The Upward Ripple

After graduating, everyone expected Nate to join the family business. After all, he had a finance degree and was extremely efficient in everything related to code. However, instead of doing that, his life took a completely different direction ending up as a member of a motorcycle club down in Nevada. It was the last thing anyone expected the young man who grew up in such a sheltered environment to trade the tailored Italian suits for jeans, a t-shirt and a vest. Trade in the town cars and luxury sedans for a Harley Davidson. There were days people thought that he had probably lost his mind in doing that and sometimes, Nate thought that they were probably right. How else would anyone explain the fact that a young man worth almost two billion dollars, the heir to the Duncan Family empire was willing to walk away from the luxurious life to get a bunch of tattoos and join The Outlaws? Yes, that was the name of the bike club he joined: The Outlaws.

What people did not know however, was that Nate joining The Outlaws was a strategic move. It was either that or kill Elise. Nate could not stand Elise. Generally, Elise Warner had always rubbed him the wrong way, but once Nate got a private investigator to dig into her past, he found out that Elise Warner was not even her real name. She had been going around the country changing her identity as she saw it fit. He knew that there was something off when he found this out. But it was the way his father acted when he gave him what he thought was credible intel that Nate’s bough finally broke. Nathaniel took his new wife’s side and Nate left town. He joined The Outlaws and never looked back until he got the news that his father was dead.

                                                            *****

Having spent the first few years of his life in London, Nate was a little worried about making the move to America. His parents had always made the United States a vacation destination. Well, at least that is what it was for young Nate. For Nathaniel and Dianne, it was the business centralizing started Duncan & Company, a small banking unit in their house. They first started out as a financial consultancy business which made a lot of sense for them to have an office at home but as time went on, they took on the challenge and set up the bank working with only fifty-seven customers. Perhaps it was the fact that they were always working at home rather than relax, or maybe the fact that their customers would always drop in turning family time into working time… Nate really didn’t know but whatever the reason was, his parents decided to move out of the country when the bank grew bigger. At that time, they already had reliable staff and Dianne was pregnant with their son who would be named after his father, Nathaniel Junior. With a growing family, the living room had to be an actual living room and not just some extra space to stash the copier and shredder. The dining table had to be used for actual eating and not just screen staring and number crunching.

Nate’s earliest memories of his childhood were of the cool London weather, Big Ben, the Thames and everything English. It was not until he turned ten that Nathaniel and Dianne decided to move back to the United States, but they also had to get the right environment for their son. That was important. There were a number of options for them but the property in Pine Grove Colorado just called out to them. At first, all they were looking for was a house but the lot of land in Colorado was exactly what they needed. It was a small lot of land, maybe a couple of acres located right in the woods. The property had a great view of the lush greenery and as soon as they saw it, Nathaniel and Dianne fell in love with it. Within months, they had a two thousand five hundred square feet home, a pool and they had even put up a tree house for Nate. For them, it was all the house they needed. It was a beautiful country getaway that they called home. Pine Grove might have been a small town, but it was home for the Duncan family. What Nate did not know until much later was that his parents had considered moving to Pine Grove because Dianne had grown up in Colorado before she moved to Atlanta where she met Nathaniel Duncan, the enterprising young man who turned a small consultancy firm into one of the biggest banks in Central and South America. The banks grew and grew, and Duncan & Company ventured into real estate and then transportation and then every aspect of business they could get their hands on. The Duncan portfolio grew larger and more impressive as time went on and by the rime Nate was twelve, Duncan & Company was unrivalled and growing at a steady rate. The Duncans, Nathaniel, Dianne and their son Nathaniel Junior and perhaps four generations later could live a life of their choice. And with the number of properties they had around the world, they could live anywhere they wanted.

Nate rode into town and pulled up in front of The Spilt Bean, the local coffee shop. It was the Starbucks of Pine Grove. The only place you could get a decent cup of coffee in town. The only other option was to drive half an hour to the hub of the small town. That was where people went when they needed to get something a little more city-like. The place that had all the condominiums and office building. Pine Grove was and was always going to be old money town. The only place where people didn’t sell off their property to developers. For that reason, it remained as the pricing benchmark for most of the area’s real estate listings.

A loud sigh escaped Nate’s mouth as he took off his helmet to reveal the shoulder length locks held back in a ponytail. He walked into the coffee shop and almost immediately, felt everyone’s attention shift to him. He took off his sunglasses and jacket before he headed over to the counter.

“May I help you, sir?” a young waitress said as she looked at him.

“Yes, does this place still serve the special Agnes McCrery sweet potato pie?” he asked, and the waitress smiled at him.

“Actually, we still have it on the menu, but we are out of it at this minute. I have heard people say that the carrot cake and peach cobbler are a close second.”

“How about a cup of coffee and a slice of carrot cake?” he asked, and she nodded.

He looked around as she got a cup and coffee pot. He was not so sure if it was the fact that a man like him, a black man, had ridden into a predominantly white neighborhood or it was something else.

“So, judging by your accent, I am guessing, you are not from around here,” the waitress said as she poured him a cup of coffee.