Love's Inferno

Chapter 4 - The Village Idiot Named Antonio

Dante 

I'd had one hell of a fucking day and it was only half-past nine, not even midday. Everything had begun to go up in smoke since the arrival of The Smurf. I wasn't particularly superstitious because superstition could be a needless distraction but even I found myself wondering if the man hadn't been an omen of sorts. Everything had been smooth sailing business-wise for weeks. I had wanted to honour my Uncle's directive but had already scheduled a few weeks away in the Valley to sort out some software issues with the developers in person. It had been a great trip (which was rare) and I had been quietly enjoying the haze of it all until this morning. 

I awoke to yet another email from A.S.T. Agency. In the lengthy and tedious email chain, there was only one, truly singular, individual that had been making a lick of sense. I read this September guy's emails and his alone. From his emails, I could begin to make sense of what had transpired and typically sided with his solutions. He was tactical, diplomatic, focused and also... quietly frantic. It was clear to me that he had shouldered a lot more responsibility than any junior in his position should've which told me two things. One; he shouldn't have been a junior and two? He was running the show. A fact that his boss held in open contempt, despite the man's complete inability to meaningfully contribute to the situation. It was a one-sided pissing match and the only person with piss on their shoes right now was me. And I knew it was an ego thing, typical of a man playing a low-stakes game, because this Tanner guy had copied me in on an email at 2AM that was meant for September and his team. Thereafter, a hoard of people had turned deathly silent besides September. September was efficient and the kind of man I liked to work with because he had managed to diffuse an unnecessarily messy situation...well until this morning when Tanner made it worse. I had waited to see how long it would take Tanner to notice his mistake - two weeks in counting. But it was this today when Nathan called me in. 

Nathan was who I left in charge of personal security most of the time because he was almost as thorough as me and typically preferred to be left alone. Unfortunately, in this specific circumstance, his aversion to unnecessary interaction had left him panicked in the slew of emails that had blown up my phone in the last few days. It was just too much. I don't typically have to interact with people, clients or otherwise, once a plan has been set in place and ratified for any personal security contract.  Personal security tended to be one of the easiest subdivisions of the company because my guys were seamless and mechanical about their approach. Some of them dishonourable discharges, many of whom missed the life, one of action and precision, and chose to work with us. Some of them were in the life and needed a 9-5 for their work visas. Others were just guys who I had seen take initiative at the clubs. That diversity had initially garnered a great deal of scrutiny from the bosses but this wasn't a front. It was a legitimate business, for all intents and purposes, which entitled me to run it how I liked. I wasn't a made man, by my own choosing and the help of Uncle S. The last time they had opened the books I was nineteen and between the protests of my Father, Uncle and various other members of my family, I was kept out of it. And that worked fine by me because I was still in the life for a while helping them... and then things changed in New York - a lot. So I was shipped off but it wasn't all bad. I got a chance to go to college at MIT for my undergrad. And then Oxford for my MBA on scholarship. The family paid for my undergrad and most of them were incredibly proud of my decision to leave the life. I had started my own thing, and a new life as a civilian, things were... square and starkly unfamiliar from my upbringing and teens but it was clean. 

Everything was above board which is how I ended up here, in the UK. I knew how to start, manage, maintain and control a business. I had done it all my life so hustling in a place where the rules were obvious? It was a no-brainer. I was a millionaire by my twenty-third birthday. I had worked for a few of the typical software and coding development companies and then independently as a freelance contractor. My mates, yeah the British really refer to their friends in that way, often sent things my way and soon I had more than I could handle. I set up shop with my own cyber security firm and things were smooth sailing. I opened an off-shoot in the Valley and another in my home state of Washington. I even had a fiancée, and a couple of investment properties but that all changed with the incident and my particular skill set was needed. So I broadened my portfolio into something I knew well and hid the more illicit pieces in plain sight - a security firm.