Julius Caesar

"Shut him up or we'll do it our way," Leonard said with a grimace and I turned to him threateningly.

"Let him talk as he wishes," I said solidly and Augustus smirked. "And that's my first rule; I don't take orders. From anyone."

Except for your father/brain.

I clenched my fists.

Maxime smirked. "Oh? Looks like you gotta make an exception this-"

"Can you get to the bloody point where you're pissed at me?" I cut him off impatiently.

Maxime shut up and looked up at me seriously. "D'accord*. For starters, you stole our documents. And killed our père*. Our father," he then added with a thick accent.

"Yeah, that's what I did," I said, wrapping my arms in front of my chest. "What do you want?"

"Vengeance. Revenge, Alexander Junior." He said, raising his black coat's collar against the cold breeze.

"I beg to differ-" I raised my eyebrows. "Killing your ′père'," I mocked. "-was our revenge. Taking our documents back, was also only fair."

"You didn't only take your folder. You took the other four, Alexander Jr-" He drawled and I gritted my teeth at the name he decided to assign me.

"They mean nothing to me," I told him. "And if you want them, I shall return them."

Maxime raised his eyebrows, then laughed. "Are we here to negotiate? I don't do bargains." His voice hardened. "I want all folders. All five of them."

"You talk as if those documents were yours," I said. "Your père stole them. And got killed for them."

"You killed him when he was only coming to give them back!" Leonard's voice cottoned in and I looked at him bemusedly.

"Really?" I raised my eyebrows. "Last I checked, he'd rather scream when I pulled his hair than tell me where the documents were-" I started and Maxime's cool finally wore off.

"Don't you dare." His voice was taut and his face screwed. I smiled. "You never gave him the money."

"You mean the ten million dollars that one of your father's men took the day before he screamed to death? Just because he wouldn't trust us." I added bitterly. "We were noble. He wasn't. He and his likes get eliminated. End of the bedtime story. Can we go now?"

Maxime looked at me slightly shocked. I scoffed.

"Looks like your 'père' didn't tell you what really happened." I teased with a slight smirk. "So when you 'unravel' the truth, that your father was a scumbag, come to apologize. As for now, you should learn when to run for your life. Like...in the next five to ten minutes." I sucked in my lower lip and then smiled wickedly.

"Impossible. He would never lie to us." Leonard intervened as I heard his gun click.

Maxime smiled. "Nice story. Especially the conclusion. I like it. Bravo!" He then laughed, tilting back his head before looking down with no essence of emotion on his face. "I want all folders. Julius."

"What still thoroughly amazes me-" I continued, ignoring him and his drama. "-is why haven't you guys, continued his legacy right away? I mean, you had the bloody documents for what? Five months? You remember them when I decide to take them back? Odd."

"Don't answer him," Leonard told his brother and I smirked.

"I don't care what you think," Maxime told me, ignoring his brother. "I want my folders."

I shuffled a bit and stared at him daringly, not uttering a word.

He then approached me so our faces were merely a few inches apart. "I want my folders." He snarled, his cinnamony breath fanning my face.

I got closer to his face. "What you get," I panted with anger. "-is so different than what you want. Rule two."

"You don't want to get on my bad side."

"You're not the only one with a bad side, love." I mocked and he grimaced.

"I'll give you twenty-four hours to have my documents in my hands." He demanded and I raised my eyebrows, glancing at Augustus who looked at me curiously. I then, with no warning, crashed my forehead into Maxime's nose, busting it.

"That's for breaking rule one, pussyboy." I immediately whipped out my gun and pointed it at Maxime who staggered back with a bloodied hand up to his nose.

I glanced at Leonard who nervously stole glances at his brother. I immediately used this moment of his distraction to vigorously nod at Augustus who thankfully got my message, gave Leonard a surprise uppercut, and disarmed him. He then held the gun to Leonard's head with an easy smirk.

Good, he learnt a thing or two from Father.

I then locked eyes with a shocked Leonard. "Rule three. Never ever look back. Even if it was family." I rasped with a wide smile.

My heart was dancing.

Maxime straightened up and used his coat's sleeve to wipe his nose, thus smudging his face with blood. He then laughed. "Alright. Trés bien*-" he panted with a forced smile. "What now?" He sneered. "You gonna kill us? Like you did to père?" His left eye twitched.

"Actually," I started as thoughts stormed my brain about my next step. "Actually, no."

"No?" He raised his eyebrows and sniffed loudly.

"It would certainly be a party if I did so," I said, surprising myself with a smile. "And I happen to really like those kinds of parties. However," I added quickly. "-I happen to have bigger plans. And you happen to be part of them. So congratulations. You won another day to live!"

"Yay!" Augustus butted in sarcastically.

"Shut up," I breathed and Augustus retreated.

Maxime's eyes glided from Augustus to Leonard before returning to me. "You know that we won't stop right? That I'd rather die than-"

"Shut up," I barked at him and he smiled wickedly.

"We'll see who'll laugh at the end. I promise you, you'll see," he said, looking straight into my eyes.

"We will," I said, raising my eyebrows. "But now, let's deal with the beginning, love," I whispered, clutched his coat's collar and pulled him closer to me. My gun's muzzle was kissing his neck. He didn't fight back. "How about a deal?"

"I'm not interested."

"Well, let me make you," I said, smiling. "How about for every 'no' you say, I burn a folder? And believe me, I will. And I think that it's quite a generous offer. Four chances. What do you say? Are you in?"

Maxime looked up with so much hatred it actually surprised me.

"Merde! Écoutez ce qu'il a à dire*!" Leonard barged into the conversation again, his voice strangled but his accent fluent.

Maxime didn't glance at Leonard but a weak light in his eyes told me that he got what he said. I didn't care what he said because, oh well, they were the ones at a disadvantage. Any wrong move was a lost life. No second thoughts here.

You kill or get killed.

"Parler*! Spit it out!" Maxime said furiously.

I turned to Leonard and smiled. "J'adorea convincing man," I teased as he spat next to his shoes. I turned to Maxime, tightening my clutch around his collar.

"You have no idea how much trouble those documents caused me," I said, remembering every life severed because of them. "So I'm very, very angry. I ask something once without repeats. So you better be focused, okay?"

Maxime's cold eyes met mine. Void of emotion. Empty in the depths of their greyness. Scary in their ambiguity. "Okay."

"Firstly- why didn't you finish off your job right after your father's death? Why wait for almost five months?" I asked curiously and he scoffed.

"We already had something on our hands. Father's death was a surprise. Things got messed up with the job we were doing." He rasped with a snarl. "The priority didn't lay with your company's shit at that time. No one could've believed that Danielle would sell us-" He said bitterly and I smiled, feeling the puzzle pieces fit together.

"I can be very convincing," I said.

"And smart too! You should never underestimate him." Augustus added confidently, making me involuntarily smile.

I cleared my head.

Maxime then looked at me through his thick eyebrows with a smirk. "You won't get what you want."

I ignored him. "Now, now, Max. I'll give you the four folders that don't concern me. But-" I said. "-I don't want to see your pretty, French faces ever again."

"Yeah? You think that it's that easy, huh?" He scowled deeply. "I say, fuck you."

"Is that a 'no'?" I said testily, tilting my head.

Maxime growled and almost threw a punch in my face when I quickly held his forearm with a snarl.

Quick reflexes were my thing.

"Is that-" I said, pulling him closer by his forearm. "-a 'no'?"

His nose flared. "You will regret this."

I smirked. "Hm, maybe," I said. "Probably not. So-" I paused, letting him go and averting my gaze to Augustus who was having the time of his life holding a gun to a person's head. "-do we have a deal? Are you a man of your word or are you like your father?"

Maxime grunted but said nothing.

"I'm glad," I said bored. "Now where and when would you like to get the other folders?"

Maxime glanced at Leonard whose eyebrows were furrowed with his hands above his head.

"He's younger, isn't he?" Maxime started, surprising me with his question. I shifted a bit, shrugged, and glanced at Augustus whose eyebrows were raised.

"Be relevant please," I said rolling my eyes, but his scowl turned into an evil smirk.

"He is your younger brother."

Feeling an irrelevant lump in my throat, I smiled. "And he's yours," I said, referring to Leonard.

Maxime smiled, his eyes dark clouds, heavy with the storms they carried. "Tomorrow. Same place. Same time. Eight p.m."

I nodded at his words. "Deal."

Maxime buttoned his coal-black coat with a snarl. "Good."

Seeing that there was no more to do, I nodded at Augustus who got into the car with Leonard's gun still pointed at Leonard through the car's window. "Doesn't mean that I'm in a car, that you can get me," I heard him tell Leonard from inside and almost smirked.

"Alright," I told Maxime with a sigh. "-I'll see you tomorrow."

Maxime tried to smile but failed. "I will."

I got into the car, started it, and immediately sped past them into the darkness of the night, ignoring Augustus' blabber that followed.

Alexander's POV.

I sat on the huge, golden armchair in Augustus' room with a cup half-filled with good scotch in one hand and a fuming cigar in the other. I put my feet up on the tiny coffee table in front of me, kicking down the almost full ashtray. It fell with a soft thud as the cigarette ash it held littered the impeccably clean carpet.

I brought the cigar to my lips with a shaky hand, daring myself to drag more of it, to drag away my life for good. But what could a poor, tiny cigar do to Alexander Black?

That's right. Nothing.

I scoffed, remembering the doctor's warnings about not smoking, drinking or stressing. He said it as if that'd kill me.

So there I was, sitting, doing the opposite. Daring it to kill me.

I cocked my head to the left to stare at Augustus' empty bed in defeat, not knowing when he'd return. Because what would he return for? Me?

I brought the cup to my lips and sipped before smacking and licking them. I closed my eyes for a few minutes before the room's door was swung open. It was probably America, wanting to tell me that someone called or something.

I opened my eyes and looked at the door. I blinked once. Twice. Shook my head slightly. Smirked. I could swear I saw Augustus standing in the doorway in yellow shorts, a blazer, jade-green scarf, and red converse.

And now I started hallucinating. Exemplary- I thought bitterly.

I closed my eyes, looked away, and then looked back at the doorway to still find him staring at me with parted lips. I laughed at the stupidity of the situation.

"Shoo! Shoo!" I mumbled under my breath as Augustus' figure approached me with caution.

"Dad?" He breathed, kneeling next to the armchair I was planted on.

"This isn't funny," I whispered to myself, shaking my head and looking at the glass of scotch as if two eyes and lips popped out from it.

"Are you drunk?" The figure asked and I scoffed, daring to steal a glance at his messy hair, chapped lips, and glistening ocean eyes.

"If you define drunk as hallucinating my son talking to me after he presumably left, then, yes. Certainly." The words tumbled from my lips with a slight slur.

He laughed. "You aren't hallucinating," he said, stressing on 'hallucinating' like it sounded weird.

"Well, why not? Maybe it's a side effect of scotch and cigars after a heart attack," I said, rolling my eyes.

"You had a heart attack?" He asked with shock. I looked away, shook my head, looked back at him, and faltered when I looked into his concern-filled eyes.

"I did not," I said slowly, raising my index finger to my lips. "My heart did though. That's not the same."

Augustus shook his head with a slight smile. "Yep. You're drunk."

"Alright, you can go, shoo! Shoo!" I said to myself and almost laughed at the absurdity of my situation.

"I'm real I swear!" His figure got to its feet.

"Then why the hell are you dressed like a clown?!" I said, furrowing my eyebrows. "This isn't how Augustus would dress. It doesn't make sense."

"So, that's how you'd know if I'm real, huh?" He chuckled, his eyes surprisingly alive.

I sighed heavily. "So you're real. Okay." I lowered my feet from the coffee table and stood up with a sway. I held onto the armchair for support and looked at Augustus. "I almost died because of you." The words gushed out of my mouth as I pointed at him.

Augustus' shoulders slumped a bit. "Yeah. I can see. You're also -uh- killing yourself-"

I clenched my jaws, swayed a bit more before a clap of anger clouded my senses. I threw my drink at the wall behind Augustus, shattering the glass and staining the wall.

"DAMMIT, AUGUSTUS! DAMMIT!" I found myself shouting when Augustus shook his head with his hands outstretched in front of him as if it'd calm me down.

"That won't kill me!" I barked. "Not a cup or a whole bottle of scotch! Not a bloody cigar!"

Augustus winced. "Calm-"

"You know what'll kill me, Augustus?" I said calmly, licking my lips. "But you know! You know, don't you? Don't you?!"

Augustus frowned slightly. "Dad-"

"You left me!" I thundered. "You left me and you didn't tell me!"

"I forgot! I'm sorry!" He said, removing the jade-green scarf that hugged his neck.

"You forgot?!" I said as my brain made a full stop. "Is that an excuse?"

"No, Dad, it isn't, dammit!" He said irritably. "I'm used to living alone! I don't expect anyone to look after me! I didn't remember you!"

He didn't remember me? I froze as Julius' words came, stabbing my back. My heart. I hope he loves you the same way you love him. That was what he said.

I stumbled back and collapsed in the armchair. Augustus groaned.

"That's not what I meant," he said, shrugging lightly. "I mean, I'm used to-"

"You don't need to explain your actions," I said, looking away from him as my eyes watered.

"Come on, Dad! Don't make a big deal out of it!" He said. "Look at me! I'm right here!"

"I'm not-" I said, with a slight shrug. "I'm not making a big deal out of it." I breathed. "And you? You really are not here."

"I thought we got over this," he sighed. "You're not halluc-"

"You are not here," I mumbled to myself as I forced myself up, walked across the room, past Augustus, and eventually out of the door.

I got into my room and locked the door behind me. Feeling beside myself with fear, I headed to my king-size bed that was draped in translucent, crimson drapes. I sat on it and looked at my rough hands.

The black and sapphire-jewelled rings. They were our eye colours. The black represented Julius' and mine because dark-brown with dark-green is black. And sapphire? It was Augustus'.

I took them off and stared at the red markings they left behind. I then carefully placed them on the bedside table, laid on my back, switched off the lights, and slept, pretending that my son was still gone.

Pere: Father

Tres Bien:Very Good

Parler: Speak

Merde! Écoutez ce qu'il a à dire :Shit! Listen to what he has to say!