After the Illuminati took over the city-state, the assassin who killed Norforth, Myers, returned home. Nicola and others held a welcome banquet. During the feast, he declared, "The Illuminati is now our future. I've decided to donate the company."
As soon as he finished speaking, Nicola immediately protested, "Myers, the company belongs to me. How dare you make decisions like that?"
"Myers responded, "Nicola, you're closely connected to Norforth of the city-state. If I don’t do this, the Illuminati will come after you."
Myers was not being entirely truthful; he intended to trade the company for a position in charge of the African sector—a common practice in the Illuminati. "What can they do to me?" Nicola challenged.
Myers replied, "Maybe they'll take our families."
The timid Afastin chimed in, "Mom, just give it to them!"
Nicola turned to De Silva and asked, "What do you think?"
"The formula was passed down by Grandpa. Even if we hand over the company, we need to keep the skincare formula safe."
"That's not an option. The formula has to go too, or the company will just be an empty shell," Myers dismissed.
"Don't push it, Myers," Nicola snapped.
He chuckled but said nothing, turning to leave. Alena, who had been silent until then, remarked, "Why do I feel like Dad has become a completely different person? He seems so ominous now."
De Silva replied, "Maybe he was always like this, just hiding it too well."
"What about you? Aren't you that kind of person as well?" Afastin shot back with a smirk.
The next day at noon, while the family was having lunch, six armed members of the Illuminati burst into their house. Without explanation, they seized De Silva and his brother. Alena and Nicola screamed, "Why are you grabbing innocent people?"
One of the armed men said, "Ladies, please step aside, or you'll be taken too."
After De Silva was taken away, Alena asked, "Mom, what should we do? Should we call Dad back?"
"He’s the one who let them grab them, so what good would calling him back do?" she replied.
"Are you saying he won't quit until he has the company and the formula?" Nicola sighed. "Looks like we have no choice but to give it to them. Those thugs."
It was two weeks before De Silva and his brother returned home. Upon entering, Afastin vented, "I told you we should have given it to them, but you wouldn’t listen! Now look what happened: they’re gone, and we lost everything."
"Shut up, or you might get taken again," Alena warned him. This tactic worked, and Afastin quickly fell silent. "Let’s pack up. We’re leaving this place this afternoon."
"Why?" De Silva asked Nicola.
"I want to leave South Africa; there's nothing left to hold onto here."
"Mom, where are we going then?" Alena inquired.
"We're going back to Tanzania."
Having recently broken up with his girlfriend, Afastin was the first to agree, fearing his own capture. De Silva then added, "Isn't this a bit hasty? I still have plenty of things to sort out in my lab."
"How long will it take you to finish?" Nicola asked.
"At least two days."
With that approval, De Silva immediately headed to his lab to organize his belongings, while Alena busied herself with farewells to her friends. During those two days, Afastin secretly went to see his ex-girlfriend. Sophia had reopened her flower shop, which was now larger than before, thanks to profits from Nicola's company. Feeling a pang of jealousy, Afastin noticed a man chatting intimately with Sophia. Sneaking up, he picked up a rock the size of an egg from the ground. With a loud smash, he broke a window in the store.
Moments later, Sophia and a man exited the shop. She pointed toward Afastin’s retreating figure and said, "That looks like Afastin."
"Who’s Afastin?" the man asked. Sophia replied, "He’s my ex-boyfriend."
Afastin dashed home, out of breath. Alena asked, "Why were you running? You look terrible."
"I just couldn't handle it; it was too frightening."
Alena laughed, "So are you going to end up in jail again?" Hearing this, Afastin paled even more.
Two days flew by, and Nicola, along with her three children and a few bags, boarded a private plane. After a four-hour flight, they arrived at their destination, "Morogoro." This area has a tropical savanna climate, with annual rainfall of 750-1000 millimeters. The main crops include sisal, sugarcane, cotton, as well as maize, rice, and fruits. The primary industries are sugar production, sisal processing, and cotton milling. The plane landed at a small airport, and they had to walk about a kilometer to reach their new home.
"Mom, when did you buy a house here?" Alena asked.
"I got it shortly after your dad was taken," Nicola replied.
Afastin complained, "How are we going to carry all this luggage?"
"Wait a minute; I’ve already called someone to help us move," Nicola answered.
About ten minutes later, three workers arrived, and one of them said, "Madam, why didn’t you inform us sooner? We’ve kept you waiting."
Nicola smiled and said, "Ram, I only remembered when I arrived."
The area was surrounded by trees, and Ram and his team pushed a cart to carry their luggage, following behind the De Silva family. Their new home consisted of two buildings, each just one story high with red tile roofs. Upon entering one of the buildings, they found it spacious, containing five rooms with a pool out back shaded by a canopy made of branches. Alena remarked, "This place is quite nice, much better than I expected." But she soon frowned, "Now that we don’t have a company, how will we manage our lives?"
"You’re all old enough to find jobs," Nicola replied.
De Silva interjected, "Alena and I shouldn’t have too much trouble, but what about Afastin? Who would want him?"
Nicola shot a glance at Afastin. "He’ll find something eventually. You two can start job hunting tomorrow."
"Mom is so biased," Alena muttered.
The Morogoro region, being quite impoverished, had no universities. After three days of searching, De Silva returned home empty-handed and disappointed. However, thanks to her striking looks, Alena found work the very next day as a print model. Afastin smirked, "Well, De Silva, what do you have to say now? You couldn’t find a job either!"
Ignoring him, De Silva turned to Nicola and said, "I think I need to leave here. There’s a university in Arusha, and I want to give it a shot."
Located in northeastern Tanzania, Arusha enjoys a pleasant climate and is a trading hub for coffee, pyrethrum, sisal, and livestock products, with a thriving tourism sector thanks to nearby volcanoes and wildlife parks. Nicola was concerned because Arusha is nearly a thousand kilometers away, making it impossible for De Silva to come home daily.