章 22: Chapter 22: The Aster Children I

Rex walked away like his job was done, and Liam just wanted to strangle him right there. However, he got more urgent things to do.

With his hands still wet from the sea, Liam gently wiped away Mar's tears, which were free flowing down his cheeks.

"Hey, hey..." The platinum blond alpha leaned down and put his forehead on Mar's.

Wavy black hair mingled together with wet silvery blond, but Liam doesn't care as he held his best friend's hands in his.

"We got something to work on now." The platinum blond alpha tried to cheer up his companion. "We can beat up Rex for more info if you wanna."

"Liam..." Mar's breathing became even again as he called out his name. "Let's go to our room."

"Yeah, yeah..." Liam let go of his best friend's face, and Mar took deep breaths to compose himself.

Both alphas walked in silence on the beach. As soon as their bare feet touched the dock which is connected to the living room balcony, two butlers rushed to them with towels and slippers. Blue eyes found a pair of deep brown eyes looking at them from the piano in the living room. Rex did send someone to get them towels...

Now that his mind has some time to think, no wonder Mar and Rex's relationship was as shit as it is. The pilot said, "What killed her wasn't cancer." From their conversation, Liam presumed that it's poison. Then, who would kill Marbella in her own home? In front of her son, nonetheless.

Mr. Aster.

His brain supplied him with that answer, but Liam brushed it off. Why would anyone kill their own wife? One of their own wives? Mar's father has everything he ever wanted, he has the world in his hands, so there's no reason for him to want to kill Marbella. Even if she cheated on him, then the punishment wouldn't be so severe because his other wives had cheated on him before.

Thoughts and possibilities kept running in his head while they walked back to their room, now covered in towels and wearing slippers so that their soaked feet won't leave stains on the carpet.

As they rounded a corner, a butler immediately ran towards them and opened the door.

"Do you need anything, young masters?" The new butler asked as he held the door open for both of them.

"You must be new. Your name is... Arkham!" Mar smiled at the new butler.

Liam gave the butler a wave and a polite smile as he walked into his room. Nostalgia hit him like a brick even though he was here last year. Their suitcases are upright on the floor while their shoes are nearly put on the shoe rack. There's no trace of sand on their sneakers, so the butler must have cleaned them.

"Arkham, where's our socks?" The platinum blond alpha turned around to look at the butler.

"With the laundry lady, young master William Junior."

"Oooh..." Mar took the towel off his shoulders and rolled it into a ball. "You didn't have to do that. And he," The black haired alpha pointed at his companion. "Goes by Liam. I'm Mar, by the way. Do you have the little piece of paper of names and photos? We can write down who is who on it for you."

The butler blinked at them innocently, and Mar waved for him to come inside their room. Once inside, Arkham searched his pockets for a pen and an A4 paper neatly folded into a tiny rectangle. Then, he unfolded it to show the pair. Blue eyes scanned the paper. Jasper Arkham, aged 29, assigned to their room.

"Alright!" Mar snatched the paper from the butler and walked towards his desk.

Liam didn't waste any time pulling a desk chair from his side of the room and sat down next to his best friend. The new butler hovered over their shoulders as the black haired alpha began writing.

"So, you're assigned to us..." Mar wrote down "Mar" underneath his full name. Then, his slender fingers moved to write "Liam" underneath a picture of the platinum blond alpha from last year. It's amazing how the head butler went out of his way to crop everyone's faces from a group selfie into individual photos to give to the newbie butlers.

"This fucker is Rex. Have you seen him? He's the pilot of the plane we took here." The black haired alpha wrote "T-Rex" underneath Rex's full name.

"Yes." Arkham nodded like an attentive student in class. "He also told me about this list of people. He said to use people's first names only."

"Forget all your training, Arkham." Liam chuckled. "Though some of it would come in useful. Catching glass, for example."

Green eyes looked at the platinum blond alpha, so he let out a laugh. His best friend also got the joke, and he grinned.

"You'll understand soon." The black haired alpha continued writing. "This is my oldest brother, Madison. Have you met him?"

"Yes. Young Master David was very pleasant to talk to." The new butler recounted.

"He prefers Madison." Mar crossed out his older brother's first name. "He's the only asshole who actually prefers Young Master. Young Master Madison."

"And he likes throwing his glass of wine for dramatic effect." Liam fondly recalled the memories of Madison throwing his empty glass when Laura said something to him that he didn't like.

The oldest Aster child is the most prideful and hilarious. He gets offended by anything, and he has the personality of a chronically online sixteen years old vegan even though he's the CEO of his own tech company which was purely funded by daddy's money.

"That's Rex." Mar pointed at the pilot's photo, which is just his military headshot. "He's also an asshole. If you insult dinosaurs in front of him, you get funny reactions."

Slender fingers moved from the second Aster child to the third, who has the most blurry picture out of all of them. A head of messy brunette hair and deep dark circles underneath his tired sapphire blue eyes, Sieg looks like he's a cryptic caught on camera. Well, technically, he walked into one of Madison's ridiculous group selfies.

"Can't pronounce his name? It's Sigerith Siegbert. He likes Sieg." Mar said casually. "He's also an asshole, but half hermit. If you talk to him long enough, he'll bite."

"I have seen him around." The new butler commented. "He arrived earlier this morning."

Ah, then Sieg must have already set up his work station in his temporary room. Liam has met Sieg more than most of Mar's siblings because the man works closely with his dad. After he graduated from the same university Mar and Liam are going to, Sieg immediately got himself into Madison's company and started living his dream of being a modern mad scientist.

"Great!" The black haired alpha moved to the next picture, which is a muscular young man with an entire golden retriever in his arms. The poor dog was cut out of frame, but her head was close enough to her owner to be in the picture. "Dyson is a great guy. We all love him."

"I haven't seen him yet." Arkham looked at the photo with a sparkling glint of happiness in his eyes. Let's face it, everyone wants the dog to come more than their actual siblings. "Will the dog be here?"

"Most definitely." Liam added. "He's the only one who's allowed to bring a pet."

Dyson is only sibling Mar genuinely likes, and Liam totally understands why. The fourth Aster child had lived most of his life outside of Mr. Aster's influence until he's sixteen, and it did him so much good. Dyson is — believe it or not — a math teacher. He rents his own apartment, paid his own student loans, bought his own car... Sometimes, Liam wonders why Dyson even visits his shitty father at all, but then again, Dyson is too nice to decline.

"You met this guy?" Mar pointed at his next older brother. Nox was staring daggers at the camera, his brunette hair was a mess not because he enjoyed it being a mess, but because he just woke up and Madison roped him into a group selfie. Poor guy didn't even get to put a shirt on.

"Yes. Young Master Lennox. He said he preferred to be called Nox." The butler sighed as he tapped his fingers on the desk. "I saw him yesterday, and as far as I know, he hasn't left his room."

"That's pretty normal. He's also half asshole half hermit." The black haired alpha openly called out his older brother. "He doesn't like talking to people, but you can bribe him with cakes."

Nox is... Difficult. Similar to Dyson, the fifth Aster child didn't get to know Mr. Aster until he's older, around sixteen. By then, he's already adapted the lifestyle of the son of a single mother who has never met his father. Nox was in a street gang, and suddenly he was revealed to be the bastard son of a billionaire. It took a lot for him to open up to them, and currently he's in a mid-life crisis stage where he's wallowing in depression and makes sure that everyone around him knows he has depression.