Business Arrangement

Part 8

CHAPTER 8:

THE FACE OF someone who's falling is comical.

Life flashes before your eyes, no one really knows when the fear sets in and the known fact that you might just die. It's a gamble and it's an emotional rollercoaster that slices heart attacks into most people. Ender looked like a vulnerable boy for a single moment, like I just sent him to death with that move.

He didn't see the hook I attached onto him.

The metal hook latched around Ender's torso like a protective vine as his gasp of faint horror becomes more apparent when he slows and the contraption rights itself seconds before his high tops lightly tap the tiled floor. I move my gadget and tap the enhanced rope so it zips back up and unhooks, "WHAT THE FUCK?!" Archer yells up as families are either horrified and looking to see if Ender is alright, while that Italian family in the corner stares at me in bewildered astonishment. Most of them laughing at it all.

I grab my tool and stare down into small caramel eyes from here. Then I flip him the bird and step away towards the private elevator and take that down with my personal pin-code. When Octavia first described the nuclear structure of the bomb targeted on Ender's car, it was traced back to the Italian mob, of all people. I was still in the clear, and I didn't quite care that Ender wasn't. Plus, the stunt of me kicking him down a story should've sufficed their urges to kill him due to the fact his fiancée showed she wanted to as well.

I showed I wasn't playing around, that message was shinier than my dress. However, I lost my neutral emotions out there, all because the idiot tried to burn my prized positions down to the ground. When I arrived back at the villa, Philip had two trucks of my things while I step out roughly, "My books?" I demand.

Philip raises his palms, "They're fine, the mechanical rotation of the shelves worked, they were on, thankfully. They could detect the fire better than the alarm could. We have footage of the exact guards who did break in, I've handed them to the police. They'll deal with it discretely." He assures.

I stare at him. He gives me a long look, "They are safe." He whispers.

I explode, "He fucking touched my stuff. This is war, Philip. I killed two planes, with insurance behind them and this overgrown freak attacked my books. My. Books. He's dead. He's so dead." I whisper-yell, pacing in front of him.

Philip sighs, "Didn't I hear you kicked him off one story at the auction?" He says slowly.

"That wasn't retaliation, that was nothing!" I grumble.

"Nothing? NOTHING?!" The sound of Ender's voice screwed me and I spun around with red eyes. Archer and Vanessa flinch back at the sight while Philip reaches for my arm and pulls me back. I clench my fists and turn around. Taking two deep breaths as the fire squad finish off the last of cleaning my property.

Philip quickly stops one of the fire squad going to my other guards.

"You kicked me off a fucking balcony? You think that was nothing?" Ender growls at me.

I fold my arms, scrutinising the dark night air, if he touched me, I'd rip into him like a scientist does a newly dead lab rat. I'd felt the pulse and electrical fire sizzle beneath my skin. Making tendons and flesh stretch with every muscle.

I knew the grit of my teeth resembled frustration, anger, hatred.

I knew the fidgeting of fingers resembled the power nerves had in agitation, the need to punch something and a darkness clouding my usually stable form. Ender's caramel eyes slow from their gears running. He takes a breath, hands on his hips, "Do you have insurance on those books?" He asks me.