Alex
The view from the seventy-eighth floor hasn’t gotten old. Five years I’ve been in this penthouse, and I still find it easy to lose myself looking at the city below. The human eye loves detail. I’ve come to learn that.
There’s nothing pretty about a solid wall of clouds, but give me one cumulus with all its jagged sides bursting like a snow-white explosion in the sky… That’s a beauty.
I can appreciate the world. Or maybe I just use it as a distraction when my brain is overwhelmed by business.
It’s easy up here, for there is no lack of detail from the seventy-eighth floor. Central Park is the only bland spot in my view. Mostly black with its trails marked by lights.
But if I were truly an artist, I could probably appreciate the contrast—the emphasis the long dark rectangle puts on the rest of the glittering city around it.
This is how I end my nights, staring out the floor-to-ceiling pane of glass and thinking of nothing but what I see.
It’s a pleasure in a business where my each and every thought needs to be on guard. Playing offense and defense and picturing what move my enemies might make. It’s a dramatic word, but mining is one of those fields that gives you enemies , not competitors. Ripping open the earth to extract its precious stones is one of the oldest businesses, and it comes with a primitive nature.
Gregory Leibowitz, a mining magnate from Poland, was killed in a car bomb just last year. Rumor in the business has it that one of the firms he outbid for a cobalt mine contract didn’t take it lightly. Someone used bribes to win the contract, and that someone, Leibowitz, paid the price.
Even now I’m finding it hard to black out business. I get a call and stare at the name on the screen a moment before answering. It’s Bruce, my head of security.
“Yes,” I say and turn away from the window.
“Felix Coffman. He’s going to be your problem,” Bruce’s older, scratchy voice says with authority.
“How so?”
“He doesn’t like the attention this money-laundering story has brought to his oil firm. He wants someone to pay a price.”
“Why does he think I should be that someone?”
“He doesn’t. He’s angry at your friend, Lucas Barnes, and his boss, Chester. It was Summit Bank that purchased the land rights they wanted to build a pipeline on. They had to buy it back for a fortune. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Lucas and his firm have become a problem again.”
“I’ll tell Lucas to get security.”
“That’s a start.” The man sighs. “, I don’t ask questions, but the mess we’re in now… I need to be confident there’s an endgame.”
“I told you in the beginning this would be successful but not without some hiccups. I don’t like being doubted.”
“Of course, sir. Apologies. It’s just hard to see the path when I don’t know the destination.”
“I know where we’re going.”
“I don’t doubt that, sir.”
“Goodnight, Bruce.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
I hang up the phone and turn back to the window. Violence was always going to be a threat with this plan, but I didn’t know it would come so quickly. This is only the beginning.
Lucas will be okay. I’ll have a talk with him in the morning about hiring security. He should have it in his business anyway. His employer, Summit Bank, is one of the worst banking outfits in the city. Not because of their returns, but their methods.
They’re crooks. But Lucas, the independent spirit that he is, didn’t heed my warning when he accepted an offer from them. It was a job, and he’d been looking for months. He was too proud to take one from me, and I can’t fault him too much for it.
I look around my living room. The fireplace is the only source of light. The gas flames flicker on low, and a decanter of whiskey on the coffee table distorts what light comes from the fire and plays with it.
I look at the wrinkled fur blankets that are laid out on the couch. I’m having one of those rare moments when I’m wondering why I’m doing this. Where I don’t doubt my ability but my ambition.
What’s another billion? I don’t plan on spending the one I have. I deal with greedy men who sell the villages and ancient forests of their countries for the shiny rocks buried beneath them.
The life it’s built me is glamorous. Refined. The last thing I would expect after reaching the top of the mountain is the feeling that something is missing. It’s not a family. Or a wife. No. Family is just another word for leverage.
In my business, a wife and kids are something your enemies can use to bring you to your knees. It’s a vulnerability. A liability . Not something that would help me succeed any more than I have already.
“?”
I turn to see Paige standing in the firelight. She wears nothing but a blanket over her shoulders.
“Are you coming back to the bedroom?”
I look her over for several seconds before I respond. Her hourglass frame is truly flawless. The width of her hips screams sex. She may be a typical beauty—big tits, blonde hair, full lips—but her lab-made looks still turn me on.
I walk closer and set my hand on the side of her neck. She leans her head back and stares up at me helplessly as I run my thumb over her windpipe.
No, my life is perfect. This plan is perfect. It destroys those who have wronged me and increases my wealth threefold. These feelings of a void are just a version of cold feet. So is my infatuation with Hailee Barnes. As Lucas’s little sister, she’s always been a forbidden fruit. Now I crave her like no woman I have in years. The blonde in front of me simply feels like a substitute.
But it’s one that’ll have to do.
I move my hand to hers, and I drag her into the bedroom.