(Part 10)

"Papa, you must trust me on this." Brandon insisted with his strongest voice, hoping that he sounded as responsible and straight-minded that he was supposed to be. Growing up in the Greaves family, where the dignified attitude was not a must and where family mattered more than their behaviour around each other had made Brandon a child that often took things lightly and easily.

Henry Greaves had always been afraid the Brandon might not be able to survive well in the painful, heartless and cold world when his son came of age, and thus had allowed Brandon to attend school at St. Clair rather than force Brandon back to be home-schooled once more. Still, to have his young son coming back from school one day –a surprise because Brandon had showed obvious liking to be staying far away from home, exploring his world outside –was something Henry was not sure he appreciated. Furthermore, the fact that Brandon was asking for something that could very well threaten the careful relationships that he had spent so much time building did not settle well with Henry.

Henry, as the Head of the Greaves family, knew that making deals and forming working relationships with Crawford was a dangerous things. However, no matter how dangerous it was, it was required of him to maintain the family power. Thus, he had done his best to appease Oscar Crawford despite of the quiet disdain that Henry had about the Crawford Head's bloodthirsty ideals. Henry had been pleasantly surprised when he met Louise Crawford, however, and when Oscar had suggested that Brandon and Louise be wedded to each other, Henry had jumped at the chance.

Henry could easily see that Louise would be a remarkable woman with the appropriate traits that would change his naïve, idealistic son –and he hadn't been wrong. From the occasional phone calls he made to both Brandon and Keyron, it appeared that Brandon had been steadily falling in love and changing over the days, becoming more and more mature. It also appeared that Brandon seemed to begin to understand the painful realities of the world in which his father worked in –that being kind, helping and forgiving required the strength of mind and heart.

"Brandon, you cannot ask Papa to trust you if you don't trust Papa with the source of your information. You don't want us to crumble because we went against Crawford, do we?" Henry answered his son in his most patient tone of voice.

It sounded ridiculous –the fact that Brandon had suddenly come home in the middle of a school day and told his father that he intended to make war with Crawford. He had initially thought that it was his son being childish, but even Keyron was on the same boat as he. And even though Henry might not trust his son sometimes to make the most rational of decisions, Henry trusted his son's butler –Henry's unofficially adopted son –to do it for Brandon's sake.

"I can't. It will put the person in danger. He is already at a very disadvantaged situation right now." Brandon's answer was not very convincing, and thus Henry turned his critical eye upon Keyron, who winced a little at the interrogative stare, but replied quickly with a nod in show of support for his young master.

"Master Henry, what Brandon says is true. We would tell you the identity of our informant if it does not put him at risk. This man can be trusted. I will stake my life to vouch." Keyron spoke up, knowing that his opinion was well valued in this difficult decision-making as well.

Henry frowned. The boys knew better than to interfere with the family's business, and they only offered their opinion when they thought clearly about them. The same thing had happened in the past when Brandon and Keyron were only fourteen. Both of them had come up to their father with the request of letting go of one of the companies under the family conglomerate that was doing rather well. Their vindication behind their request had been weak at best –but it had been due to the fact that both boys were rather weak in their business communication skills at that point in time.

Because it had been a rather small stake at that point of time, Henry had decided to place faith in both boys and had taken the gamble. Not a week later, the said company had ended up in a state of bad debt that included a runaway financial manager that had committed serious embezzlement of funds that would have hurt the Greaves coffers had Henry still held on to the company. It had been the first show of Brandon's genuity in the business sector, and Henry had congratulate himself for having a very suitable candidate for an heir.

That said, the last time this happened, Brandon and Keyron were both fourteen, and they had been unable to describe exactly why they thought he needed to let the company go. It had been a low-stake gamble that Henry had taken that time. This time was completely different. Brandon was asking for him to go to war against a family as powerful as Crawford –an act that could very well threaten the safety of not only the family's financial basis, but also the family's safety as a whole. Henry knew very clearly what Oscar viewed upon his enemies, and he knew that Oscar would pull no stops to get what he wanted.

"Please, Papa." Brandon begged. "This is not a childish version of your son being upset that the engagement was cancelled. I love Miss Louise, and I don't care if the engagement is cancelled. I honestly care for her, and whatever that's coming up –it will threaten her safety if we do not do this."

"I don't understand." Henry sighed, propping his heavy head up against his palm. "How can going to war against her family help her in any way?"

Brandon's face twisted in thought, struggling desperately to present the problem better to his own father without letting on too much. If the name Kyrano was dropped, there was no question what would happen to the man. It was only on the basis of complete trust that Kyrano, Brandon and Keyron shared that they had planned this. They were on the same mission of protect Louise Crawford.

"We will win this war at the end of the road, Master Henry." Keyron stepped forth from beside his young master, and Brandon started with surprise at the sudden confidence instilled in the butler. "I personally put my life on the stake this time. Should something happen, I will take responsibility of Brandon's folly, and you may cast me aside to rid your of shame on the family."

"Keyron..." Brandon's hesitation could easily be seen, but Henry kept his eyes firmly on the young butler.

"What can you, a mere butler do?"

"I will give myself to them." Brandon stared at the back view of his butler, stunned beyond words. "Master Oscar will only appreciate another butler under his wing, much less one of the Reyes."

Despite the seriousness of the problem, Henry gave the young one a rueful smile. When Brandon had sneaked himself into St. Clair, Henry had knew that it was inevitable that Keyron would meet his brother. Henry had never told Keyron of his real past, because he knew that the two would definitely meet. Meeting Kyrano would be a very good learning lesson for Keyron –and it definitely had been. Henry had both seen and heard of the difference that the elder twin of the Reyes family had made on his impressionable young butler.

"Proud to be a Reyes, are we?" Henry baited a little, watching as a flush of embarrassment rise. "But do not be ashamed; that is the truth. It remains a truth the butlers of the Reyes family are genetically wired to be great at service –and I, as well as Brandon, am lucky enough to enjoy a luxury that comes in the form of you, Keyron."

"Master Henry, you-" Keyron rushed to impart his thanks, but the man only interrupted again.

"I trust the both of you, but if you want the real truth, the person that I really trust, the one that has brought this same problem before me –and sold it in a much better way than either of you, I must say –is the very person you boys are trying to protect. Kyrano has already been here before the both of you, and I have already agreed to lend him help. That one... your brother has been through too much in his lifetime, Keyron. In fact, I can see it in his eyes that he has gone through enough for two lifetimes for any normal man. I'm sure both of you can easily see that he is the walking carrier of a multitude of scars that are both physical and emotional. He is the result of the cold, heartless world, and with the same heart that I extend to you, Keyron, I extend to Kyrano as well." Henry explained with smirk, watching the shocked look passed between his son and the butler.

"You mean... Kyrano has already...?" Brandon asked.

"Yes. And do make a mind to learn from him, son, because Kyrano is a gem that is roughly beaten down." Henry answered, then looked back down at his papers. "Go back to St. Clair and help him. Do what you want, because you are my heir, Brandon. I'm going to pass everything to you soon, and if I don't start trusting you to make important decisions for the family, I don't know when I will."

"Papa..."

"For now, let your papa do some work, because the rest of the world isn't going to wait for us. Keyron, make sure you keep a good eye over Brandon and young Louise."

"Of course, Master Henry." Keyron reported, and shufflings of reluctant feet could be heard.

"Brandon." Henry called his son, almost forgetting his words for his heir. "Work hard and get the girl, because that's what I did when I was chasing your mother."

Brandon turned back and grinned at his father.

_______________________________________________________________________________

"What is this?" Oscar walked through the doors to his own office, slamming the pile of paper on his desk. His butler silently collected them from the table, calculative eyes scanning through the documents silently and calmly, one after another. It was the complete calmness of an assassin; the skilled caution of a spy as Maiko showed nothing on his face.

"This is Brandon's doing." Maiko announced, arranging the papers back into a neat pile and sliding it back on the desk. "But I doubt that he is doing this alone, because I don't think Henry will trust his son unless there is increased guarantees for this risky act."

"Henry has always been unafraid to declare his trust in Brandon's butler, that pesky Keyron."

"The twin of Kyrano; yes. While we hold Kyrano in our grasp, the Greaves have Keyron." Maiko observed. "While I was in St. Clair, Keyron was a very capable butler –second only to his own twin. Yet, I admit that I would not believe that Keyron had the capabilities to be part of the decision making process of the Greaves family."

"The Greaves work very differently." Oscar answered with disgust. "To them family is everything. I have no doubt that Henry considers that Keyron his second son or something. Keyron having a say in the workings of their family isn't something I'm going to be surprised about."

Maiko remained silent as Oscar grabbed the neat stack of papers in his hand, walked stiffly over to the shredder and fed the entire stack into the machine, listening to the mechanical whir as it ate the printed papers.

"Enough about being surprised at all. What are we going to do?" Oscar demanded, hard and demanding eyes pinned on his butler. It had been a guarantee of a safe journey now that Kyrano had been turned over to their side. It had been simply a matter of time that Kyrano would call back and declare that Louise was sick enough to go home. They would have brought Louise back, be rid of her silently and efficiently, and then Oscar would finally have had everything in his grasp.

Now, the Greaves was turning against him and stating a lousy excuse for it. Was this in retaliation to what they had made Kyrano become? If it was, then Oscar would take pleasure in squashing Greaves and their pathetic little notions of family.

"Fighting a war against the Greaves might further boost the reputation of the prowess of Crawfords." Maiko's advisory answer was well taken by his master who nodded in satisfaction, calming down visibly as Oscar moved back to his usual seat behind the desk. "At the same time, removing them also removes an obstacle in the business world that you often meet."

"That is correct." Oscar's grin was evil as he pulled a piece of blank paper and grabbed a pen off the holder, poising it over the blank sheet. "But more importantly, I get to squish Greaves, who had been annoyingly and stupidly revered for being kind. No businessman and no family should be kind in this hard and ruthless world. It is time that they be taught an important lesson –that money and power is more important than their lousy family values."

"I will go to my contacts to-" Maiko's reporting was cut off by his master as Oscar wrote furiously on the paper.

"Don't bother." Oscar said, not looking up at his butler at all. "I don't even need your contacts to ruin Greaves. They are idiots if they think they can run against us Crawfords without losing terribly."

Maiko was silent as he waited for his master to finish filling the paper with words, before stepping forth on Oscar's instructions, receiving the paper.

"These companies –either force them out of job or take them over. These will harm the Greaves network, and we will simply sit back and watch them struggle to survive. The companies listed on the other side –transfer each of them a sum of money to buy them over to our side. We pull no punches. I want to destroy the Greaves in one attack. Let the Crawfords be remembered as the scariest, the one family that no one will ever think to cross." Oscar explained as Maiko took a cursory look over the names of the company that he had listed

Some of them had already rebelled against the Crawford family, but in Oscar's eyes, there was nothing that money could not solve. Every company and every man had an amount. It simply remained that the amount needed to be reached. Everything else was unimportant as long as Oscar could afford the amount demanded by his audience.

A war of Greaves against Crawfords?

Oscar scoffed to himself. It would be over before it even started.

________________________________________________________________________________

"It's working." Brandon declared as he put down his paper, a stunned expression written on his face while he ignored the breakfast spread in front of him. "We have Oscar in the net."

It had only been a few days ago that his father had heeded his plea, and publicly announced a war against the Crawford family –stating reasons of morality, and even bringing in the abrupt broken engagement between Louise and Brandon. Brandon had not really expected the Head of Crawford to react so quickly, but he guessed he still had much to learn from the real world, because everything was going according to what Kyrano had told him.

In disbelief of how fast things were going, Brandon scanned his eyes over the front-page article once more, reading about how Crawfords had already actively been attacking companies known to be in affliation to the Greaves conglomerate. These companies were being attacked, threatened with takeover, deliquifying of assets –basically every dirty rule in the overused book that Oscar Crawford was unafraid of exploiting.

A touch of concern came up at the welfare of the companies, and how his family members –those who have yet to be let up on Brandon's secret plan –would think about this. Everyone in the family knew that Brandon's father was not someone impulsive enough to up and suddenly declare a war against the Crawford for no good reason. There was a good reason behind it, except that the reason could not be made public.

"Do not worry, Mr Brandon." Kyrano seemed to be reading his mind, and he was not even surprised when the still fevered butler sat across them on the table, two laptops set up before him as the one good black eye travelled between left and right screen, each hand on each keyboard, both hands typing animatedly. Quite literally, Kyrano was currently the epitome of multi-tasking. "I will make the suffering short and temporary. I am already into the systems."

Brandon admired the crazy man sitting at the same table as he, feeling rather inadequate. They were supposed to be of the same age, but Kyrano –even while nursing a fever –could multi-task so effectively, and even be hacking into systems with simply two laptops in front of him.

"Where did you learn this?" Brandon asked casually as he pulled his chair up to sit beside Kyrano, taking a bite of his morning croissant as he looked at the numbers and graphs on the screen.

"I picked it up from the street." Kyrano answered shortly. "It is a useful tool that I foresaw that I needed in times like this. While not legal in nature, it is still something very useful for obtaining information of the illegal side of the business world."

"Should I ask why a butler is picking up skills like hacking?" Brandon continued, eyes stuck on the screen, but not understanding a single thing that Kyrano was typing into the system.

"To protect Miss Louise, in the past, now and in the future." The answer was model and politically correct, and the scariest thing about Kyrano was that it was the complete truth that came from the heart.

Brandon didn't say more.

"So how is this going to work?" Brandon changed his question instead, leaning forward and resting his elbow on his knee, trying his best to track the codes that were flying all over the screen. Kyrano seemed to be typing in some sort of algorithm on one laptop while communicating with someone on the other laptop, but Brandon –for all his home-schooled education –could not understand a single thing that was currently happening.

"Oscar's belief is in money. When he received news of your father's declaration of war, his first reaction must be to destroy your family by bankrupting the companies in affliation to the Greaves name. Either that, or he will buy them over and hurt your coffers. By now, he must be impatient as to why I have yet to call back to report of Miss Louise's sickness. We throw a war in his face, and he will focus all of his energy temporarily on it. He will want to wipe you out in one blow, and boast the absolute power of Crawfords."

"So far, he looks like he is rather successful." Brandon pointed out, knowing that he should feel a little more uncertain about the future now that more than 60% of the family's share had either gone down in bad debt, seized by the government, or simply taken over by other companies in affliation to the Crawfords Conglomerate. Still, the young heir apparent to the rapidly damaged family was sitting rather calmly in his own room, dining comfortably on his breakfast while he watched the butler of the Crawfords Household work at the laptops.

"The Crawford's coffers are filled, but Oscar never touches them. Instead, he coerces his affliated companies to take over –because he doesn't want to dirty the family's name doing the work unless he has to. The money for takeovers and buying of shares –all of them do not come from his own pockets. Not this time." Kyrano continued rather simply, giving up temporarily on one of the laptop and concentrating both hands on the algorithm that he seemed to be weaving.

Brandon was hopelessly lost in the silence that ensued, but Kyrano did not offer anything else in explanation.

Finally giving up hope of wanting the butler to explain everything slowly, and trusting the man who had even admitted himself was a little unhinged in the mind after the torture that he had gone through, Brandon stood up to clear his breakfast table.

"Mr Brandon, if you will leave the dishes for five minutes more, I will attend to them. I might be a temporary butler at the moment, but I am still a butler in all sense. Domestic chores like clearing the table is still my job." Kyrano's voice stalled him before he could even touch the first dirty plate, and Brandon looked up to find that the butler hadn't even taken his eyes off the screen for even the slightest moment.

"It's fine," Brandon continued, stacking the plates on top of each other. "If I don't do something now, I'll feel left out."

"I cannot expect for the young master of the Greaves family to serve me." Kyrano answered, though his eyes never swivelled away at all. "Please do leave the dishes."

"Let me do something, Kyrano." Brandon replied in a sigh. "You're here helping out my family, and I don't even know what I can do to help the situation."

"You've helped enough, Mr Brandon. You've helped by promising me that you will take care of Miss Louise for me."

"Some kind of taking care I'm doing right now when our families are at war, and Keyron's attending to her instead of me."

"That is Keyron's role as a butler. It pains me as well to be unable to serve my mistress, but I trust Keyron to do it as well as I. I only apologise beforehand that I might not be able to serve you fully."

"Do I have to remind you that you still have a fever?" Brandon asked, not sure why he was trying to argue with a butler who was not only fevered from the poison he had been injesting, but also working furiously while promising to still attend to his usual butler duties. Kyrano seriously needed to have a limit that Brandon could see, because he was beginning to feel extremely incompetent in comparison to the young butler when it came to winning Louise's heart.

"This fever will be nothing significant in the next few days." Kyrano finally looked up from his computer screen, apparently done with whatever hacking that he had been doing. The gloved fingers was never faster to move from hacking to cleaning the table, and Brandon stood in shock at how the man of his same age could make cleaning the table happen so quickly and efficiently.

And this man in front of him was supposed to be fevered.

"I give up." Brandon said, handing over the two plates that he had barely managed to clean before Kyrano started on the job. "I won't win against you in anything I do. Not cleaning, and definitely not talking."

"You don't have to win anything against me, Mr Brandon." Kyrano answered as he stacked up everything perfectly, and handling it with the perfect sense of balance on his arm. "All you have to do is win Miss Louise's full heart."

"If only I can." Brandon could only mutter in reply as the capable butler strode quickly into the next room to clean the dishes. Huffing a sigh at how he was doing nothing –and had nothing to do completely –Brandon wandered back to his bed and sprawled there, wondering how things had come to be.

After going home to beg his father to start a war, Kyrano had requested to serve him in the duration of the war. Because Louise had no idea of the nature of their plans, Kyrano could not possibly work while hiding anything from her. Similarly, Kyrano could not work with the spies that were constantly flitting around Miss Louise. Staying cooped up with Brandon in the room was the best way to go, with Keyron as the only butler that he trusted –and was capable –enough to serve the Rose of the Academy. Brandon, for Kyrano's fevered state, had applied for leave from school to 'deal with family issues that came with the business war against the Crawfords'. This meant that Brandon was quite literally stuck in his own room 24/7, watching Kyrano solve his family's problem.

Brandon wasn't even going to begin on how he was being a completely useless bum.

"Do you want to feel useful, Mr Brandon?" Kyrano's question hit him straight in the heart immediately when the young butler came back from cleaning the dishes, and Brandon did his best to not seem too eager.

"Do take note that if you will join me, you will learn things that may not be legal in nature. This is perfectly fine for the individuals in the Crawford family, but for a young master of the Greaves..."

"I'll be fine." Brandon interrupted quickly, nothing but eager to be able to contribute. "Besides, this is probably my only opportunity to learn something like this."

"Then come along." Kyrano offered, moving towards the coat-stand, already taking his temporarily master's coat off along with his.

"Where are we going?" Brandon chased his temporary butler out of his own room.

"Meeting with individuals that have been wondering exactly who they have been contacting for the past seven years." Kyrano's answer was cryptic, but of course, Brandon had no time for cryptic questions as he chased up to the butler who closed the door behind him, locked it carefully before helping his temporary master into his coat.

"Who?"

"The people that Oscar believed followed him. They are the ones I have been contacting since my father died, and the very same ones that support Oscar."

"You mean to say... Oscar's supporters?"

"My supporters." Kyrano corrected, his face showing nothing at all.

"But you said they were supporting Oscar..."

"I've been contacting them and teaching them to invest, sell their loyalties and follow Oscar. When I say to turn the other way, they will do it immediately because it is I who have lead all of them to their success."

"You mean to say..."

"I am the actual mastermind of Crawford's success since the death of Master Luca. Not Oscar."

The announcement was made so normally that Brandon stopped in his tracks before he could help it, staring at the back of someone who he had always thought was only a butler. A damned good butler, but still just a butler nevertheless.

Who would have thought that Kyrano was more than just a butler...?

"Don't be afraid of me, Mr Brandon, because Keyron isn't like that. It is only the butlers of the Crawford family that are like me. I didn't have a choice but to partake in the same dirty tricks as Oscar, because I needed to take care of Miss Louise. Rest assured that she knows nothing of it –because it is only something that we butlers have to know to survive. And now; you."

"D-Did your father know about this while he was still alive?" Brandon could not help his stutter, forcing himself to pick up pace so that he didn't lag behind. "You were just 12!"

"And already a butler seasoned into the world that Miss Louise lives in." Kyrano continued simply, voice holding no emotion, no surprise or enjoyment at all. "I had to do what was expected of me to survive, Mr Brandon. When my father died, I knew that I needed to do something to protect Miss Louise from her own Uncle. I just never had the chance to use those contacts until now."

"Remind me to never piss you off, Kyrano." Brandon muttered softly as he trailed after the butler who had made forth without a single look backwards at all.

"You already have." Kyrano answered, bringing out a phone from his pocket –one that Brandon didn't even know the butler had. "But you never threatened Miss Louise, and thus I have never acted in a similar action against you."

"When did I-"

"When you first arrived. Back then, however, it was my incompetence at dealing with my emotions, and thus I have forgiven myself and you as well." Kyrano's answer was almost instantenous, as if predicting everything that would appear on Brandon's lips even before the words were even out.

"I see..."

"Mr Brandon, let me ask this of you once more humbly, and let this be the last time I ask this of you: Please love and take care of Miss Louise, because I will not be around any longer."

"What do you mean by any longer?" Brandon pursued suspiciously.

"Things have come to this stage. There is no use in keeping secrets from you, Mr Brandon, but you must never tell them to Miss Louise, because she will come running after me, damning all consequence, and it will destroy everything that I am setting out to do." Kyrano paused beside a window, typed quickly into his phone, and passed it to Brandon. "Read it, and do not speak aloud. Walls have ears."

The young master of the Greaves family received the phone with heart hammering in his chest, knowing that Kyrano was once more dropping another bomb on him. Brandon was feeling, in all honesty, rather bombed by the butler since his return from the Crawford Household. Kyrano's suprises one after another was starting to be come really common, but Brandon still could not help but be surprised at every time that he brought another new thing on the table.

And this one...

This one was the cherry on top of the cake.