It’s just a year after Magnus’ death, almost everyone had turned a profit from the assets he left behind. Everything seems to be in order… but that is only at the surface.
Mark Stahl paced around his spacious study. Meredith only gave him a small portion of her wealth. They are separately trying to invest, but somehow they are both failing. Meredith tried to enter the fashion world, but somehow she doesn’t know what she is doing because she seems to be ending up with tons of surplus products and huge debts. He on the other hand opened several bars, actually just glorified drug dens, and whorehouses for the rich. He made money at first, but somehow things are just not as they were, there are more people to bribe now and somebody else had the same idea as him three months ago and ended up dividing the client base. The net income just cannot cover the expenses of his lavish lifestyle.
Today just turned out to be the worst, a shipment of drugs that he only paid down payment for, got busted not long after it got turned over to his couriers. How the heck is he supposed to pay for the remaining balance without the goods to sell?
The answer is Meredith, she is bound to still have a stash of cash somewhere. What Mark would do is ask her for enough money to pay for the drugs, then he will sell all his bars to the competitor. His books only show the net income before bribes, it is bound to hook any buyer… they would know the truth much, much later. He would ask to be paid in cash. He could then take the money and disappear to some unknown tropical Asian island where he would change his face and his name, maybe get married again, heck, he could even get him a whole harem with that kind of money. He would enjoy his life there until the day he dies.
Mark paced around the room occasionally glimpsing his balding, overweight form from the huge mirror hanging on one wall, the image just made him more agitated every time he saw it. Mark’s thoughts were interrupted by Meredith bursting through the door.
“What the fuck do you want this time?” She snapped at her husband, “I got seven missed calls from you!”
“I just called you five times.”
“Whatever, I don’t keep count. Now what is it you want?”
“Just half a million.”
“What?! Are you out of your mind? What made you think I would give you that kind of money?”
“Please, I’ll pay you back in a month, maybe less.” Mark pleaded with his wife.
“Not gonna happen.” Meredith said and turned around and started walking away.
Mark got so enraged that he did not get what he wanted that he caught her arm and spun her around yelling. “You’re giving me the money or else!”
“Or else what?” Meredith yelled back and slapped her husband hard with her free hand.
“This!” Mark yelled as his left hand flew up and hit Meredith splitting her lip and loosening a tooth or two.
Meredith screamed as she staggered back and hit the wall. Feeling weakened by both the pain and the intense fear her knees slowly buckled and she slid to the floor.
Mark seeing the blood dripping from his wife’s lip suddenly had bloodlust take over his brain. The beast in him suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to draw more blood, to do more damage and he was angry enough not to question it but just give in. He lurched forward to attack Meredith again, but before he could reach her, a powerful force blew him back. Next thing he knew, he was staring at the scowling face of Magnus Craig.
Magnus Craig had intended to stay out of it. He just wanted to ‘haunt’ them like he did with his other offspring. They were all doing pretty well, except these two of course. Well, he never like this daughter from the get go, he hated her mother more for giving him two girls. He never wanted girls, they were trouble, or more accurately, he feared karma. He was always fooling around with girls and he did not want to feel what their daddies must have felt, but the old bitch gave him two daughters anyway and he got rid of her before she could give him more headaches. Growing up a brat didn’t help with the father-daughter relationship, marrying the idiot who had the talent of getting in trouble and of spending four or five times what he earned made Magnus hate his daughter even more. But hate or not, blood is blood and he won’t just stand or float there and just watch his daughter getting mauled in front of his eyes. He took action.
