Creed of the Leviathan I

60 | M + E

Mattia

"Yes, we are working on that. We'll have the new contract on your desk by Tuesday morning. I. I can guarantee that. Okay, yes. Great! It's a deal. Have a good one, John." As soon as I ended my phone call Lana walked through the door with the files I had asked her to get.

"Mr. James is here to see you, sir."

I leaned back into my chair as a million thoughts filled my mind. James. James was one of the last people I wanted to see and I did not want to see anyone.

"I'm busy."

"Then he would like to schedule a meeting. He said he knew you were going to say that."

I scratched my chin. "Fine," I sighed, "Tell him to be back in an hour."

She gave me an understanding nod before she took her leave. Time was not working in my favor. With Marissa resting in her deep state of sadness and Marco going about his own way, not on speaking terms with me, I had to take care of a lot more than usually work wise. I rushed through the files with as much attention as I had available, which ultimately caused more stress than relief when I could not get the information that I wanted. I loosened my tie as my eyes fell closed and I leaned back into the chair. That is when I heard Lana's voice through the door.

"Stop, Mr. Mulaney is busy. You can't go in there!" She argued, followed by a few other words I could not clearly understand. Whomever she was speaking to remained quiet which could only mean one of two things; they would either leave or as I expected; ignore her and walk straight through the door.

With my eyes still closed I put my hand up in the direction of the door where I assumed they were standing when I heard her say, "Sir,"

"James," I said, automatically thinking that it was him since he was so desperate about meeting with me.

"Perhaps you should open your fucking eyes instead of guess who it is." Marco voiced with pure anger that my eyes shot open. "What? Weren't expecting me? Is that why your secretary is playing security guard now?"

"You can go Lana, it's alright."

"Yes, Lana. Run back to your doghouse." He said whilst his eyes stared directly into mine.

I bit down hard on my lower lip. Whatever was going on had surely got to the best of him. My brother could be an ass but he was always respectful towards Lana. This was not normal.

"She's just doing her job. Maybe instead of being an asshole to her about it, you should focus on doing your part. That being said, I truly hope that this unwanted visit has something to do with the rapport that had to be on my desk by yesterday."

"Nulle's working on it. Go ahead, call her. Wouldn't be anything new, would it?" He paused for a second, smiling like a psychopath. "Family is power, family over anything or anyone." He said in a mocking manner. "And then you, my own fucking snake of a brother tries to ruin my life."

I took a deep breath and stood up from my chair. "So, how about you tell me what this is really about, hmm?"

"Everything."

"Everything?" I walked around my desk, trying to stay as calm as I could. "Need I remind you that I'm the reason you're standing in this room instead of rotting behind bars?"

"I should've known that you were going to tell her about Rylee. You can't accept that I have someone in my life that cares about me the way I care about them, because you never had that. You couldn't accept it when I had it with Rylee and now you can't accept that I have it with Nuelle. That's why you always try to ruin everything. "