Taken into the Unknown (Complete)

Another Adventure (part 2)

This one is kind of short and a teaser becase I don't know when I'll finish the 3rd section to this day, but I've had this part done for so long I figured I should just upload it.

Chapter 31 (part 2)

“Bax and I both began to grow up together. I was the spoiled rebellious child who never did what he was asked.”

He paused and shrugged. “After losing my mother, like any neglected child, I wanted attention. I began to get involved with drugs, came home late at night completely wasted, just reckless things like that. My dad didn’t care. The only thing he would ever talk to me about was taking over the company one day and getting involved in his business. Of course, I did everything in my power to steer conversations in the opposite direction. Sure I wanted his attention but I didn’t want it by getting involved in the one thing that diverted his attention in the first place. I was bitter towards the company, didn’t want anything to do with it because it ruined my father… I didn’t want it to ruin me too. Baxter was the exact opposite of me. He loved the company. He took business courses, went to work with my father, and did work for my dad, even if it was just mindless work. He wanted to know all about the company and practically worshipped the ground my father walked upon. “

He sighed and looked up, breaking his trance from the story.  He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then continued in a softer voice.

“I thought the company would go to Bax. I mean, he deserved it, he cared more about the company than I did, he knew so much more. I-I…I didn’t know.  Baxter was out of the country and out of reach when it happened.  Everything was fine one moment, and then my dad was in the hospital, in the ICU. He had a stroke.”

He paused again.

“Were you sad?”

He shrugged, sighed, and thought about it a moment longer. “Yeah, I was sad. I’m not entirely heartless. He was my father, but I got over his death pretty quickly. I had very few fond memories of him. I think I was more torn-up over what could have been rather than what was. It was the fact that now that he was gone, I wouldn’t have any chances left to have a life with him acting as a real father.”

He sighed and paused once again.

“He left a will. In it, he bequeathed almost everything to me. He left me the company, our properties, a large sum of the money in the bank. He only left a few things to Baxter like the rest of the money in the bank. Apparently there was a letter too, but I never found it. I tried to get in contact with Bax. I wanted him to have the company. I most definitely didn’t want it. I didn’t know anything about it.

To my dismay, I couldn’t get a hold of him. Aside from that, I learned that I was strictly bound to the company due to some complicated legal work that could have taken months or years to sort out through properly if I wanted to free my hands of Vanguard Technologies which basically made it extremely difficult for me to pass the company down to anyone. My only two choices were to not do anything about the company and let it crumble to pieces, or do as my father wished and become the CEO of Vanguard Technologies.

I don’t know why but my father really wanted me to keep the company. The only reason I can come up with is because I was his legitimate son. The company had been passed down from my grandfather, who had started it, to my father, and my father wanted to pass it down to me to keep it in the family line. Not to mention I was his eldest son, and I think in his eyes, I was his only son. I’m not even sure why he allowed Bax to stay and took care of him. Maybe it was in hopes that Bax’s interest in the company would get me involved too. I really don’t know, but I wish I did.”

“So then what made you want to take over the company?”

“Well…I don’t think I can really pinpoint it. Maybe I had really developed a small interest in the company over all that time, maybe I was just curious about the potential the company held, what I could do and where I could go with it, maybe it was because I felt that now it was my responsibility to take care of the company, even if it was a forced responsibility, maybe it was because I really wasn’t sure what else I wanted to do with the rest of my life, maybe I didn’t want to have the burden from the guilt of knowing I was the one who let the great company of my father and grandfather crumble, or maybe it was all of those things mixed together.”