The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter Nine

Two years hadn't changed what happened as much as it should have. I woke most nights with nightmares strong enough to make me hyperventilate, and often needed to have a constant cycle of bedding from sweating. That was how I'd woken this morning staring out of the windows of my bedroom at Manhattan's skyline of silhouettes and shining lights. Then as I did many times before I went for a run through Central Park to clear my head, and when that didn't work the gym in One57 before returning to my penthouse to look as presentable as I could given my present circumstances.

Walking downstairs dressed for the day in black trousers black button up rolled to my sleeves and a Saint Laurent jacket which I discarded over the back of my sofa as I crossed the room to the large TV which rose from the floor with a press of a button. The nearly nine foot tv covering the windows facing out onto Central Park's copper landscape, and quickly coming alive as I walking into the kitchen to make myself something of sufficiency.

"Recent update on the sudden spike in crime in recent years as New York's own Captain Logan Saint Laurent closes in on another breakthrough on the gang activity in southern Manhattan..." I drone out the rest of the report, only partially listening as I took out two croissants and cut them in half while taking out items to make breakfast sandwiches, my phone resting on the counter as pings of texts from last night's party lit up my screen most of them from Hunter who was probably hoping that he'd woken up beside some girl he didn't remember the name of and an empty bottle of some kind of liquor.

Not that I was any better.

Pouring the eggs I'd mixed together into a pan along with half a pack of bacon into a second one with a lid over it I started my coffee machine and paced back into the living room, mentally counting the time for when I'd need to flip the bacon and eggs, as I stared at the screen where the morning news anchor stood outside of a warehouse in South East Manhattan.

"Authorities say that just last night a homicide took place here in this warehouse, both victims in their early twenties and still being identified. These investigations are ongoing, and whoever is behind this remains dangerous. New York Police is asking that if anyone knows anything, they come forward as soon as possible in the pursuit of putting these gangland killings to an end," the screen changed and two separate anchors sat behind a curved desk, now prattling off about the weather of all bloody things.

It's fucking New York in October, it's cloudy and threatening to rain for the hundredth year in a row.

Honestly the fact that people were paid to discuss the weather, which was wrong half the time seemed utterly pointless, and yet they were often paid exuberant sums of money for being wrong.

Wandering back towards the kitchen I glanced to my phone where I knew that if I merely asked I'd find out that Demetri had those two unidentified bodies on the news killed last night, probably by his hand. It was the little dark secret I'd been keeping to myself, that I'd been following the killings and various gang activities in the boroughs and uncovered that a fairly new gang was behind it all. It hadn't even taken that much effort to find my way into the correct circles to infiltrate the underground of New York.

Thank god my cousin was a Police captain.

At least that would be my excuse if it ever came to light that I was involved with any of this. Unofficially I had my share of skeletons in the closet.

Sliding breakfast onto a plate I moved the pans off of the stove and walked back into the living room watching as the news changed before I turned off the TV and stared out at Central Park. A flash lit up the trees across the park and I sighed, staring higher at the sky and questioned if my family ever knew that the weather I was born under would seem to characterize my life. One big fucking hurricane storm.