Mistakenly Eaten

122. The Bank's Scheme

“When do you plan on telling Althea the truth.” Salva looked up at Nicholas as he rose the question.

The grave expression on his face, told Nicholas right away that his cousin was in no mood of joking around and was serious about his business.

Nicholas sighed, as he rubbed his palms over his thighs, a gesture that Salva knew he did when something made him anxious.

“If I am being honest with you, I want to tell her everything right away. I know she would not be happy but I also don’t like continuing lying to her. Do you think, I enjoy all of this? I know telling her the truth is going to make things easier for everyone but it is also going to break her heart. Don’t you see how invested she is in the lie that we started and for her this is the reality.”

“So, you never plan on telling her the truth?” Salva asked, forming that as the only conclusion out of Nicholas’s words, something that he would never support.

“Of course I have to tell her the truth and I am going to…”

“But when? After we would have to give her half a million euro for winning a fake competition?” Salva pressed, making Nicholas groan, who only ran his hands through his hair, keeping his elbows over his knees.

He shook his head a bit rigorously and finally took in a deep breath.

“We will, come up with something. I will have to. I hate lying to her and every walking second of my life I am reminded that our relationship is fragile only because of my one lie.”

“One lie?” Salva c****d, making Nick throw a deadly glare at his way.

“Alright! you figure a way out to tell her the truth but for now, I have to figure out a way to deal with this organizer’s cook off. I don’t know how to deal with this.”

“You know what, you should be the one to tell me how I should deal with Althea. Or in fact, you should be the one to tell her everything.” Nick suddenly rose the question, making Salva look at him with bewilderment.

“What? Me? Why should I talk to her? Dude! Man up and take care of your own mess.”

With that Salva turned to leave but Nicholas immediately got up on his feet and called his cousin.

“You were the one who started this entire lie. What did you plan on doing with Althea to begin with? How were you going to handle her?”

Salva threw an obnoxious look at Nick.

“I did not plan on making you and her fall in love.”

He stated honestly, wishing that he had the slightest of the idea that the two falling in love was going to happen, so he would’ve either stopped it from happening or stopped himself from falling in love with Althea.

“Well, you should’ve kept the adverse effects in your mind, when you planned on all of this.” Nick tried to act as cocky as he could, only so he could put Salva under the pressure to succumb to his demands.

Salva, who was already heart broken, was not willing to capitulate to any of Nick’s heeds.

“You know what? When I brought you to the island, you were depressed and refused to eat anything at all and now seeing your condition and the cocky fucker that you are acting like, I should tell Althea everything.”

“What? Don’t! are you crazy?” Nick immediately straightened up at Salva’s threat and seeing the cockiness disappear from his face, Salva only grinned back ta his cousin.

“What? Didn’t you want me to talk to Althea.” Then it became Salva’s turn to be the smug one.

“Just forget it. I’ll see what I have to do and you take care of that cook off thingy!”

With that Nicholas ushered Salva out of his office and the guy simply shook his head, getting down to planning on how he would make the cook off work.

Nicholas went to sit on his office’s desk and opened up his laptop.

He was quite worked up about Salva’s words and he did indeed need to find a moment or a way to break the news to Althea or else, their situation could become worse.

As Nicholas opened up his laptop, a notification popped up at the right corner of his screen, which was an email notification.

He opened up the email and found that it was from his private detective that he had set up in Gragnano to keep an eye on Althea’s family and friends and see if anybody was still suspicious to Althea’s disappearance and if they were doing well in her absence.

Nicholas knew that Althea missed her family quite abundantly and she was used to of taking care of her family always. She was always worried if everybody back home was doing well or not, especially her mother and knowing the kind of the sinisterly jerk her uncle was, Nick made sure to always keep them protected.

He opened up the mail and smiled, as he read through it.

SUBJECT: UPDATE.

MAIL: No one suspects Althea’s disappearance anymore. People in Gragnano have long forgotten and have actually reluctantly but still agreed that the girl might actually be with the real society. On the other hand, her sister’s visit to Jacob, the town’s commissioner has also lessened. So, I think she also gave in to her speculations. Her mother is doing alright. Her Uncle Gustav had been off her back because the town’s sympathies are with the woman, since she is still torn about her daughter’s sudden disappearance and they are being given regular updates about her, via those video films that you send them. So, things are going alright so far. In fact, many people have been rooting for Althea considering that they believe that she is competing in a real competition and many of them even show up on and off again at Monique’s house and ask her about Althea’s progress in the competition. By and by – things are going quite great here. hope things are good on your end as well. Oh! Also, I did the thing with the bank that you asked me to do so. The local Gragnano bank is quite a small thing. It was easy to convince the owner and the manager to the deal and they agreed right away. They said that they will make sure that Althea’s mother gets the amount before the start of each month. Of course, they asked for their own cut, so I settled that as well. Just enjoy your time on the island and let me know till when I have to continue my little hunt on the family. Although, I don’t mind stalking them, Althea’s little sister is quite warm on the eyes but still, I think I would be better off in Spain, taking care of some other businesses.

Nicholas felt a bit weirded out by his detective’s findings regarding Althea’s younger sister. To him, Irene was like a younger sister and thence, the man’s comments made him feel a bit covetous.

He decided to send the man to Spain, since things in Gragnano were settled down for good and Gigi had his own infiltrators in the town, already doing his work.

As Nicholas typed his mail, ordering the detective to turn towards Spain, he also appreciated his good work of settling the payment with the bank and now he or Althea didn’t have to worry about her family at all.

He made his little Santa trick work and in a very sleeky way, he helped Althea’s family, lessen their burdens, without having hurt their pride.

As Nicholas smiled, with pride on his astute stroke, Monique and Irene in front of the bank’s manager, inside the small building, that constituted of the local finance body.

The balding chubby manager, jumped up and high over his raised swivel chair, as he spread his arms out in joy and laughed a bit too oddly cheerfully.

“Congratulations! Monique Ferrara! You have been selected by our bank as our lucky winner.”

“Winner? For what? What exactly are we called here for?” Irene rose the question, mirroring her mother’s thought as well.

“Every year, our bank conducts a lucky draw, we keep the scheme under the table but…”

“You are definitely confusing us for someone else. We are not even a member of your bank. My mother or I, don’t even own an account in this bank.” Irene clarified and got up from her chair, grabbing Monique’s hand along with her, ready to get out of the place, that was definitely wasting her time.

“Please, at least listen to us.” The manager urged, getting up from his chair and rushed after Irene, preventing her from leaving the office.

“Listen, if this is some sort of scam, then…”

“What? No! why would the bank call you and scam you? It’s always the other way around. People try and scam you in the name of the bank. A bank can never scam anybody.” The poor manager tried to explain the situation to Irene but she only squinted her eyes and looked at him with scrutiny.

“Then what is the lucky draw that you are talking about? We did not participate in anything at all. Did you participate in anything?” she turned towards her mother, who simply shook her head in the negative manner.

“See, how come we won something that we did not even participate in.” Irene attacked the manager with her question but the poor man only held his hands out in his defense and tried to catch a breath that Irene made impossible for him to do so.

He had a reflective image of Althea in his mind, as a soft and timid girl, who would never be so offensive and was always soft spoken, no matter what the other person was saying or doing. But Irene was nothing like her. in fact, she was the polar opposite of how Althea was and that was the reason why the manager was taken aback and was not prepared for such a sharp and witty girl.

“We anonymously pick names of random citizens…” the manager began sweating as Irene brought logic in to the situation. He had never seen someone being so meticulous and intricate with such details. Usually and generally, anyone would be beyond excited and happy to have won something and without any question, they would immediately except the prize money but seeing how vicious Irene was, it only disturbed the poor manager.

“How could you do that? how do you even get the data of all these citizens? I work in the public planning and implementation committee at the city hall and I have no idea about any such anonymous lucky draw. Are you stealing data from the public offices? Who’s helping you with all of this? What kind of money are you trying to impose on us? It is some sort of black money, earned with unscrupulous manners that you are trying to impose on us, so that tomorrow on when the police would come to catch the rich bastards, my poor mother and I would be the one who would get caught the police? Just because we are borderline lower class people, it does not mean that we are greedy or we could be fooled so easily. So before, I get the authorities involved back off and let me and my mother go, or else you don’t know who I am. I have connections with the commissioner and…”

The poor manager squirmed with fear as he heard that Irene’s threat about calling the commissioner. He feared that if a real investigation envisaged in the matter than he could get caught, taking bribe from an anonymous man to supply a monthly expense to a poor woman, so that she could keep her bread and butter running whilst her oldest daughter was away from home. But looking at how fierce Irene was, the poor manager got horrified that he could get caught if he did not let things slip away with Irene.

But at the same time, he had already taken the amount offered to him by the unidentified man and had already bought a diamond necklace for his wife and expensive gifts for his children. He had to at least try to make things work because he was under quite an immense pressure from his boss, who was the owner of the bank as well.

“Can you at least try to listen to me.” He spoke meekly but Irene only growled as she squinted her eyes even more and threw a deathly stare his way.

“Let us go now or…” before Irene could throw another threat his way, Monique stepped ahead and grabbed Irene’s shoulder, pulling her back and preventing her from speaking any further.

Monique’s gesture somehow, filled a little air of hope and actual air in the manager’s lung, who immediately grabbed his napkin out of his pocket and swiped his sweat off his forehead.

Monique grabbed Irene’s hand and sat her down back on the chairs and gestured at the manager to take his seat at the same time.

She sat next to Irene and then looked up at the manager.

“As you can tell already that my daughter is not much pressed about winning anything. And she is also not willing to collect any prizes but can you tell me, what is it that we have won.” She gently asked the manager and Irene only felt irritated by her mother’s inability to be crude in that matter.

“Mom! You don’t know these corporate pests. I know how to deal with them and…”

Monique immediately grabbed Irene’s hand and prevented her from speaking any further.

“Quickly!” she urged the manager, who immediately opened up his drawers and pulled out certain papers, passing them on to Monique and Irene.

“We anonymously choose a lucky winner, annually that receives ten thousand euro for an entire year, every single month. And this year, it has been you Ms. Monique Ferrara, who won the lucky prize.”

Monique grabbed the stamp papers and as she went through them, the process seemed to be quite legislative to her.

She passed the papers to Irene, who also checked them and being someone herself who worked in a law department, she could tell that the paper work seemed pretty real.

“But we don’t give off any public data to any banks yet. Are stealing data from us? Is someone in the town hall involved in this phony act of yours?”

Irene once again bombarded the manager with her questions and this time, the man decided not to be directly involved with her and instead turned his attention towards Monique.

“Ms. Ferrara, I would like if you accept the prize money and every month, before the month would even start, we would send you the money or if you want, you can have an account opened in our bank and we will deposit the money in that account.”

Monique held an eyebrow higher than the other, as she pondered on the manager’s offer and Irene felt a bit worried that her mother might fall for the spurious offer.

“Mama! You are not actually…”

“I would like to open an account and have the money deposited in it, every month.”

Monique ordered the manager, who sighed in relief that somehow they had reached an agreement with the mother. He immediatelt called in one of his assistant’s and asked him to begin the paper work.

“Mom, we are still not sure if the scheme is legit or not and…” Irene tried to argue with her mother but Monique rose her hand up in the air and prevented, Irene from speaking any further.

“Just let it be…” she told her daughter. Her gently shut eyes and her soft tone, was enough to let Irene know that Monique was up to something and thence, she decided to let her mother be at the moment.

As the duo finally reached a settlement with the bank and their prize money was to be deposited in the account by the end of each month, the mother and daughter finally left the bank and as the two walked out, Irene couldn’t help but fret over her mother’s ambiguous decision.

“Mom! You shouldn’t have fallen prey to the bank’s stupid scheme. You don’t know what goes on and beyond in the entire Europe and how small banks of towns like ours are used for money laundering and we could get entrapped and…”

“Exactly, the scheme is in my name anyways…” Monique stated, making Irene take a pause, as she tried to understand the literal meaning behind her mother’s words.

“What are you trying to imply here?”

“I am trying to say that the bank’s scheme is in my name. I will not withdraw any money from the account and it will continue being saved in it and when I would want it I would get it out and if anything is to happen and if any danger is to be imposed. It will be imposed on me. Not you or Althea.”

As Monique made her stance clear and walked towards the bus stop, Irene groaned in agitation, throwing her head back and followed her mother till the bus stop.

“Mama, are you actually serious right now?” she asked the woman, who sat down on the bench of the stop and picked out her yarn and crochet needles, continuing to crochet a sweater than she had only barely built up so far.

“Mama! Listen to me. I know why you are taking such a risk. You are saving money for me and Althea and seeing that you are a vulnerable woman, with two young daughters, in dire need of any monetary or financial support, with your story being painted all around the town. The bank may try and make you a target, knowing that you would take any help at the moment. But you don’t have to be so stupid. Don’t you know that I am completely capable to taking care of myself and do you think Althea would’ve allowed this? She would’ve never let you take the easy way out. She is not afraid to work hard and besides, if she is at that competition like everybody is claiming, she has made so far and chances are that she might win it and she can get enough money to get us out of this town.”

Monique sighed in exasperation, as she dropped her needles and her yarn back in her tote bag and looked at her daughter with a grave look, covering her face.

“Do you know why Althea had to abruptly leave all of us and take such a big risk?”

Irene fell tacit to her mother’s question.

“Because she believed that she could win the competition and earn something out of it. do you know why you wanted to marry Peter, despite of later on realizing before time, that you never actually loved him and only his money attracted you towards him. Had Althea not gone missing, you may have never actually realized the truth. I saw Althea scrub her heels against dirty only to make enough to send you to college and make sure that I never had to worry enough about money and she had been doing so ever since she was twelve. She had been working hard to make ends meet, without having complained a single day about how tough life had been on her. Both of my daughters, are doing nothing but risking their happiness and for what? Only because I could not be financially independent and give them the sense of financial security.”

Monique’s voice broke, as tears appeared in her eyes, which brought her to a halt and she decided not to speak any further.

Monique took in a sharp whiff of air and brought herself to breathe a little and Irene also remained silent, recognizing her mother’s sorrows and understanding why Monique chose danger for herself, over her daughter’s safe future.

“Mama, both Althea and I are working towards a better future and do you think that we will be happy to see you suffer…”

“Where do I get to suffer?” Monique asked, making Irene look at her with nothing but taciturnity.

“I don’t have to work a single day for this money and it will keep on getting deposited in my account. If nothing happens in a year, we take the money out and you and Althea split it and do whatever you want to do with it.”

Soon the bus arrived and Monique got on the bus, leaving her daughter behind, who was going to take the next bus for her work. As she did so, she sat next to the window, looking out with much pondering thoughts, spinning in her mind.

She got off on a stop earlier than her work stop and instead of going in to the city hall, she went inside another bank’s branch and asked for her statement.

Walking out, she took another bus to her work and sitting inside the bus, she checked her statement and sighed in quite the disappointment that no matter how much she tried to, she would never be able to compete with her mother’s logic.

The woman was tired, watching her daughter succumb to different means and struggle to make ends meet.

Irene checked her statement under the name of ‘For Althea’, a different account that she had opened up for her older sister and her two month’s salary did not even save her half of what her mother was going to get in her account in just a single month.

Ever since, Irene found out what Althea had done for her, having sacrificed her dreams and her life only to put her through college, had not only melted Irene’s heart but also had earned Althea a very special place in her sister’s heart.

Knowing that Althea always wanted to go to a culinary school, Irene had begun saving up for her sister but who was she kidding. She wasn’t going to save as much as her mother going to get in the name of that prize, that sounded completely unethical and fishy in her opinion.

But she decided to paly along with her mother’s demands, until Althea would return back. Because there still remained a lot of unanswered questions that bothered Irene, who believed it to her core that Althea wasn’t actually at the Secret Chef Hunters’ Society but in fact, was definitely taken somewhere else. She only hoped and prayed that wherever her sister was, she would be safe and would safely return back home.

As Irene worried for her sister, the sister was lying in Nicholas’s arms, content and asleep after a good night’s loving.

As he laid and rested her head on Nicholas’s chest, who ran his fingers through Althea’s hair.

His mind was running lose with multiple disturbing thoughts, as he feared Althea’s reaction about how she would respond when she would find out the entire truth.

He feared that she would leave him and he could not even blame her for that.

He felt horrified at the thought of losing her, which made his reflexes retract his arms from behind his hand and he immediately secured them around her waist. His mind telling him that he would not let go off Althea in any condition.

Althea gently stirred out of her sleep and looked up at Nicholas, smiling and kissing him at the corner of his jaw.

“You’re still up?” she asked, as she snuggled close to his chest and he tightened his hold around her body, looking down at her ever so radiant and bright face, that made it easier for him to live.

He gulped hard, swallowing his guilt that remained in his heart, a repercussion of his own wrong doings. He regretted the moment when he gave in to Camila’s advice of being selfish and wished that he had listened to the moral and rational side of his mind and had told Althea the truth, the very first time, when he found out about who she really was and what everyone at the island was doing.

But he also knew that telling her truth, wouldn’t have brought the two to the point where they already were. He wouldn’t have fallen in love with her and would not be brought back to life, like he was at that moment.

Realizing that she was up but still deep in sleep, Nicholas’s intrusive thoughts got the best of him, as his anxiety pushed him to ask Althea a question.

“What if I tell you that I am not, who you think I am.”

Althea was drowsy and high on sleep. She was not even going to remember that conversation in the morning, a trait of hers that Nicholas had come to learn of.

Althea only opened up one of her eyes, at Nick’s question and looked at him with a mischievous smirk.

“So, are you an international super spy?” she giggled at her own question and Nicholas only smiled at her softly.

“I wish I was. It still would’ve made a valuable excuse and perhaps had given me the courage and not make me fear that you would hate me after finding out, who I really am.”

Althea was too sleepy to decode Nick’s encrypted words and decided to let slumber get the best of her, as she rested her head on Nick’s chest and simply dozed off to sleep.

As Althea’s soft breaths fanned against the skin of his chest, Nick only sighed in exasperation that he was going to have to work harder and find a way to make sure that Althea’s heart didn’t get broken when she would come to learn off the truth. Or perhaps, he was going to have to find different ways to mask the truth one way or the other. But he was only going to choose the way that would be the least hurtful to Althea and not make her push Nicholas away from her.

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