These Wicked Games

Chapter 12

He was not kidding, we stayed at it for the rest of the day and the whole weekend pretty much. We've been quietly traveling back and forth between our apartments to grab what we need. Luckily no one was able to barge in on us since he showed me how to change my locks so that no one else's prints work on my door anymore.

"Well now that we've had our fill, we can go back to being acquaintances right?" I roll my eyes and smile knowing he can't see me while I'm cuddled with him lightly dragging my fingers over his chest.

He grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. "Oh no you don't. Sorry to break it to you Trouble but you're all mine."

"And how is this going to work exactly? Are we still hiding? I'm pretty sure they know something's up. That whole Callum thing was clearly a setup." I have a hard time establishing relationships, I need simple. This is far from simple at this point, this is insanely complicated especially if he wants to keep playing this hiding game.

"Yeah I know. I've been thinking and yes, we gotta keep hiding it. But only until Empresa's end of year party in a few days." I sit up, huffing and crossing my arms.

"Why is that?" We're not kids in high school, I'm not going to hide my relationship or whatever the hell this is from anyone. I don't have time for childish games like that.

"I'm sorry Soph, I can't tell you that. But I know what I'm doing, you have to trust me. But after the party, you'll know everything, I promise."

I lean my back on his headboard, willing to let this go. I'm too exhausted to fight.

"Fine, it's my first day tomorrow. At least tell me more about Empresa. What am I even going to be doing here?"

He joins me sitting with his back to the headboard. "Okay, let's start simple. Empresa houses the people at the very top positions of all the industries in the entire world. And your job, will be managing the growth for our clients. We can't have them staying stagnant, ever."

"Wait, all the top positions? So like, the president of the United States?" I ask sarcastically. I chuckle to myself, imagine the president being placed by Empresa to run the entire country.

"He's part of Empresa, yes." My smile drops as he continues. "Billboard musicians, corporate founders, all the A-listers, top rated athletes, chefs, artists, basically everything... all Empresa." Wait, what the fuck I was just joking when I asked that. Am I in the twilight zone right now?

"That's why, you can do everything you think you should, to make it to the top. Get a degree, work really hard, even have all the connections. But in the end? None of that matters. If you're not from Empresa, you will never make it to the top. It's literally our job to make sure of that." I turn to him with my jaw dropped.

I laugh nervously, "Oh shit, hold on wait. So what you're basically saying is that everything is rigged for everyone to fail." I can't be hearing this right.

"Everyone but our people? Yeah, basically. And let's say someone is actually really good at what they do, one of the best even. We make sure to bury them. We do what we have to in order to make sure their voice isn't heard by drowning them out with our people. We destroy them." This sounds so unbelievable yet at the same time, it all makes sense.

"Destroy them? Destroy them how?" This is taking an even darker turn that I could've imagined.

"For example, social media, their posts won't show anywhere but to just a few people who have no connections or sway in anything. When it comes to news or music, we make sure their stuff never gets aired and if they do get aired, we give them the least amount of air time possible and make sure whatever displays before and after them will steal people's attention. Politics? We release tons of both false and true statements so that the public can't trust anything which means they can't trust them."