The Grand Mistress

Hawk was ready to leave that day when Lucas arrived. The boy had been gone for long as he made sure to come back with something at hand. He had heard of what happened as the scandal had really become uncontrollable this time. It had been the talk of the whole country and pushed Hawk Monsanto\'s reputation at the edge.

When Lucas entered his room, the M Conglomerate President  didn\'t even look up to meet his eyes, but he could feel Lucas\' anxiousness for some reason.

"Tell me you\'ve got something for me . If there\'s none, just leave before I throw you off to Africa," Hawk warned.

"I didn\'t dare come here empty handed," Lucas politely replied. He knew Hawk had so many things in his table right then because of what happened in Feather\'s concierto and his expression only confirms the fact. 

"Good," Hawk replied as he made full strides into one of his drawers to pull something and threw it off in his luggage. He was currently packing up for his trip and wasn\'t in the mood to have someone do it for him. "Tell me what you\'ve got about the girl,"

"Nothing about the girl honestly," Lucas was honest although he kind of regretted the way he started his report. Instead of giving Hawk the bad news, he should have started with the good news first. Right then the only thing he could do was swallow a lump on his throat wishing that his master won\'t be that mad. "Nothing yet…"

"Then what the fuck are you doing here?" Hawk gathered his gray eyes on him with full intensity, very annoyed by his useless appearance.

"I\'ve got this however…" Lucas showed him something. It was a picture. An old uncolored picture of people which Hawk could not recognize. He even went as far as squinting his eyes as he tried to remember who those people in the picture were but it seemed like it was a very old one, taken at the time when there were still no colors to all pictures people previously developed.

"I don\'t recognize anyone here," Hawk told him and his tone was rather commanding him to just answer what he found out.

"This is Don Benedictor\'s family," Lucas revealed. Pointing to the adult man in the center, the boy continued his explanation. "This is him,"

"And the woman?" Hawk immediately raised a brow at it. He was very familiar with the family of Don Benedicto\'s wife—The Yang\'s. However it seemed like the woman in the picture didn\'t resemble any of the Yang\'s nor did she resemble his wife.

"His wife," Lucas revealed. 

"C\'mon Lucas," Hawk shook his head as he refused to believe it. Though he wasn\'t close to the Yang\'s, he was very aware of who their madam was as he had talked to her a couple of times already before. "She doesn\'t look like the old madam of the Han\'s"

"I investigated and found out that this woman was his real wife," Lucas continued. "It seemed that Lorena Yang wasn\'t his first and that their marriage should have not existed because I found a marriage document that proves Don Benedicto has not severed her marital affiliations with this woman. She was the real wife,"

"So Lorena Yang is a…." Hawk was confused.

"She is a mistress," Lucas went on. Everyone in Devon City knew that Don Benedicto married Lorena Yang before and since she has a kin in the higher elites and her family was rich too, it had been told that she was the one behind the previous president\'s success. Don Benedicto\'s success.

"Lucas, the Yang\'s had a great reputation, we can\'t throw rocks on them unfairly," Hawk chided his subordinates even when he knew it all made sense. However this got his attention and so he looked at Lucas and demanded he proved his case further.

"This must be the reason why they hid the first wife," Lucas gave his view on this. "I believe they hid the true wife because she refused to sign the divorce agreement. It seemed like she and Don Benedicto were in love. However, I am very sure of my claims that the madam of the Han\'s that you knew wasn\'t the real madam. She is…" he pointed again to the woman in the picture.

"Also…." Lucas took the picture and pushed it in front of him. "Look closer Mr. President….this is not only the weird thing that this pictures depicts,"

Hawk had his eyes on the picture and realized that it wasn\'t only Don Benedicto and his supposed legal wife who were there. 

"They have a child?" 

"Children," Lucas corrected. "They had two boys….and they are twins,"

Hawk collected the picture from Lucas\' hand in an instant and stared right through it. Indeed both Don Benedicto and the woman he was with were carrying a child in each of their arms and they had the same features, almost the same face.

"I think it\'s not Mauro Han you met years ago in Somerset Village," Lucas said flatly, his voice ringing with distaste. "You met his twin brother…Meuro Abreo"

"Meuro Abreo?" Hawk repeated the name with so much confusion but then it dawned on him that this information was the one that he had been missing all this time. One of the reasons why he did not doubt Feather\'s identity was her father, Mauro Han, as he had met him before when he was young. 

He remembers his face clearly and so even when he thought that there were many things that have changed with Feather, he had never been suspicious because she was Mauro Han\'s only daughter. 

So it turned out, Mauro Han wasn\'t the person he met?

"How could he have a different last name if he was Don Benedicto\'s son?" Hawk went more miserable at this. Damn! He never thought the Han\'s had secrets on their own as big as this.

"There\'s no explanation to that," Lucas was troubled. "This information is not available anywhere. There was no record of any connection with Meuro Abreo and Mauro Han in the civil registry, nor Don Benedicto\'s name attached with Meuro Abreo. It seemed like all the records had been cleaned. I believed the Han\'s or the Yang\'s have buried every dirty secret of their family.

"Mauro Han never told me about this….he knew I was looking for the girl…" Hawk\'s breathing became heavy and hot.

"He tricked you….I think they knew who you were looking for," Lucas was very sure of that. "Han\'s Scintillait was in a serious mess, he used his daughter to make you invest on it…,"

"They knew it all along," Hawk\'s anger was only becoming deep. The Han\'s—what kind of family are they? What kind of people were hiding behind the mask they wore in front of him? 

"Find more about the Han\'s history," Hawk commanded Lucas. "Find out what happened to my fuzzy Cat all these years. Find out why she stopped ballet and when did she left Mara Ballet Company,"

"Alright. I\'ll see what I can do," Lucas inhaled back all his relief. He did think his dilemma was finished as he had brought some good information to Hawk. He never expected that he would ask more of it. "By the way….I saw your brother is already here,"

"Watch him closely," Hawk added more instructions to him. "Make sure that nobody learns about him,"

"Are you going to Finland?" Lucas asked again. He was made aware of the situation when he bumped into Black earlier and told him Hawk was leaving to attend some errands abroad. He assumed his errands were about chasing Simione right away. "Do you seriously think she would forgive you,"

"I don\'t think she will forgive me," Hawk replied.

"So you have another solution in mind?" Lucas saw a different gleam in his eyes and realized that his errands abroad were more than what he thought they were. What could Hawk Monsanto be thinking?

"Time will tell," Hawk answered. "You\'ve met her Lucas and you know how strong willed she is, she won\'t back down at me easily,"

"If you tell her you are sorry and that you are his childhood friend, she might change his mind," Lucas expressed. "You told me once she was so fond of you and that you two were very close. I\'m sure if you tell the truth, she will forgive you,"

"If she will know the truth, she will hate me more," Hawk worried and sighed frustratedly at it. "I didn\'t recognize her, Lucas. I attempted to kill her too,"

"Then what are you planning to do?" Lucas asked this time. Although Hawk was very strict with him, he pushed past their personal issues and thought of Hawk\'s feelings. He was afterall a brother to him, he owed him a lot. "I\'m sure you have something in mind,"

"I don\'t know," Hawk admitted. "I\'ll cross the bridge when I get there. For now, it is very important that I should leave immediately,"

"Alright, I won\'t take much of your time. I\'ll stay here and watch over your brother while I also dig on some facts about the Han\'s"