The Story of Blood and Roses

"Nah, it\'s nothing. You go ahead and keep the money, okay? Don\'t read too much into it. Those codes of yours are getting to your head. Not everything is as complicated as it seems." Seeming satisfied with my explanation, he huffed in resignation and lowering his head, scurried towards the room with the computers.

My cell phone vibrated in my back pocket and I reached in to pull it out.

"Yes?" I answered, knowing it was Anthony. The flashing words that signaled that a private number was calling gave him away.

"Come to my office, immediately." Click.

\'Okay, that was enlightening.\'

I had to have known that the polite, teasing conversations were going to last for so long. Glancing around the room, I could see that no one apart from Cienna was staring at me. She looked calmer, but the raw anger in her eyes hadn\'t died down as of then.

I ignored her and quietly walked into Anthony\'s room. I realized with joy that the lesser attention they gave me, the better it was. It just meant that they were accepting me into the group. Anthony was sitting behind his desk, his head buried in a huge piece of paper which I recognized as a map when I got closer.

"Anthony?" I asked as I neared.

"Come here, will you?" As usual, he didn\'t look at me as he spoke. "I have some news and I need you to look into the matter." I nodded, sure that he couldn\'t see the gesture but went nearer to him so that I could look at the map from over his shoulders. I could see him scribbling on the map with a red marker and drawing lines across the map with it.

"This is the map of New York." Okay, I could see that it was clearly stated in the right-hand top corner of the map. "I\'m trying to find out the location of the shipments."

"I thought that the shipments would be in Syracuse. Wasn\'t that the broader region that we should be trying to search in?"

"I had people working on the locations, but it turns out that they could find nothing related to Darcy near it. None of his associates have any property or storage facilities on rent in the region; nothing in the whole of the district of New York. It\'s strange because Darcy functions and trades with companies all over New York. His favorite place in the world is Wall Street."

"Have you tried searching for people who are associated with him, but are under the radar? A lot of people who trade with him would help him out so that they could have his favor," I tried to reason.

"It\'s a good thought, but I\'m fairly sure that no one would want to help out Darcy when they had me to worry about."

"Darcy might be lying about the ownership of the shipments."

"Mia, haven\'t you heard the saying, \'finders keepers, losers weepers?\' For all he cares, the shipments are his." I sighed in irritation.

"Does Darcy have any connections to the guards posted on the port?" He shook his head no. "Money talks louder than fear, you know. He might have fed them enough to keep them working and their mouths shut." He looked up at me, his eyes alight with intrigue.

"I think his name is enough to keep someone\'s mouth shut." I shook my head.

"A lot of people have not heard of Darcy or you, for that matter. They could very well not understand the weight of one name. Money, though, is important. You give anyone that and they start to service you at your beck and call."

"Good point well made, Mia." He rubbed his jaw with his hands.

"We could look into that matter, but I\'m hoping that is not the case. I\'ve been investing a pretty amount to those guards to make them do their tasks, smoothly." His jaw ticked. "I\'m working on the other possible locations. The best option would be to comb through these places. We need to know the capacities and volumes of these storage houses."

"Don\'t you usually have trackers placed with the shipment? Surely we can try to search for the tracker."

"We can, but I\'m sure that they must have found it out and crushed it by now."

"It\'s worth a try."

"We can call Sean in right now and let him get to work," he told me. It sounded like a question as he said it out loud. "I haven\'t spoken to the kid in a while."

"He\'s just won this thing. Give him a break."

"Sure." He shrugged and went back to plotting on the map.

"No commands, today? Are you alright, Boss?" It was meant to be a joke, but to be quite honest I had started to get a bit worried at his polite act.

"I\'m just giving my employees some space so that they can get over all that has been happening recently." His tone was low and angry. And then and there we were back to square one. "I highly value my employees, Mia. Don\'t think otherwise. They\'ve lost their support system—Scott, recently. I think they deserve a break."

"I was wondering when my brooding boss went." I raised a brow, probably inviting a fight.

"You should leave. Thank you for your suggestions. I\'ll let Sean know when he\'s done celebrating. I\'ll let you know after that. There is a lot of work that needs to be done in the near future. I don\'t want you lacking in that department just because you think that I have started to favor you. For all I know, you\'re exactly like Scott. I only have use for you until you serve your purpose. Choose your actions wisely because I won\'t hesitate to kick you out the moment I think that I don\'t need you anymore."

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