"Who?" Lucy blinked in surprise at the name she had just heard.

Zaria watched for her reaction carefully. She hoped that if Lucy's bodyguard was Zeus, the latter would know and might accidentally reveal something from her facial expression or tone.

"The creator of Creszone. His name is Zeus." She added, describing the man she was asking about.

Lucy looked confused as she frowned. "Zaria, you know that the creator of Creszone is not a man. It's a woman—a woman whose identity I presume you know. You must have investigated it?"

Zaria nodded, slightly disappointed that Lucy didn't seem to know the man.

"Yes, I know the creator of Creszone. But there's this man…he has been stalking me."

"A stalker?" Lucy tilted her head to look at Zaria more clearly, concern clear in her voice.

Zaria nodded. "I think I should call him that. He sent me a private message on Creszone and claimed to be its creator. He is a hacker and knows things about me that I told no one." She sighed, seeing Lucy's frown. That was her reaction to the situation too, alright! "He creeps me out. However, he has been helping me which makes me so confused."

"What did he help you with?" Lucy asked, and when she realized that her bodyguard was ready, she signalled for him to wait.

"Many things. He helped me get the evidence to put Jaime in jail." She now trusted her mother a little more so she told her about it, but made sure to not say too much. "Things have been happening around me for inexplicable reasons and it's almost as though someone has been protecting me from the shadows. I'm starting to think that it was Zeus all along."

"I will look him up." Lucy promised after listening to the baffling things that her daughter was saying.

Zaria nodded and thanked her.

"Mother," She called out when the latter stepped forward to leave. Lucy turned and glanced at her curiously, glad that no one was around to hear what Zaria had called her. It was alright if only the people who already knew their relationship heard her, but there were people who could never find out that she had a daughter. Zaria was oblivious to it but her life would be in much more danger than she thought.

"Do you need something else?" She probed.

Zaria hesitated for a while and just when Lucy was about to probe again, she spoke it out. "Are you Zeus?"

Lucy raised her eyebrows before she burst into laughter. "Last I checked, I was a woman, Zaria."

Zaria was embarrassed for asking.

Lucy patted her gently before adding, "Don't call me mother. Ever."

Zaria's heart dropped. Did she do something to upset her? "But why?"

"Call me mum. That's easy to bluff if someone accidentally overheard it." She explained, much to Zaria's relief. Ma'am or mum, it sounded almost the same and she could always play with the sounds. It was much more convenient.

She nodded joyously. "Goodbye mum."

Lucy nodded with a smile and went to the car, as Zaria watched until the car disappeared.

_

"Master, is she really your daughter?" The bodyguard asked about the young woman who was now Lucy's assistant. It was inexplicable for Lucy to suddenly lower her ranks by becoming the COO of a company smaller than her own business, and the fact that she employed the woman who was clinging onto her before was even more confusing. Wasn't she the woman who randomly called Lucy her mother not too long ago?

To his question, Lucy scoffed as she grabbed a magazine to read the news. "Why would she be?"

"She called you her mother before and well, she resembles you." The young man stated honestly, earning a hum from Lucy.

"What's the current world's population?" Lucy asked out of the blue.

"The last time I checked, there were 7.9 billion people, master." The young man responded, even though he did not understand the sudden question from his master. Was she thinking of a new project to cater for the whole world?

"How about Olphire's current population?" Lucy asked.

"39.1 Million people." The bodyguard once again answered.

Lucy closed the magazine with a hum and a frown at her bodyguard. "All these people, and you think everyone should have their own unique face without a single lookalike?"

That was all she said, and the young man had to understand what she was implying. Did she mean that she was possibly the lookalike of Zaria's mother, so the latter was mistaking Lucy for her mother?

He didn't think he could ever mistake anyone else for his mother but whatever sailed their boats.

_

Natalie received a call from Devonte in the evening, just as she finished dressing up to go out.

"Is our date still on?" He asked gently when she answered the call.

"Why would you think that it's not?" She laughed as she untied the ribbons in her hair, which she had tied to heatlessly curl her hair. "You better be ready. If you stand me up, I will bring an army of friends and one star the hell out of all your movies."

"You don't need to do that. I'm already at our meeting spot." His voice was full of cheer.

"So that was Mr. Romeo's way of finding out whether I left the house." She teased before seeing the time as she took her watch from the bed. "Wait. You are thirty minutes early."

"In case of traffic. I would not want to keep my girlfriend waiting." He explained, making her heart melt.

"Can you not say such sweet things all the time? I will die from melting too much." She joked. "Wait for me. I will be there in a heartbeat."

"Mother, I'm going out." She said to Ava who was in the living room, before immediately realizing that she would probably have to break her promise to Devonte. Her parents were sitting together, which they never did in the evenings unless there was something terribly wrong.