[Punishment – Part 2]

"The Princeton Tender."

"Louise, I know it failed but-" Louise silenced her husband's quick jump to defend their son with a single raise of palm.

"Let the young man speak for himself." Louise said firmly. "Kyren?"

"It wasn't entirely my fault we missed the tender." Kyren jumped at the chance that his mother was providing for him to defend himself. He had known that he would be receiving a grilling when the announcement for the winner of the Princeton tender had been announced, but Kyren was beginning to realize that his mother had taken this tender a lot more seriously than he initially thought she would. "It wasn't my fault that Mr. Summers pulled out of the project last minute. It was really too late, and I really did try to win the tender back! But it was Kylar; Kylar went ahead on his own and contacted Mr. Kingly, the Director of that other company that I didn't want to work with. Kylar arranged for a meeting without my approval, Mum. Of course, I was too angry to turn up. How was I supposed to know that that guy had relations with the tender manager in Princeton?"

As far as defenses went, Keyron had never heard a lousier one filled with so many holes. Keyron, as a butler who had been taking care and watching over the boy ever since he was born, really wanted to go easy on Kyren. Like how his master and mistress had treated his sons like their own, Keyron had come to treat Kyren to something akin to his son too.

Even so, Keyron could not believe the words of oblivious arrogance that were coming out of the young master's mouth. If Keyron could not believe them, he knew without a doubt that Louise's anger had only been further incensed by those same words.

"So it was Kylar's and Mr. Summers's fault." Louise concluded softly, allowing a pause in which Kyren nodded quickly in eagerness to absolve himself from all sort of guilt.

"Louise, you heard him. Kyren tried his best this time, it just wasn't his luck-" Brandon once more tried to jump at their son's defenses, but Keyron could see very clearly that this time, the Master of the Greaves-Crawford Household was letting things slide a bit too much.

"Keyron." The call of his name made the Head Butler step forward from behind his master's seat to receive the order.

"Bring me the folder that was delivered to my office yesterday. The one that came after the tender application was closed."

The instruction was well-received, and Keyron excused himself to make quick footsteps to and from his mistress's office. It seemed as if nothing had been said and no progress had been made in the conversation through his absence when Keyron returned to his master's side, passing his mistress her folder respectfully and stepping back. He had seen a few documents within the folder when it had first been delivered since he had to check for poison, as well as for the nature of the documents. Keyron knew that on those documents were the evidences of Kyren's failure.

"A few things I shall have you and Brandon note about the Princeton tender." Louise announced in a tone that Keyron knew was a businesswoman's tone of voice. The kind and gentle mother who had held back for the sake of her son was gone now, and Keyron prayed for his young master's resilience. "Firstly, I commissioned this tender. During the dinner that the prime minister and I shared last month, he mentioned that he was planning to build a second facility for social services. I volunteered the services of the Greaves-Crawford Household, and he gladly assigned the task to me."

"You volunteered our services because you wanted to post a tender?" Brandon asked, confused. He had been there at the dinner as well and had been confused as to why his wife had quickly volunteered to do the rather thankless and low-profit job. He had assumed that it was because the building in question was supposed to be a social service centre, and Louise wanted to do some good to the society.

"Amongst other benefits that I gained out of accepting the task, yes." Louise answered honestly, now that the truth could come out clean.

"The second thing about the tender is that I arranged for Mr. Summers to pull out last minute. He was merely putting on an act." Louise continued evenly, expressionless at the strike of horror and anger running across her son's face. "If you were to spend some time reading details about the tender and the company that won it, you might realize that Mr. Summers is currently working with them firming up the project."

"Then why did he... why did you do this to me, Mum?" Kyren complained.

"Because this was meant for you as a test."

Louise removed a piece of paper from the folder and slid it across the table.

"And you failed that test."

Shocked and uncomprehending, Kyren accepted the piece of paper that had been removed, sliding it closer to take a closer look. It did not take long for him to recognize his butler's handwriting scribbled all over that piece of paper, writing down information regarding the tender and the people involved. Kyren could not avoid seeing the circle that had been made around two names, Mr. Summers and Mr. Kingly, both of whom had been extremely important personnel regarding the tender.

"Do you recognize this?" Louise prompted.

"It's Kylar's handwriting, but I've never seen this before. Was he hiding this?"

"He wasn't hiding this. In fact, he told me that he created this half a day after he received news that you were instructed to join the competition to win the tender. He passed it to you."

"But I never saw it!"

"Of course you didn't." Louise withdrew another piece of paper and slid it across the table in the same fashion as before. "Keyron found it stapled under this piece of paper."

This time, Kyren could not deny that he had never seen the piece of paper before, because his handwriting was unmistakable and the words were large.

"'Stop being a busybody, Kylar.'" Louise read aloud for the benefit of her husband who was still lost in the current conversation. "Is this the way you were taught to treat your butlers, Kyren?"

"I didn't like it when he was trying to meddle into my business." Kyren sulked, embarrassed at his previous actions that had now come back to bite him on his ass. "He was supposed to just support me for this, not take over me completely."

"I think you don't understand what Kylar was trying to do, Kyren." Keyron could not help but speak up, knowing that there was a small fundamental misunderstanding. "Butlers are taught to support their master, and in businesses like these, Kylar was not wrong to help you summarize the case file. I do the same for Miss Louise and Brandon because they cannot possibly be expected to read every single detail about every business they do or take on. Those notes were supposed to help you understand the tender at a glance."

"And by the looks of it, Kylar has done an extremely good job at that –even noting down Mr. Summers and Kingly's preferences in business-dealing. You might not have seen this piece of paper before, Kyren, but Kyvan sure did." Louise continued, and another stack of paper appeared on the table, sliding across the table to Kyren once more. This time, it was a print-out of an email conversation.

"After Mr. Summers pulled out as per my order, Kyvan contacted him and tried to convince him otherwise. For your butler's sincerity, Mr. Summers tried to arrange a meeting with you for you to show your sincerity in wanting him back, but you only sent Kyvan to get him a basket full of branded goods instead. You should have understood that Mr. Summers has been a very close partner of our household, and he has never accepted any form of material bribe or well-wishes from us. He is a man who holds sincerity at the highest value, and what you did in return was an utter slap across his face."

This time, even Brandon could not deny that his son had done the wrong thing.

"Now, let's move on to Mr. Kingly. You mentioned that you didn't want to work with Mr. Kingly and refused to meet him when Kyvan went to the trouble to arrange a meeting with him. Do you happen to know the name of the company that Kingly heads?"

"No, but I know I don't like him. He didn't even try to view me like a businessman and treated me like a child during our first meeting." Kyren crossed his arms now, glad to be focusing on anything other than the mistake that he had accidentally made.

"Kingly had every reason to treat you like a child, and you gave him absolutely no reasons to think otherwise." Louise declared, turning to shoot a glare to her husband now. "Brandon, when you brought Kyren to meet Kingly, did you tell him that Kingly is your cousin's husband?"

"Yeah." Brandon answered, swallowing hard because he didn't really want to let his wife know that during the introductions, Kyren had been playing around and had not made the most stellar of impression in front of Kingly.

"Then did Kyren know that Kingly's business is a subsidiary under the Greaves-Crawford conglomerate?"

"I... have mentioned it." Brandon's words were guilty now, and Louise had long learnt over the past fifteen years that Brandon was a man who faced up to his mistakes confidently and without trying to hide, but when it came to the mistakes and infractions that his children had done, he was as guilty as a convicted man.

"Then do you" Louise turned back to her son who was beginning to pass the line of being shocked and just looked sickly now, "Do you remember that Kingly is the Head of the Trading Association, which meant that if you had just listened to Kylar and met the man, you would also have learnt that while he had reservations about you being in charge of anything, he was still ready to lend help to family members and connect with the tender manager in Princeton, who is also a part of the Trading Association?"

"H-How was I supposed to know all of that?" Kyren was clearly grasping at the straws for his defense, but Louise as a mother was already unforgiving. Louise as a businessperson was merciless.

"This is the agreement you signed when I allowed you to take over managing Greaves-Crawford Supplies. Every single detail about your own family's businesses was here." Louise introduced, and then finally slid the folder across the table. Kyren's trembling fingers drew out the papers within to show handwritings scribbled all over the pages, making notes and highlighting important points. She flipped a few pages for further evidence before dropping it on top of the previous file. "I assume you had Kyvan helping you make the notes this time?"

"I... Um..."

"When I was your age, Kyren, I had to scrape to get my connections because my uncle did not want to the world to know that Louise Crawford was well-educated in business. I had to have my butler appear during the annual meetings while I was in school, and he had to pretend that he was the one managing everything because I knew that they could not take well to a 15-year-old girl running the business. Oscar refused to allow me to borrow my family name and power, and I had to fight and strategize and plan my every step. That small business I used to hold is now known as the Greaves-Crawford Holdings. What about you, Kyren? Your butlers gave you everything you needed, and what did you do with the effort?"

"It's only because of your butler... if I had him of course I would make it big too..." Keyron did not think it was possible, but the muttered words from his young master that was probably meant as a tiny grumble unfortunately turned out to be rather loud considering the tense silence of the room –they made the temperature of the room drop by ten full degrees.

"Do you want to repeat your words again, Kyren?"

Keyron did not even have to shift his line of sight to guess that Brandon was pleading with his son visually to be wise and back down. Unfortunately, the fifteen-year-old young master of the Greaves-Crawford Household was too rebellious to care.

"I said, you only managed to make your company so big because of your butler!" Kyren raised his voice, righteous anger bursting forth. "You're always against me for being over-reliant on my butlers, but you were extremely reliant on your butler as well! You had to rely on him so much that he died for you!"

"Kyren!" Brandon called strictly, reacting quickly to the flinch that his wife showed at her son's ruthless words. Keyron noted, however, that it was far too late for his master to actually try holding the young master back. "Choose your words carefully to your mother!"

"I'm not wrong, Dad. I grew up with stories learning about how Keyron's brother gave up his life valiantly for Mum, but doesn't that also tell me how reliant she was on him when he was alive? Is it somehow wrong for me to not want to be in the same situation as her because I don't want to be faced with a situation where I can't survive without my butlers like you? I made a small mistake this time, and it wasn't even really my fault! If you like Kylar and Kyvan and what they've done so far, then have them for sons instead of me! You were lucky that got yourself a Kyrano, Mum, but maybe you should realize that I don't have the same luck!" Kyren was clearly on a roll and enjoying his own outburst, but there was absolutely only one person in the entire room who felt relief at letting the words come out.

If anything, the words spoken –the name spoken –seemed to turn all three adults in the room into stone.

Kyren had been taught stories about Kyrano back when he had been young and innocent and had asked Keyron of what his Head Butler knew about his mother when she was younger. The twin brother of Keyron who had passed on had been like a legend; a hero especially for Louise Crawford, and Kyren had known right from the very start that the man named Kyrano Reyes held a very special place in his mother's heart that could never be changed. Even Kyren's name had been a combination of Keyron and Kyrano's name; that spoke volumes of exactly how much Kyrano meant to her. And now, Kyren had shamelessly stabbed a knife into his mother's wound and twisted it multiple times.

The silence that answered Kyren's outburst was terrifying in its own rights. It was a silence that was no longer one of brewing anger; it was a silence that Keyron had not witnessed in at least twenty years. It was a danger in the air that had not come from Louise ever since she picked herself up from the ruins of her family's reputation and started rebuilding the pieces with Brandon's help. It was the silence of the mistress of the Greaves-Crawford Household thinking back and thinking fondly about a man she once loved.

"I lived striving to be a mistress worthy of owning a butler like Kyrano." Louise's words were quiet, but the sharpness at which it pierced through the tense silence could have made ears bleed. "If Kyrano was alive and could meet you as you are now, I will be utterly ashamed to tell him that you are a son I brought up. A butler's strength is his mistress's and master's strength, and Kylar and Kyvan have become useless because of you."

"How can you say that-" Kyren's rising protest was cut off with a look from his mother that Keyron was secretly glad that he could not see while standing respectfully behind his master's chair.

"For too long you have grown up attached to the name Greaves-Crawford. You take what you have for granted, and you push  blame to your capable butlers for your mistakes. You disregard the effort they have put in, and you ruin the resources that your father and I have carefully placed in your hands." Louise announced coldly. "Your father and I planned to have you move into one of his cousin's house to learn how to earn your achievements in life, but I now see that that is not good enough a punishment for you."

"Louise... what are you thinking..." Brandon whispered desperately, having been through enough business negotiations with his wife alongside him to know that she was about to bring something new to the table that he would never have thought of. Sometimes the bomb dropped would be a very fresh solution to their debate.

At times like these, Brandon knew that he would absolutely not like the result.

"I want you out of this Mansion by the end of today. Do not come back to see me and do not take a single step within this premise until you have shown me that you know how to appreciate everything that you have been given." The words spoken were cold and flat, unforgiving eyes shooting through a 15-year-old boy who had finally realized that he had done something he could not take back even if he begged or cried.

"Louise, we should talk about this." Brandon put in quickly, jumping up with a plea. "I know Kyren has gone too far bringing Kyrano into the picture, but you can't kick him out! He's only fifteen!"

"No." Louise's words were final and her expression was like a carved stone with lasers for eyes. "Kyren clearly needs to be a taught a lesson that none of us in this room is capable enough to give."

Then, turning to Keyron, Louise's seriousness did not fade.

"If there is anybody inside this mansion and the Household, including you, Keyron, who tries to aid him while he is outside, feel very free to join him in exile. I do not hesitate to cut any single one of you," Louise spun to shoot her husband an obvious glare, "from the Household if you lend help to him."

"You can't do this to me, Mum! The Princeton tender was just a small mistake! I admit it was my fault, okay! I'm sorry I didn't treat Kylar and Kyvan well. Please don't kick me out just because of this!" The tears that burst forth in repentance had come too late, and too insincerely for Louise to even consider changing her mind.

"From this day forth, Kyren, you are no longer a Greaves-Crawford family member." Louise stood up and looked down at her son past the tip of her nose. "Get out."