Beyond Duties

Chapter 24

A/N

Happy Easter, my lovely reader-friends!!!

Yes, it took quite a while, and I apologize yet again.

I got back to work a week ago and had to juggle my time between errands and mom stuff, so please spare me... :-)

To make it up to all of you, I wrote two chapters! Yey!

Here you go...

*****

It was too late when Vee finally found her way out of the crowd because Conan was no longer in sight. She even tried to guess which way he may have gone but there were too many exits available and the chances of her finding him was too low. Finally giving up, she hurried to look for Jordan, instead.

"Venera?" It wasn't even a second after the ring tone sounded when Jordan answered Vee's call. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know," Vee replied quite honestly, unsure how to feel after seeing Conan with her least favorite woman on Earth. "Where are you? I guess we need to talk."

Jordan was a bit skeptical when Vee told him about Conan's presence at the bar, counting on his sharp recollection of faces. He could not remember seeing his brother or anyone that looked like him at the bar where he just came from. But then again, he considered factors like being tipsy and his short encounter with Aya which could possibly cloud his memory. 

"I can't think of reasons why my brother would show up here." He told Frank when he called. "And with Aya at that."

"Don't you think it's got something to do with the clues? Your mission." Frank mused. He reminded Jordan how they previously found it a bit untimely that Conan conveniently decided to disappear when the clue-finding mission started. Jordan had refused to entertain the idea of being abandoned, but he really never settled for the older Gallagher son's presumed reason for hiding - to make way for Jordan's image-building as the heir to their family business. The mission to find the truth behind the deaths of the Gallagher patriarch and the Yates men turned out risky and Jordan and Vee could have used all the help they could get, yet Conan decided to hibernate.

"Are you saying that my older brother deliberately left us on this?" Jordan hissed. The idea never crossed his mind, but Frank has a strong point. He had never gotten a single word from Conan since day one of the mission. While they rarely see each other, his sister Alannah, on the other hand, still keeps in touch with him, unlike Conan. He had never thought about what difference it has, since he wanted his family to stay out of trouble.

"Your older sister has a kid," Frank reminded Jordan. "I would understand why you'd prefer if she's out of harm's way whether she's got a powerful husband or not. But your older brother lives alone like you. Why wouldn't he want to help?"

"Somebody has to take over if something ever happened to me," Jordan replied. He felt weird the moment he heard his own words, and he could imagine Frank's face lighting up as though hitting the jackpot. Yes, someone has to take over the family business if and when something happens to him. Conan had always taken care of the family business while he was in the military, living a secret life. It would only make sense and be fair if Conan would end up as the sole heir to the Gallagher Industries. "No... The same would have been applied had the proper hierarchy been followed..."

"That's what I'm saying, Jordan." Frank heaved a meaningful sigh. "Why would the younger brother have to face all the danger instead of the older one?"

"Because I can protect myself," Jordan snapped. He refused to acknowledge Frank's terrible deduction. "Maybe it's best to just move on with the next clues and get this over with."