WEIGHTED 15

Elize Robert POV

‘Arcadia, baby. Leave that!’ I said when my little bundle of joy started playing with her dad’s keys trying to put them in her mouth. ‘Momma!’ She exclaimed happily as it was the first time she noticed me here. Then she started gurgling some gibberish that if I wasn’t used to hearing it, I wouldn’t understand what was being said.

I chuckled when Elton grimaced not knowing what his sister was saying. ‘Ethan, honey, take the keys from your sister before she hurts herself.’ I said.

He immediately took her, and sat her on his lap before he started to gently take the keys out of her tight grip. Every now and then he would make faces to her making her giggle and distracting her from them until he finally did it.

Ethan was always there for his siblings, even before they were born. He would always stay by my side feeling them and asking questions about how would he help me with them when they were born. I couldn’t be prouder of him, he is extremely caring and tender towards his siblings. He loves them just as much as they do him if not more.

‘Momma Dia laugh.’ Elton said pouting when he saw them having fun without him. He always called her Dia, her name was just too long and complicated for his young tongue. He was always too possessive of them that he hates when they have play without including him.

I chuckled. ‘Then go and play with them while I make you lunch.’ I told him ruffling his curly hair that he inherited from his father. All our kids inherited their father’s features. His thick curly hair, slightly tanned skin and green eyes. Except for Arcadia who is a mix between us, she had my ebony eyes and Ashen skin, but her dad’s curly hair.

The boys are like a younger replica of Tyrone. They have his short temper, his love for family and his genius mind. Ethan is at the age of nine only, yet he is about to graduate high school. According to his school, his IQ is too high compared to his peers that he doesn’t need to spend all those years they do studying something he could teach himself by a simple look at the book.

I remember the first time his school found out about his talent was because he solved one of the mathematics’ problems that was for a few classes higher than him. They were baffled and asked us if it was us that taught him such complicated problems for his age, but we told him he was always like that. The only reason they didn’t know it was because he hated attention, so he concealed his talents and we supported him.

He said he wanted to specialise in business to help me and his father with some of our burdens, so he started reading books related about it from a younger age. And I can proudly say that he knows about the domain more than most of our elite employees. Since then his father always brings him to the company with him to learn the ropes whenever he gets a chance.

His addiction to discovering new things about everything and reading was passed to Elton since he loves his brother and imitates him in almost every single thing. Elton is always listening to his brother talking about different things and repeats whatever his little head can remember and young tongue can pronounce. The only difference between them is that my little charmer likes, scratch that, he loves attention. He can’t stand it when he’s not in spotlights unlike his older brother.

There is also one more thing they share with their father which is they always caress their right cheek with the back of their fingers whenever they’re caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing and are thinking of ways to get out of it. And me being me, I always fell for their antics, and those cute puppy dog eyes.

Elton headed towards his siblings, and stole their attention as usual. I shook my head, and started preparing their lunch.

After awhile I called them to the dining table, and the boys helped me serving the food while Arcadia sits on her baby seat.

‘Elton, honey, go call your father for lunch.’ I said after we were almost done serving.

Even though we have a lot of servants, I prefer making food for my family with my own hands. They like my food best, so Tyrone ordered the maids to make food for the other workers, and the second house only. However in the rare cases I’m busy or not here to cook, our head maid, Muriel, who is also Arcadia’s nanny is the one who takes my place.

The second house is an orphan house which was introduced to us by Ethan, he has a friend he met accidentally in the street who’s living there. When Ethan visited him there once, he found it in a very bad condition, and both the kids and workers were barely able to have their day’s meals, and that too only if the kids worked.

When Ethan came to us begging us to help his friends up, we were surprised since we never knew he had any friends since he was very much kept to himself. So we did research to make sure he wasn’t being conned, and found out that those poor innocent souls were forced to participate in distributing drugs to help the sisters with the money to provide for them.

Our family is a strong believer in family love, so when we found out that they were like one big happy family that were doing their best to take care of each other. We took them under our wings, we removed them to one of our best buildings while we built a house for them on the premises because it was safer that way, and it was my son’s wish to be able to visit them whenever they want.

We offered each and every child to go to the same school as our sons. The one made for the cream of the society’s children, they offer the best education in the continent.

Their food was made by our chefs, the house we built for them was prepared with the finest and latest technology both the children and the elders needed. We built multiple nurseries as there was a lot of new born children there, also prepared with whatever that will be needed, and hired nannies to monitor them.

We spared no expense to make them feel the happiness that was stolen from them. We also made sure to monitor every adoption, to make sure that the condition of each one of the adopted children is just like the one provided by us if not better. We made sure their adoptive parents wanted children not some human punching bags.

The authorities were more than happy to help us with this matter, afraid of the consequences of denying helping us with something that should’ve been done by them.

The "sisters" were immensely grateful, and wanted to repay us. So they offered working for us in the mansion as maids or something, But Tyrone refused saying that this was all because of their love for each other, and that they all had the qualifications of working in a much better positions. He hired some of them in his company since I insisted in hiring the rest in mine, and we made sure to pay them well enough to never wander streets in search for anything at all.

They were like a second family to the kids, and they were the only ones beside workers, that were allowed to enter our house since we didn’t consider them outsiders anymore the moment they showed their love and respect for our family.

Since then the orphanage’s reputation skyrocketed and more children were delivered to our gates. It was all over the news how it changed from the worst orphanage in the city to the best in the country and how well taken care of the kids that are adopted from there are. Because we made sure to let the kids know that the second house shall always remain their home, so if they’re ever treated any less than how they’re treated here they should come back, and we’ll make sure to make the people responsible pay.

No one dared to cross us, and abuse the kids that Tyrone claimed as family in front of the whole world. People rather come and adopt them in order to have some kind of a connection to us. That was the reason the orphanage was expanding in such a fast manner. We had no problem since we had more than enough land and money to build a whole country, and they all deserve it.

Since then I knew that my little bundle of joy has the purest of hearts and I couldn’t be happier to be known as his mother. It wasn’t the first time nor will it be the last that he changed the lives of others. We built multiple other buildings around the country for homeless people in his name and hired teachers, to them all they need to stand on their feet independently, helped those with addiction to cure their addiction, and built some hospitals and hired the best doctors in each domain to help cure the poor who can’t afford hospital bills, And a lot more, much to the kids’ happiness.

All those are included under the Tyrone Robert Empire, and each under one of our kids’ names. However amongst all, our kindness never exceeded financial help. The second house were the only ones we considered as a second family, and allowed them a free access to our mansion.

Hands on my waist, and soft lips on my left cheek brought me out of my reverie. ‘What do we have here?’ Tyrone asked eying the food.

‘Lunch.’ I said vaguely.

‘Yeah, well let’s eat.’ He said rolling his eyes.

‘I swear she is an expert of ruining the moment.’ He mumbled while taking his seat. I chuckled taking my seat next to him, and across from Claus and Luca.

‘Son, I need to talk to you after lunch. I’ll wait for you at your dad’s office.’ I said to Ethan.

‘Sure, mom.’ He replied nodding his head. I looked at Tyrone only to find him already looking my way with an uneasy expression marrying his features.

‘Mommy, me?’ Asked Elton.

‘No, not you. I need you to stay with your sister while I talk to your dad and brother, okay, honey?’ I asked lovingly.

He nodded pouting slightly but didn’t protest. God, his possessiveness is divinely cute.

‘What did you want to talk about, Elize?’ Asked Tyrone as soon as we settled in the office.

‘I’m not sure how to say this.’ I said sighing. It’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.

‘What is it baby? You’re scaring me.’ Tyrone said.

I looked at Ethan who was watching me intently all the time. ‘ You remember the woman who came here the other day saying she’s your mom?’ I asked. He nodded his head in acknowledgement.

‘What about her?’ Tyrone spat angrily.

‘She has a daughter a couple of months ago, and gave her up for adoption without the father’s knowledge.’ I revealed, not entirely the truth, but still.

I heard a gasp from Ethan, but Tyrone remained standing emotionless next to me.

‘So?’ Tyrone asked.

‘I’m asking Ethan what he wants us to do since she’s literally his sister even is she’s only a half one. And she’s also a Pure Soul that shouldn’t suffer such a fate just because her mother didn’t want her.’ I said. ‘So I want you to choose what to do with her.’ I added.

‘What do you mean? What are you planning to do with her?’ Ethan asked faintly. OF course he would react like that. He’s someone who cares for strangers more than he should and this is his sister we’re talking about.

‘I mean that we can adopt her, or put her in the second house if you don’t like the idea of us adopting her.’ I explained. ‘Or we could simply leave her where she is right now.’ I shrugged.

He spent some minutes looking between me and his father before he finally uttered the words I knew he would.

‘I think you should adopt her, she’s my sister after all.’