"I know", I barely got the words out of my mouth as I cried and yelled at the same time. It had barely been two years since I began this adventure. It had started so well, too well. My distant uncle gone forever, cancer apparently. It didn't matter though as I was rich. My parents no longer struggled to eat and I no longer had to stay at home to take care of them. Although I had never had a management position those that surrounded me said I was a natural at my new position of a CEO. They were wrong. Growing up without anything did not make me stupid - ignorant maybe but not stupid, I could tell they were lying, though not always. So I brought in some help in the form of a childhood friend. Mike was quiet. He never said anything to anyone but me. He sat in my meetings, he let me know when someone lied or when they were up to anything really. Together we fought. Together we rose, kind of, barely. After turning around disaster my uncles' company it began to grow for the first time in forty years. I was smart, he was smart I saw the numbers and he saw past people, we were unstoppable. Time went on and we worked, and worked and worked and worked less and, less, then even less. I was almost irrelevant by the time it rolled around. Mike saw it but didn't bother to say anything. We both had fought our battles now it was time for someone else to step up. The shareholders stole it all. Left and right assets were being sold off. Dividends were paid and I was worth even more, but for some reason I wasn't happy. It may have been because my parents had passed away, bad water apparently so I didn't look into it - millionaires have better things to do than live in the past. After all we bring the future. Four more months passed mourning, living, partying it was all the same after a while to be honest. Four months, that's how long the diagnosis took. Mike was sick, dying. I had almost forgotten about him, despite everything he did for the company, and me. I guess he wasn't gone, I could try to help him. His medication was expensive though I owed him everything it wasn't spending money but giving it back. Then another diagnosis came in; my company was being purchased. A generous offer to say the least. I had to refuse. My majority share made sure that Delhi Water Co. supplied millions with fresh water there was no way I could let someone else rape what I had worked so hard to make for a quick profit. Or so I thought, I owed these people nothing. I came from nothing just as Mike did.