Iturn to my colleague, sitting to my right. He’s typing furiously on his mechanical keyboard, its distinctive clickety-clack cutting through the control room in a way that would irritate most people.
I find it reassuring. It means he’s getting shit done.
“Any luck yet, Jake?” I ask.
“Working on it, boss.” His brow furrows, attention locked to the screen. “I’ve got evidence of the affair, the abortion, but the trafficking part is proving more difficult.”
“ETA?”
“A couple of days, tops. Hopefully sooner. I’ve got a few leads out—people willing to talk for the right price.”
I smirk. “It helps when our target isn’t well-liked.”
Business is good. Better than good. A steady stream of clients who want problems handled cleanly, efficiently, and—most importantly—quietly. Information extracted. Situations resolved. Messes erased.
We’re not overly selective in who we take on, but we do operate by a code.
No women—unless they’re evil.
Definitely no children.
That adjustment was mine. One of the few changes I made when I took over the firm from the man who raised me.
Funny, inheriting a business before someone actually dies.
Practical, though, in the circumstances.
It’s difficult to run a business like this from inside an asylum for the criminally insane.
Where he’s rotting.
A life sentence for crimes that barely scratch the surface of what he’s done.
I considered killing him myself. There would have been something poetic about it—using the very skills he taught me against him, closing the loop cleanly.
But this suits me better.
Stripping him of control.
Reducing him to something powerless.
A man who built his life on dominance now confined to a space where every decision is made for him.
It’s fitting.
And this line of work affords me access to everything I could possibly need. Technology that borders on excessive. A network of experts who can make almost anything happen. A private jet at a moment’s notice. Financial freedom that was never meant to be mine.
There were, of course, consequences to being raised this way.
Growing up without parents leaves gaps.
Growing up with someone likehimfills those gaps with something else entirely.
My soul is dark.
My coping mechanisms are… unconventional.
And my moral compass doesn’t align with most people’s expectations.