Third Person’s POV
CURRENTLY, five-year-old Nathalia and her close friend Aries are playing tag and making bets in the mansion’s garden. The two of them were inseparable ever since the day they both started to talk and walk. They were practically together every day, and aside from being friends, Aries also served as Nathalia’s bodyguard.
“Nathalia.”
Nathalia paused in her running, and her smile widened upon hearing the baritone voice of her father, Don Gray Fuentes. Aries stepped back and stayed quiet, standing to the side.
Her father smiled as he approached her.
“My business partners were here with their children. That’s why I want you to meet them, and I hope that you can be friends with them.” He gently pinched her cheek.
Nathalia’s eyes sparkled at her father’s words. She couldn’t quite understand her classmates and other children at her school. They were all distant from her, as if they were afraid of her. That’s why she had no one else to rely on but Aries.
Her father gently stroked her long hair before holding her by the shoulders and turning her towards the newcomers. Before her eyes was a group of youths who seemed a few years older than her.
Her mother, Natasha Fuentes, introduced her to them. She immediately felt at ease, as the newcomers appeared naturally cheerful and playful.
Well, except for one.
Nathalia waved a hand at the child named Stephen, who was looking at her intently.
“Hello!” She smiled widely at him. However, Stephen merely nodded in response.
Because she was young, Nathalia didn’t pay much attention to his cold demeanor toward her.
However, Aries couldn’t miss the odd look that Stephen was giving his close friend.
He clenched his fist. He didn’t care if Stephen was older than him. If he ever did anything harmful to Nathalia, he wouldn’t back down easily. His father didn’t teach him to fight at a young age just to be intimidated.
Nathalia’s mother furrowed her brow as she noticed something lacking in the children she introduced to her daughter. She turned to her husband to inquire.
“Where are the Sarmientos?”
As if on cue, a boy emerged from the doorway and walked toward them, followed closely by his parents.
“Oh, there he is. Come here, hijo.” Natasha gently guided the young boy toward her daughter. “Nathalia, this is William Sarmiento. He is the nephew of your new bodyguard, Edwin Sarmiento.”
“Hello, Liam! Hello, Uncle Ed!” Nathalia greeted them warmly.
The young boy smiled at her while Ed politely approached her. “It is an honor to meet you and serve you,” he said with respect.
That day marked the beginning of their friendship.
However, unbeknownst to them, the father of Aries, Arman Baltazar, seethed quietly from the window due to the arrival of a new recruit to his reaper group.
YEARS passed, and Nathalia grew closer to her new set of friends. To the point that she almost forgot about Aries.
She still spent time with Aries whenever they met and played with her new friends. However, the catch was that he didn’t mingle with them. He always stayed by his father’s side and acted as if he were Nathalia’s bodyguard. Despite her attempts to involve him in their activities, he would just shake his head.
But one of the reasons Nathalia’s closeness with her best friend started to fade was when she noticed a change in his behavior. He became easily irritated and even more standoffish. She tried talking to him about it, but he refused.
“Sister Shan, can you help me with this?” Nathalia called out to her friend, Shantel.

Shantel smiled and approached her, taking the Rubik’s cube from her hand.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me sister? Even Ace and the rest of the boys don’t have to be called brothers. You should practice more yourself by calling us by just our names,” Shantel said.
Nathalia bit her lower lip. She was used to addressing them by their names. But there were still moments when she would forget about that.
“I know. But I just can’t help it sometimes. You know, just a sign of respect,” she explained.
Her friends were five years older than her. Only the children of Stephen’s bodyguards were her age in the group.
Shantel paused and stared at her intently.
“Truth be told, we should be the ones to respect you. Always remember that. You’re our future queen.”
Nathalia was taken aback as Ace gently tapped her head, suddenly appearing behind her. He had a habit of tapping her head.
She was already ten years old, while the others were fifteen. Nathalia could understand things more easily now, but she still couldn’t quite grasp the full meaning of what Shantel had just told her.
“She’s my queen, to be exact,” Stephen interjected seriously into the conversation.
Nathalia couldn’t help but frown. Stephen kept saying that she was his queen, but he would often tease and annoy her.
“Hey! Since we are all here, let’s play hide and seek,” Ash suggested.
Caught up in the excitement, Nathalia forgot about what Stephen had said and joined in the fun with her friends.
Little did she know, Aries was harboring growing resentment in his heart toward her friends, especially Stephen, who kept stealing glances at her.
AS THE days passed, Aries’ growing anger towards Stephen deepened when he accidentally overheard a conversation between Stephen’s parents and Nathalia.
“When should we tell Nathalia about the arrangement?” Natasha asked her husband.
Aries halted in his steps upon hearing the conversation from inside Gray Fuentes’ office. The door was slightly ajar.
“We’ll tell her once she reaches the age of thirteen. She’s still too young to understand such matters if we tell her now,” Gray answered.
“Well, it’s settled then. Don’t worry. I’m pretty sure that Stephen will be able to take care of Nathalia and be a good husband to her,” Alicia Anderson, Stephen’s mother, said with a cheerful tone.
It seemed like ten-year-old Aries froze in his spot. His jaw tightened, and his eyes glared intensely at the slightly open door of the room, as if his lethal gaze could pierce through and reach the happy people conversing inside.
Only one thought was running through his mind at that moment.
Their plans shouldn’t go through. Because even at a young age, he had it ingrained in his mind that he was the one deserving to marry Nathalia and no one else.
Since then, he has been with her. Every day and almost all the time. Thus, he would not allow the girl he liked to be taken away from him by anyone else.
With a dark expression, he left that place and went straight to his father, Arman. His father was one of the reapers of the Fuentes Mafia. He immediately informed his father about what he had discovered and pleaded with him to find a way to stop the Fuentes and Anderson couple’s plans.
What Aries didn’t know is that his father has been planning to take down the Fuentes Mafia for years now.
For years, Arman has been serving the Fuentes family. He dedicated almost his entire life to them.
But in the end, Gray still entrusted the position of being the head of the reapers to Edwin Sarmiento. The position that Arman had been aspiring for. He couldn’t believe that he could be defeated in that position by a newcomer!
So, without hesitation, he formed an alliance with some members of the organization who also wanted to overthrow Gray. Some of them wanted Gray out of the leadership position because they believed he was too kind to lead the underground society. They couldn’t make a move without him knowing about their plans, either.
Aside from that, they also aimed to eliminate the allies of the Fuentes Mafia from their path. These were the Anderson, Roberts, Carter, Lewis, Jones, Martin, and Garcia mafias.
Arman promised his son that nothing would come between him, Nathalia, and their goals. It was time for them to claim what rightfully belonged to them.
However, another thing that Aries didn’t know was that he had an older half-sibling from a fellow mafia reaper and Arman’s associate named Elle. Arman found out that his wife would have difficulty conceiving a child. One night, he got drunk, and coincidentally, one of his female reaper associates was there to comfort him. This led to a mistake they both made.
The result of that mistake was none other than Cole, whose real name is Ariston Baltazar.
He successfully kept the child a secret from his wife, as he couldn’t fully accept the situation but still loved her, so he didn’t leave her.
Three years went by, and she finally became pregnant. Unfortunately, she passed away shortly after giving birth.
Until he decided to introduce Ariston to everyone and to be with his mother as a widower himself. He waited until his final mission was over before leaving the life of a reaper and carrying out his plan.
But for the second time, his world crumbled when it returned home, cold as a corpse.
Because of this, the bitterness he felt deepened even more. Thus, he tried to convince Ariston that the Fuentes family was to blame for his mother’s death and that they needed to seek revenge. Apart from that, he also told him that they were planning to eliminate him.
So, he was able to convince him of his plan to serve as a spy and work with the Andersons. They needed to remove the obstacles first before they could finally bring down Gray Fuentes.