Anders

2 Death Becomes Him

Bryan

I stood in front of the expansive window overlooking the city right out to the coast and swirled the wine in my glass as Claude Debussy's classical piano mastery filled my office with sound. Everything in my office was modern glass shit including the iPod dock resting on a strategically placed shelf above my wet bar.

It was late, and the only people left in the building were the overachievers with no social life. And me. I forced myself to stay late, getting ahead on writing analysis reports for clients, to keep myself busy. Blake made it clear she needed me to curb my killing streak.

As she liked to phrase it, I was "firing" people at such a pace I was going to cause an all-out war. I knew she was right. I'd personally tortured and murdered, or as Blake calls it "fired", nineteen young bangers before leaving their corpses on show to remind people the price of crossing the Anders syndicate. But in the event of a war I knew we'd crush them because we were the home team with better resources and bigger numbers.

But war was always hazardous to our bottom line and that always demanded my attention. I was a killer. I was a torture artist; emphasis on the artist part. But I was also an economist who didn't tolerate his bottom line being disturbed.

I slouched onto my couch and refilled my glass with the cabernet and stared at the neat pile of paperwork I'd assembled. Everything had a place. My OCD came in hand frequently; especially when I was working.

It helped in the office too.

Bright market analysis charts stood out amongst the endless numbers and words that seemed to run together. I needed to focus my mind but I couldn't. I'd spent my day listening to murmurs about Bash's tirade in the recent weeks that ran along the same timeline as my own departure from my usual meticulous nature.

He was picking fights and winning; he always won.

Knowing that the lore surrounding him was growing due to his own tirade made me happy. I shouldn't celebrate unnecessary risks. But, I reasoned to myself, he wouldn't act out if I didn't matter.

He cared.

From the moment I met him, I knew he was a brute of a man capable of doing an incredible amount of damage. He was big, fast and easily imposing. But he separated himself from other guys of similar stature by being smart. He was a quick study, decisive and precise.

I wanted him long before I ever caught him watching me. The whole point of working late was to keep my mind off the man that changed the game for me. I loosened my tie as I dialed his number. I didn't try and prepare a speech. When I first started calling him two months ago, I had apologies on the tip of my tongue.

It was unfamiliar to me, but I was ready to grovel if it meant that I would have a chance to wake up with a muscled bicep covered in ink draped across me as if he just wanted to make sure I was still there. I'd grovel for that every day and twice on Sunday as Bobby would say.

I'd also grovel just to be around him as he spoke freely, letting that southern twang and phrases that made no sense but sounded good rolling off those lips just float out freely.

I'd grovel for those lips.

The call went to voicemail. I wasn't surprised but it irked me anyway. He hadn't answered a call from me yet. He hadn't responded to anything from me unless it was a work-related text. And even those responses were brief.

I didn't listen to the automated voice give me instructions and instead just tossed my phone on the couch beside me. I ran both hands through my hair and felt myself muss it up. My appearance was no longer a concern.