing at the window taking in the view of the Atlanta skyline. He sighed and then said, “I’m here because you have something that belongs to me… Darius.” He turned his gaze on me when he said my name with disdain and contempt. I knew then that this was not going to be good.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I asked and it was obvious that my patience was wearing thin. “I don’t have anything that belongs to you.”

  “Oh, I think you do, Darius,” he said, once again saying my name as if it had been lodged in his throat and choking the life out of him.

  “Let’s get something straight,” I said as I watched him walk behind my desk and glide his fingers across the top of it. “To you, I am Mr. King. Don’t come into my place of business and disrespect me.”

  He laughed after looking up at me. “Well, Mr. King,” he said mockingly. “It seems that we are going to have to figure something out. Having two Mr. King’s in the same office can be confusing,” he said and seemed to be relishing in the fact that I was now looking at him as if he were crazy. “That is if I let you stick around.”

  It was my turn to laugh now. My laughter was short though as my demeanor became serious again. “I’m calling security.”

  “Not so fast,” he said just as I reached for the phone. He was still calm and obviously still under the impression that he was in control. “Why call security? Is that anyway to treat your family?”

  I let my hand fall to my side as his words registered in my mind. I contemplated my options and then said, “You must be mistaken if you think that we are related in anyway.” He saw the way that I was looking him up and down, and he could tell that I was thinking that we didn’t look anything alike.

  “Trust me, I am not mistaken,” he said as he walked up to me, squared his shoulders and looked directly into my eyes. “My name is Daniel King, Jr.”

  *******

  I must have held my breath for at least ten seconds as I looked into the eyes of who I deemed as an impostor. What the hell was going on? The past two days had been filled with surprises, but none of them topped this.

  I looked at the man in front of me and so many thoughts could be seen in his eyes. His look was deadly and I was sure that if someone had handed him a gun right then, he would have shot me without hesitation. His hate for me was obvious, but I wasn’t buying a word of what he just said. It wasn’t even what he said, but more so what he was implying.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked, my voice low and controlled. “Really? ‘Cause that bull shit that you tryin’ to feed me ain’t gon’ cut it.”

  I walked away from him and went behind my desk to sit in my chair. Just like that I was back in CEO mode. I relaxed as he turned to look at me from the other side of my desk. My expression showed that I was unfazed by his declaration, and the look on his face told me that he didn’t like that one bit.

  “Daniel King is my father,” he said as a hint of sadness came and went from his eyes.

  “Daniel King who?” I said. I still wasn’t buying what this guy was selling.

  “The Daniel King who built this corporation,” he said looking around my office which was much bigger than it needed to be. “The same Daniel King who was on the Forbes list for fifteen years straight before he died. And the same Daniel King who allegedly is your father too, Darius.”

  “What the hell do you mean, allegedly?” I asked angrily as I stood. “If I wasn’t his son then he wouldn’t have left me this company in his will. You, on the other hand, just popped up out of nowhere.”

  “No, nigga, you’re the one who popped up outta nowhere,” he said losing his composure for the first time since coming into my office. Even though he had a preppy demeanor, I immediately saw that he could flip over to his street side. “When my mother found out about you it tore our family apart.”

  I watched as he began to pace the floor. The pain was evident in his expression and resentment dominated his posture. I still hadn’t decided yet if I believed him though.

  “We had everything; the perfect life. My dad gave me and my brothers and sisters everything that we could have ever wanted. And my mother loved him,” he said, bringing his gaze up to meet mine. “She loved him so much, but he did her so wrong. Would you like to hear the story of how my mother found out about you?”

  His expression twisted into a devious glare letting me know that what he was about to tell me was meant to break me. A second ago he almost looked as if he was going to cry, but now he seemed determined to let the truth be known. It was as if he had been carrying this story around as a chip on his shoulder, and he was ready to imprison me with the past while emancipating himself.

  “My mother overheard a conversation between my father and who she later found out was your mother. My father was demanding to see you, but apparently your mother didn’t want him to. He threatened to take your mother to court so that he could have the legal right to see you. He had been trying to see you for years, he had even tried to send you guys money, but your mother rejected it all.”

  His eyes were fixated on me while I fidgeted nervously under the weight of this revelation.

  “He had a picture of you from when you were little. I remember playing around in my father’s study one time and seeing the photo of you. I was only like ten or something, but I wondered who you were and why there was a picture of you in his desk drawer. For years I didn’t know what to think until he finally confessed to my mother that he had another son. Then it all became clear.”

  He shook his head as he looked at me with his mouth balled, almost as if he wanted to stop anymore words from coming out. That would have been fine with me though because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the rest.

  “He admitted to having an affair with a woman named Donna; your mother. Apparently they had been seeing each other on and off before he married my mother. He continued his relations with her after my parents got married. My father also said that you were his first born, that you were born three months before me, and that he would give anything to be apart of your life.”

  I turned away from him and faced the windows. My eyes were on the city, but my mind was a million miles away. Daniel, Jr. didn’t know it but he had just answered many of the questions that I had carried around ever since the day that I found out who my father was. But now I wanted answers from the people who had been lying to me for years.

  “I hate to spring this on you like this,” I heard him say. “Especially before I boot you outta here.”

  I turned around abruptly. That menacing look had returned to his face as he rubbed his hands together as if he couldn’t wait to get them on something.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I said knowing that I was being redundant. But until he told me exactly why he was here and what he wanted from me I was going to become more and more irritated with him.

  “I hate to break it to you, Darius,” he said as he took a seat in one of the chairs in front of my desk and then crossed his ankle over his knee. “But your tenure as CEO of Kingdom Enterprises will soon be over.”

  “How the hell do you figure that?” My tone of voice was louder but it was still even. I was trying not to show how upset I was, but he was hitting me with everything so fast and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep my composure.

  “Well… I’m here now,” he said as a smile came to his face.

  “I don’t give a damn. My father’s will was clear about me running his business in the case of his d
eath.”

  “Your father?” he said, his tone remaining low and even. This nigga really thought he was running things. “You never even knew him. I grew up my whole life expecting to be the heir to my father’s business. I was groomed for this and if my parents hadn’t gotten a divorce then I would be here and not you.”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you were expecting,” I told him. “I have the legal right to be here. I can have my attorney fax you the proof. But in the meantime, you can get the hell out of here.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said as his smile turned into a scowl. I don’t even know if he realized how bipolar his emotions were. “Since you wanna do things the hard way, then so be it.”

  I kept my eyes focused on his as I walked over to the front of my desk and sat on the edge of it. I was now only a few feet away from him and every part of me wanted to kick his ass. Instead of acting on instinct I just watched him stare me down. He was crazy if he thought for a second that he and I would ever be in cahoots, brother or not.

  “What is it that you want? Money?” I asked him.

  “Nigga, please,” he said, his emotions completely shifting again as he let out a small laugh. Then he became serious again. “My father had plenty of that, and he left us everything. Everything except this company and his mansion, that is.”

  “So if you’re not after money, then what do you want?”

  “I want to be CEO of Kingdom Enterprises,” he finally stated as plain as day. “Now I realize that there are some legal matters that may be hindering that. But my lawyers, which I’m sure are ten times better than yours, are already trying to find a loophole that would allow me to push you out fair and square. But in the meantime, the least you could do is give me that office across the hall and give me the position as CFO. You know, since we are brothers and everything.”

  He was right. We were brothers, that is if everything he had told me was true. But in spite of that I still told him, “There is no way in hell that I’m appointing you CFO of this company. Not while my father’s blood is running in my veins and there’s breathe in my body.”

  “Oh, that can be changed,” he said, his expression as serious as a heart attack.

  “Is that a threat?” I asked as my brow wrinkled in anger.

  “No, of course not… brother,” he said to taunt me. “Besides, I think I have something that will make you change your mind.”

  “And what’s that?”

  I watched as he grinned devilishly and then reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone before making a few selections on it.

  “Five, four, three, two…”

  Instead of saying one he just waited for what he knew was about to happen. Suddenly the power went out in the whole building, lights and everything. The lights going out didn’t affect things too much since we had the sunlight from outside shining through the windows. Just as quickly as it had gone off, the power came back on.

  “What? Am I supposed to be impressed?” I said as I smirked at him. But then my office phone began to ring off the hook. It seemed like employees from all over the building were suddenly calling me all at once. I looked at him with a confused expression. “What is going on?”

  Juanita burst into my office.

  “Darius, everyone is calling up here saying that they’ve lost all of their files. Everything that we need to do business around here is gone.”

  Juanita’s words hit me like bricks being dropped on my head. I jumped up from my spot on the edge of my desk and went around to my computer. It had just finished restarting from the power bump, but that was no reason for me to discover what I discovered once I logged back in. Everything was gone, just like Juanita had said.

  “It’s gone,” I said, shaking my head as I looked up at her since she was now standing beside my desk. “Everything is gone.” I frantically went through every part of my computer that I knew how to get into hoping to find something, anything that was related to Kingdom Enterprises. All of our systems and files were gone.

  I stopped scrambling and looked up at my supposed half-brother. He was smiling even more menacingly now as he watched me on borderline panic.

  “What did you do? What the hell did you do!?” I shouted as I rose to my feet and leaned so far across the desk that Juanita placed her hand on my arm because she obviously thought that I was going to hurt this guy.

  “Oh, just a little something that I learned in college,” he said once I calmed down. “I guess my degree was worth every dime. But if you agree to the terms that we discussed earlier then I can fix it just like that,” he said before snapping his finger.

  I only stared at him as Juanita looked back and forth between me and him, obviously trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Darius…”

  I cut her off before she could even ask.

  “Juanita, give us the office.” My voice had returned to its calm evenness and this let Juanita know that I was cool. She left the office but I knew that she was going to ask me about this as soon as she got the chance.

  I waited until she closed the office door before I said, “Fix this. Now.”

  He rose to his feet. “I guess this means that I’m the new CFO until further notice,” he said as he extended his hand. I had no other choice but to shake it, knowing that I was making a deal with the devil.

  Chapter X

  By the time that we got things back under control at the office it was going on six o’clock. Traffic was ridiculous but that didn’t stop me from speeding home, pushing my Benz to over ninety miles per hour at some points. The sooner I got home the better because after everything that I found out today, I felt like I was about to lose my mind. I was now questioning my identity and my life as a whole. It was time for the lies to end.

  Immediately after D.J. recovered all of our company files and then left for the day, I headed straight for Walter’s office. On my way there many of my employees attempted to get my attention in order to find out what was going on, but they would have to wait until I got the truth that I was looking for.

  “You lied to me!” I shouted as I slammed Walter’s office door closed behind me.

  Walter looked up at me from his computer with a confused expression on his face as he beheld the enraged look in my eyes.

  “Darius, what is wrong with you?” Walter asked as he slowly rose to his feet. “And what’s going on with the computers?” It was obvious that he was completely clueless about what was really going on, but that didn’t mean that I was going to take it easy on him.

  I sighed deeply, hoping that it would help relieve my anger or at least control it.

  “Our computer problems are courtesy of a special visitor that we just had. A visitor by the name of Daniel King, Jr.” I stood there and watched as Walter’s expression changed about five different ways as my words settled into his mind. He then realized how this revelation could possibly affect our relationship and I could see he was unsure as he stared at me.

  “Where is he?” he asked, looking part fearful and part angry. “Where the hell is D.J.?” he asked before marching from around his desk and toward his office door.

  “I kicked his ass out,” I said, stopping Walter dead in his tracks. “But he’ll be back on Monday.”

  Walter turned his scowl on me and I couldn’t tell if he was upset with me or D.J.

  “Why?” Walter asked through clenched teeth.

  “Because I just made him CFO.”

  “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “Because he was the one who caused that power bump and deleted all of our company files, Walter.” I said Walter’s name like it was a derogatory word because that was the language that I was tempted to use at the moment. But I controlled my tongue because I still respected Walter. He had been like a father to me and that was what made it even more painful to find out that he had been lying to me all this time.

  Walter and I stared at one another. We had disagreed a few times in the past, but we never
argued like this. Walter turned away from me, apparently unable to look at the pain in my eyes any longer. He ran his hand over his bald head and let both his shoulders and head drop in disappointment.

  “Why, Walter?” I asked gently while his back was still to me. “Why did you lie to me all this time?”

  “Darius, you were never supposed to find out about D.J.,” Walter said sympathetically as he turned to face me once again.

  “Yeah, well, I’ve found out. And he told me about his mother and my other half-brothers and sisters too.”

  “Damn,” Walter mumbled under his breath. “This was not supposed to happen. D.J. knows that part of the agreement that was made with them was that they were to stay away from you and away from Kingdom Enterprises.”

  “Walter, this doesn’t make sense. If my father already had a family then why am I here?”

  “Because you are his oldest child and the rightful heir to his fortune,” Walter told me. “From day one your father had every intention of leaving the bulk of his fortune to you which is all tied up in this company. It was hard, but he learned to accept the fact that he never had the opportunity to build a relationship with you. In his eyes, you were still his son and he believed that you had everything that it took to someday run this company. And I gotta say that I think he was right.”

  Walter’s words of affirmation did soften the blow, but I still wasn’t satisfied.

  “So what did he do for them?” I asked. “I know that he didn’t leave his family with nothing.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Walter confirmed. “After the alimony that his wife received after the divorce and what she received after his death, she walked away with close to half a billion dollars.”

  “Half a billion?” I asked in complete shock. “Damn, man. You made it seem like they had pennies compared to what I have. But it’s the other way around.”