Constantine got to his place of work and released a sigh.
Ever since his dismissal and subsequent departure from his mercenary crew, he had started working here. The main reason he had come to this town was because of a promise he had made to someone, a promise he intended to keep, so he worked here, as a security guard.
Nurain Fashion corporation was one of the fastest rising and leading names in the fashion industry. of Glover city. They dealt in luxury pieces of fashion and jewelry. Each and every dress was pricey and worth the extravagant price. Some top female politicians chose Nurain as the go to brand for anything shopping and fashion related.
The company had a value asset of over thirty billion dollars, and although that would seem like a very impressive and powerful status for any company to have achieved, in Glover city, it really wasn't much.
The bustling metropolis that was Glover city had a lot of companies with impressive repertoires.
Nurain was just one of those companies.
Con could already tell that he was going to be in trouble today, not major trouble but still, trouble all the same.
Nurain had two people who handled the daily running of the staff.
The first was human resource manager John Bastille, who handled the security and any other department not directly related to the creation and production of Nurain's main products.
The second was human resource manager Jane Firvion, a beautiful lady of French descent who managed the visual presentation and well being of each and every product at Nurain.
Both of them were waiting for him by the time he got to the front door and Constantine could tell that wasn't good.
Con knew that they were probably there to check morning attendance and unluckily for him he had come late.
All the other security guards were all present, postures straight and hands at their sides.
John looked annoyed, like he had been expecting this to happen and Con hadn't failed to make it happen. This wasn't the first time Constantine had come late to work. He had a great level of competence but his work ethic was lacking.
It was something that got on John's nerves a lot.
Con could tell he was in some deep trouble. He had to keep his job, this was the only way he could fulfill the promise he had made. John would surely shout at him, he knew that, but he also knew that John didn't take lightly to repeated lateness to work and that was what he had just repeated yet again.
John smiled mockingly.
"Welcome sir. Is there anything i can do for you today?"
Con didn't dare take the tone in which John had said those words lightly. The human resource manager had to be one of the most uptight person Constantine had met in recent years. Con wasn't in a position to tell him anything that he didn't want to hear.
The guards around them simply watched the show that was happening. They were all friendly with Con and they all knew that he was a good person to be around,but some of them were jealous and annoyed at the constant level of excellence Constantine found natural to portray.
For example, he had only been part of the team for four months but yet he had managed to outshine all of them and get the attention of one special person that wouldn't take her eyes off him no matter what.
Jane evaluated the seriousness of the situation at hand. She decided not to intervene for now.
"I could have you fired you know?. You're making lateness a habit and we don't tolerate that here. Guards have been fired for less and i don't get it. Is it that hard to come to work early?"
The look on John's face became deadlier and deadlier with each passing second. Con could tell that he was genuinely pissed.
"And need i remind you that this isn't the first time you are over an hour late to work! Y'know what? I'm not going to say more than this. You'll be receiving a sack letter by the end of the day."
Con felt a pit form in his stomach at those words but somebody suddenly spoke up.
"Um sir, I know i am in no position to speak, but Con is a very valuable asset to the security team. He's more than willing to help out with anything and he has a load of knowledge that most of us don't. Please sir, can he be let off, just this once?"
The guard who was speaking was the leader of Constantine's division. He had been timid and almost scared when he started working at Nurain but working with Con had helped him get rid of most of that fear.
Jane chose to speak up too.
"Being late to work repeatedly is bad, and it shows an errant disregard for the rules, but Constantine has proven his value time and time again in the short time he has been with us."
Her french accent made every word carry an elegance to it.
"He prevented that robbery a week ago when we were all at home asleep, and he has the mind of a master guard. He's proven that he's more than worthy to work with us."
Anyone listening could tell that Jane held an obvious admiration for Constantine. She was even slightly blushing as she spoke.
John had to agree with their words. The fury in his eyes had died down a bit and when he looked at Jane, he simply sighed.
"What do you all say i do to him then?"
Jane smiled softly at that and spoke.
"Might i suggest a fine?"
Con's eyes went soft at the way she spoke and stood up for him. She obviously had his best interest at heart and she had always been nice to him.
John only nodded his head and shot Con with a hard stare.
"This is your last chance young man."
He turned to walk away.
The smile on Constantine's face was bright and beaming as he nodded. Bright enough that Jane didn't know when she lost her footing and slipped as she turned around to follow John away too.
In an instant Con had moved, planting himself on the floor so the beautiful lady didn't hit it first.
And so it happened that when Jane Firvion approached the ever looming floor, she never made contact with it.
Instead she landed on the body of another, someone with a smile on his face that made blood rush to her cheeks.
Constantine's's voice was slightly husky as he softly whispered.
"Oops! The beauty has thrown herself on me."
Con watched as Jane flushed at his words and tried to keep a blush from spreading to her cheeks. He also watched her fail and chuckled as she blushed furiously.Jane didn't know if to count herself lucky or simply die from the level of embarrasment she was feeling at the moment.She was laying on the body of the man she had been harboring a crush on. And at work no less.Jane stood up as quickly as she could, getting off Constantine like he was a platter of hot coals and she would get burnt if she lay on him too much.Con only grinned slightly as she stood up.Jane was a good person, of course he wouldn't let her fall down when he knew he could do something to prevent it.A manager of Nurain falling down in front of mere guards didn't feel like something that was supposed to happen, and apart from that, Jane always dressed daringly.Her outfits usually had a pattern to them, the same pattern that almost every working lady seemed to use when they were dressing up for work, just that Ja
After all the guards had been assigned their duties, they disbanded from the main hall of the ground floor and went to attend to their various tasks.For Con that task was patrolling the perimeter of the Nurain building. It was one of his favorite things to do.Nurain's headquarters building was a fairly massive one. All of the company's new products would be displayed here first before they made their appearances at the company's smaller retail stores. Con always had a lot to look at whenever he was on patrol.Since this fashion company mostly focused on female wear and especially beautiful females, they were quite known now in Glover city. There were always a lot of patrons around and Constantine always enjoyed watching the beauties as they shopped and had a nice time making themselves beautiful.He was a shameless man, so he really didn't have any qualms with loving beautiful ladies so much, anyone who judged him for it could as well choke on their judgment.This life was very diff
Adeline had gone red in the face.Nurain was a company that had a more than thirty billion dollar total value asset. It was one of the leading names in fashion and one of the fastest rising companies in the metropolitan area that was Glover city.Nurain had a lot of potential, it would one day be one of the most known fashion brands in the world and it was just a matter of time before they went international.And yet here someone was publicly offering her twenty million dollars for her company. Twenty measly million dollars?Constantine wanted to know who this man was. He knew he had seen the face somewhere before, maybe on a poster or simply on the street one day. Con had photographic memory so if his mind was telling him he had seen this guy before, then he definitely had, he just had to think well and pinpoint where.Con closed his eyes and let his mind do the rest of the work. The memory came back to him in a second.He had seen this guy in a bar. His name was Jake Caswell, the
Everyone present knew who Jake Caswell was.Almost everyone in Glover city had heard of the Caswell family. They had a blood relation to the current mayor of the city and they were not a family to be taken lightly. They were seen as an elite family, with connections all over the globe and in all places.They didn't rule Glover city by any means, but they could do some things and no one would stop them.That was the reason why Adeline had felt a bit scared when Jake had told her she had no one backing her up before. That was true.She didn't have anyone backing her and she didn't have anyone looking out for her. She only had herself and her workers. Her brother was no more and neither was any other member of her family.Her brother had given her all their parents left for them and had gone off to join a mercenary group. The news of his death had been brought to her barely half a year ago and she was still trying to cope with that loss. This company and its employees had stuck with her
Jake and his men rushed their fallen comrade to the hospital. The small crowd was dispersed and Adeline was currently pacing the length of her office.That guard!Why did he have to do that?Of all the things for him to do he had to injure one of Jake's men so heavily.Constantine simply watched her as she paced back and forth. It seemed she had forgotten that he was even in the room, or that she had summoned him here almost immediately after Jake Caswell and his men left.Con wasn't complaining though.Adeline Firoan was a stunning woman to watch. She moved like liquid silk, exuding her femininity with each and every step she took and making him more and more entranced with every sway of her hips as she continued pacing.Adeline suddenly felt someone's hot gaze on her, like the rays of a scorching sun. She looked to see the guard staring at her boldly, without any shame or remorse at the sort of look he had in his eyes.What a shameless man.'"Hey didn't anyone tell you it's rude
Con didn't feel like himself for the rest of the day at work. Almost everyone noticed but they decided not to say anything to him about it. What he had done was brave and foolish at the same time, but it was also extremely cocky. Not at all the sort of thing that a security guard would do, especially when he was so low ranked. Con had proven his value though so everyone just stood back and let him sulk. They had all watched him break a man's jaw with a punch, and they had seen the people that had come to threaten their boss flee and rush their goon to the hospital. They had also seen the boss invite Constantine into her office so there was every possibility that he had gotten reprimanded for what he had done. That was probably why he was so gloomy. Con sighed and sat down under the tree he had been eating lunch earlier. He had a slight frown on his face and he looked deep in thought. What Adeline had said was true. He had just put everyone here at Nurain in danger. Jake Caswell
"Hello, am I on to Mr Jake Caswell?"Jake dropped the pic of Adeline he had been trying to jack off to and cleared his throat as he tapped on the button that would activate his end of the receiver.That bitch had put him in a bad mood."Yes, you're speaking with Jake, what do you want?"The annoyance in his voice was loud and audible, maybe even more so than his actual words.He still hadn't been able to get his mind off that piece of shit lowlife guard. He had the guts to hit one of his men!And break his jaw too.Now he was one guard short and he was all pent up.Whoever was calling better have a solid reason to be calling unless he would cuss them out and cut the call.Jake let his hands skirt over his open zipper. He was in his office, with the doors firmly locked and all his pending appointments canceled for the day.Jake heard the creak of a door opening on the other side of the line and he frowned.Had this prick just put him on hold while he was walking around? Fucking imbecil
Con placed a call on his phone as he walked down the street leisurely.The line rang for a while before the recipient picked up his call but Con wasn't annoyed. Xavier would be excited to see his call."Please tell me this isn't a dream boss?"The other man sounded like he had intense emotions rippling through him at the moment, like he was at the point of tears."Stop goofing off Xavier, I left but I didn't leave the face of the earth."Con heard Xavier choke on something that was either a laugh or a sob. Xavier was such a goof sometimes. Well all his men would naturally become goofs if he also placed a phone call to any of them, so Xavier wasn't acting that weird..Dadris and the rest of his inner circle would have dropped all they were doing and tracked him down the moment his call came through."Permission to track you down Commander?"Con scoffed, amused."Permission denied. Stay with your wife and kids, don't come looking for me."Xavier broke out into silent sobs again and Con
Xavier stared at the files in his hands and tried not to get too scared by them. There was information on them, more information than he would have felt comfortable ever knowing but he could see what Con was so scared of now. He might even be sure that he had managed to see the things Con had not. To begin with, this world was not what they thought it was.At least it was not all they thought it was. It was much more than they imagined and the fact that Con had somehow managed to stumble on this clearly meant the cosmos was seeking their help, or rather Con's help. Somehow somewhere there was someone or something pushing Con towards making these decisions and he could feel it now. He was sure if he told Jane and Aubrey that they would plan to eat him up alive. Both him and that thing he felt was guiding Con into making the decisions he was making. Their world was under threat, and he would be damned if he just sat back and watched it all crumble.Xavier reached for his phone and tap
Con watched the hackers he had hired work and he came to the conclusion that he had undoubtedly made a very huge mistake.There was little he could do in terms of making them more coperative and oddly he got the feeling that they wanted to make him frustrated. One of them full on refused to listen to his commands and Con felt the urge to give the man a sound slap at the back of his mind. He had to resist it because the others were already working and from what he could see, they were doing what he wanted them to do. That was enough for him, but what he truly wanted was their total cooperation.From the way they had abandoned their jobs to go chase after money, he knew that he couldn't use them for any of the jobs he would have wished to. Since they had the basic knowledge he would need in the people he wanted to recruit, it would have been better if they had behaved and not messed up that way. It was not like he was that desperate that he would hire them despite whatever they did, but
Jake looked out his window and tried to assess his surroundings. He could tell people were trying to hack into the cyber security of the the hotel. The alarms had gone off the moment the breach was noticed and he had spent the past one hour trying to calm himself down and not fly into a rage. The fact that whoever this was thought he could mess with him and get away with it felt funny to him.The only problem right now was the issue of intention. The hackers seemed to be aiming for the security controls to switch them off. That was what they had been trying to do in the first place and he felt they might have done it sucesfully if they hadn't diverted to start hacking away at money. If they were petty thieves then he would make them pay. He would make them pay badly for having him all worked up for nothing, but if they posed a greater problem than than that then he would have to solve that problem, probably with the aid of some thugs and torture. He just bought this hotel. It was on
Xavier watched as Lisa and Clay kept their eyes on him like he was performing some kind of magic trick just sitting down there and doing nothing. He could already tell that it would be a long time before they left him alone and honestly, now he was up to the challenge. There was no way he was going to let them keep him in when he already had something he wanted to do.Lisa could be dealt with. He could persuade her with treats and make her feel he should be let loose to do what he wanted because he was her father and even he would have to admit that he let her loose to do what she wanted too sometimes.Lisa would let him do what he wanted to do because he also let her do what she wanted to do at times. It was an agreement they had both reached and he was sure she would honor her part of their agreement. The one was really worried about was Clay. The fact that the younger male just stood there watching him gave Xavier a funny feeling in his stomach. He and Lisa should have done off t
Con could swear that he had thought there was a chance of Xavier calling him on the phone and offering his help.He had been expecting that for a day plus now but yet nothing had happened and he was getting skeptical. Was he wrong to expect that his comrade in arms would come to him at this moment? And was he sure that he could pull off this operation with Xavier?Con stared at the building in front of him and turned to look at the others in the car. Two of the maids had revealed themselves to be hackers specially trained by the Black family. It seemed his uncle had also believed that one day he would need the help of such people so he had gathered them, from all walks of life, which to him probably meant the prisons. The man was a cheapskate. He couldn't hire professsionals who would get his job done for him, so instead he went to the prisons and got men and women who had been arrested and convicted of various internet crimes .He had bailed them out, paid the men behind the desk eno
Lisa stared at her father and tried to assess the level of damage she had done.She had one hand over her mouth and the other helping her prop that arm up.'"When the heck did my father become ebony haired?""Language Lisa.Lisa rolled her eyes and walked over to go stand near Clay."We did this didn't we?"Clay couldn't help the chuckle that escaped his throat. Somehow he had imagined that Lisa would have more information than he would on what was happening to her father. She had asked him to promise that they would both take the fall for whatever happened and when this happened, he suspected she knew about it. No just knew about it but expected it. He would not have been surprised if Lisa expected this to happen, but it seems she had not. She was just as surprised as he was, or she was now a great actress and she was faking all this, but he could tell there was no talent for acting in Lisa so he was sure it was the first one.Lisa was shocked, the same way he had been and it was fu
"What exactly did Lisa put in to make your hair this color?"Xavier could see Jane was getting distracted already. Her eyes were gleaming as she fingered his lock of hair and he could already see the longing in her.Jane wanted to cut his hair and take it in to be studied. He could proudly say that he had taught Jane as much as he could in the art of detectiving in a science lab. He had taught her how to determine how long a piece of fabric would retain its color if dyed, what mixture of dyes to use and what colors seemed to have an affinity for each other. In part he was a fundamental aspect to the success of Jane's clothing brand and he had felt a bit disappointed when she had abandoned their lab meetings to focus on leading her company, but now he could see that the spark wasn't totally dead yet.She looked at his hair with a clinical eye, from a scientific point of view. Lisa was asleep and he had asked Clay to leave her so she could take the rest she needed. Lisa rarely slept
Clay left Lisa in the room and descended to the lab beneath her to check for himself how her father was doing. Maybe it was because he had been there when the man collapsed or maybe because he had been just as scared when it had all happened, but he had a deep feeling of worry for Mr Frost. There wasn't much for him to do concerning the cure Lisa had administered to her father. She seemed sure of it and it seemed the cure had worked the way she said it would.The ice core had been repaired. By a bunch of black petals. It still surprised him as to how that happened but as long as Lisa's father was out of the danger zone then he would be happy. They were in enough confusion as things stood already and more confusion was not something he wanted for any of them. What he wanted at the moment was to confirm that Lisa's father was okay, and if he was then maybe he could ask if they could run a brain scan on Lisa. She had lapsed off into thought again and it was making him feel a bit scared.
Lisa could feel her heart slam into her chest the moment she heard the question. Her face turned red and she looked away, not because she was ashamed but because she was embarrassed."How the hell can you pop that kind of question on me so casually? Do I look like I have someone on my mind?""You look like you've been hella distracted and when girls are at your age they tend to think of boys twenty four seven. Can you see the reason for my curiosity now?"Lisa rolled her eyes and noticed how close she and Clay were. Closeness between the both of them had never bothered her, Clay was like a brother to her and she was like a sister to him, but he had grown these past few months and she wouldn't say she had failed to notice the changes in herself too. They had both grown a lot and somehow this kind of closeness made her extra aware of that.Everything around them was changing. Not just the climate or global warming, but mostly a lot of the other things, the more important things, the peo