HENRY THORN

What do you do with a persistent headache? I wondered as I walked to and fro the length of my sitting room.

Dump more Aspirin into your stomach? If it was that, I was going to remain in the perpetual pain that kept on radiating from my head because I have taken four tablets already and it seemed to be doing nothing at all.

Besides, I suspected that the headache would go away if I could be able to catch the thief that had been stealing from Thorn Corporations.

Terrible things that I would do to that thief that had stolen up to five hundred dollars in the last six months filled my head, compounding my headache and making me swear out loud intermittently. Things not dared to imagine.

I looked up to the large drawing portrait that was the biggest out of the framed pictures on the wall of the sitting room. It was a picture of my father who had died on the hospital bed after battling with Leukemia for the last six years of his life.

I studied his features.

Besides his green eyes that flamed with passion or chilled people with their coldness that he had passed on to me, I didn't really look like him.

I had taken after his wife and my mother who had given me my caramel toned skin, and thick curly black hair which had given me the overall appearance of a stunning young man who was a magnet of the ladies. It was always a source of humour for me watching them realize in dismay that they would not be able to get me interested in them.

But my dad, Thomas Thorn, was not stunning. He had never been. He refused to allow such a shallow word to describe him. With his seven foot height and one hundred and fifty pounds weight, coupled with the way he walked and rolled out orders in his booming voice, the first thought that usually came to anyone who sighted him and had encounter with him was that he looked 'powerful '

Yes, Powerful was the apt way to describe him. In every capacity, Thomas Thorn was powerful. If he had not been, he would not have in the space of twenty years built and managed ten successful restaurants all over New Jersey.

For several years, he had been consecutively winning the award for the top innovative business person in New Jersey. Nobody would have dared toyed with him due to his no-nonsense personality.

He attended few social events and had very few friends but everyone knew and feared him. In fact, he had only one person beside his family that he trusted— his best friend, Michael Michaelson, another industrialist to the core.

Michael Michaelson was the only person beside my mother and I to see my Dad at his bedside where he had been receiving exclusive medical treatment. My Dad didn't want anybody else to see how weak he was. Till his death, he had maintained that ruthless reputation. Till his death, he had remained powerful.

As I looked at his picture, feeling the familiar pang of missing his presence resonated in me, I wondered what he would have done if he had found out that someone in his company had been bleeding dry the company he had built with his sweat and blood.

Of course, he would have in anger used his bare hands to snap the culprit's neck.

He would have made the bastard beg for death to come by the time he was done with him.

It was in times like this I missed him the most.

Damn it, Will, where are you? I thought as I looked at the wall clock.

9: 30PM

How long would it take Will to talk to the private investigator and get back to me?

Will was my personal assistant at work and a close friend. It was he that I had given the assignment to relate with the private Investigator because I trusted him to be discreet.

Before leaving the office today, he had told me to be up late at home because the private investigator had told him that he was ready to share his findings.

Thrilled that I was now finally very close to finding the bastard who had been stealing from the company I had inherited and owned now. Well, not fully owned considering the fact that my father, as ruthless as he can be, had added some conditions to his wills that made me only a part owner of Thorn Corporations unless I fulfill the conditions.

The conditions, when my father's lawyer had read them to us after he had died, had sounded very ridiculous in my ears.

Two years later, they still sounded ridiculous.

It was terms I had no plan of fulfilling so I had settled for the Part ownership of Thorn Corporation which was fine with me by the way.

My father's best friend, Michael Michaelson, had become the other part owner pending when I will fulfill the conditions my father had stated in his will so full ownership could be released to me.

I remember shouting "Forget it. That would not happen. I had been okay with being a part owner by the way!" before storming in anger out of the room, where my mother, Mr Michael and Dad's lawyer had sat in to discuss the will.

I looked up again at the wall clock.

9:50PM.

Okay, what was wrong with Will? This was unlike him to be this way— not doing things according to plan.

Has something come up? Was the Private Investigator not ready to share his findings because he had not found the thief after all?

I didn't like the fact that I was not in direct contact with the Private Investigator but the work at the office was overwhelming.

Everyday at work filled me with more respect for my late father. That he had done this administrative work all by himself without him breaking was so astonishing. It was worth applauding.

Shit. Speaking of work, I had some work that I had carried over from the office that I was to do at home.