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It’s early afternoon. The sun is up. New York is in full swing.
Despite its sunny cheerfulness today, the view over the Big Apple can’t help but take me back to my self-describeddark years. My painful past. The months of foraging for scraps in an uncaring metropolis while I learned to survive on my lonesome. The months of sleeping rough in the city’s pitch-black alleyways and suffering the sharp winter chill that ate at my very bones.
The dark years that made me the man I am today.
The years that gave me my aforementioned cold heart.
But I now no longer have to beg for a pittance on themean streets of New York City. I now technically live in my hometown of Crystal River: a small town mercifully far, far away from this mega metropolis and the lingering pain of my dark years. I only fly back to this damned city - on my luxurious private jet - from time to time to conduct necessary business, and then I get the hell out.
Truth be told, I don’t like this city. I prefer the small town life of a quiet place like Crystal River: a place pleasantly distant from other people. For all my hard reputation as a man of swift and violent action, I prefer my solitary moments and the leisurely time to think. Tostrategize.
Running an organization as large, powerful, and as complex as mine takes a hell of a lot of mental energy.
Stating the obvious, my office in this skyscraper is substantially bigger than a lot of the apartments below. I gaze upon my reflection in the window glass. I admire the well-fitted tailored suit I’m currently wearing. An all-black ensemble, as I usually prefer. My cropped short hair is tousled in its customary manner. My eyes, a hue as dark as midnight, peer dispassionately back at me from within the glass mirror’s depths. I have long become accustomed to a habit of never showing my emotion.
Even to strange girls who wait for me in my office...
The most noticeable thing about my face, however, is the long, thin scar that runs down my left cheek. It is a permanent reminder of my violent years. Something I can never escape from.
It’s something that I know people notice the moment they set their eyes on me.
Something that can’t help but make them truly afraid.
Just the way I like it.
I turn around from the view. I can feel someone’s eyes on my back. My trusted lieutenant, Jim, is standing by thedoor, watching me. He’s waiting patiently for my next command.
“What the hell was that?” I ask him, my voice naturally filling the room with a low, resonant baritone.
“The girl?” Jim asks me, dispassionate. His own voice is gravelly. It’s like he downs a gallon of nails every morning. “The one waiting outside?”
“Yes.Her. The pretty little blonde devil-woman we practically had to fight off on the other side of that door.”
“She’s been trying to get hold of you for some time,” Jim replies. “Like her life depends on it.”
I raise an inquisitive eyebrow. “Elaborate, Jim. Why would she be trying to get a hold of me?”
I tend to find people are typically trying to runawayfrom me, not seek me out.
This is alluringly curious.
“She’s here because her father owes money to you,” Jim explains. I trust the man with my life, and that allows us to talk frankly with each other without fear of retribution from me or my famous fiery temper.
“And this is the first time I’ve heard of this girl?” I ask. “When she ambushes me outside of my private office? An office that’s supposed to have some of the tightest security in this city?”
Jim shrugs. He has short red hair and strong green eyes. He is a man that has been weathered by plenty of hardship in his time. “She was, apparently, really ratherinsistenton seeing you in person,” he replies.
“Hm. Was she now?”
“Yes. She has been making rather a big...disturbanceabout it with the office staff. They’ve been complaining non-stop about it.”
“And she wasn’t removed?” I ask. “No one has simply tried picking her up and escorting her out?”
“Security have tried exactly that,” Jim replies. “On multiple occasions, in fact. But she refused to follow through with their demands.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “What is the point of being an actual fuckinggangsterif I can’t get women thrown out of my private reception space?”
Jim merely shrugs. “The laws around eviction from commercial properties have been strengthened in recent years. And, like I’ve said, the girl is rather insistent on seeing you no matter what.”
