Chapter 2 The Enemy

The boardroom of De Luca International rested on the sixtieth-fourth floor and was enclosed within a glass wall cage that hovered over a city that appeared like a gigantic electronic circuit board. Within the room, the temperature was kept at the exact, chilly level of sixty-five degrees.

De Luca was not sitting at the head of the table. Instead, he stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, with his back to the twelve board members controlling the city's rhythm and beats. The silence he projected carried more weight than the humidity of the impending storm.

"The Veritas merger is on your desk, Luca," Marcus Thorne announced nervously. "It's the last missing part. If we accept it, we will take in their shipping routes, and Sterling's history becomes merely a reference."

Luca remained unmoving and gazed out into the cityscape while another flash of lighting illuminated the buildings. He was a man whose presence filled any space with an aura of a predator, with his finely tailored charcoal wool suit and impeccable posture.

"Arthur Sterling's history, as you call it," Luca said quietly after some time. The low, raspy melody of his voice forced others to stop whatever they were doing in order to hear what he had to say. "This means only one thing: the carcass of a fallen animal."

"One can still get something useful out of them," another board member whispered, his pallor increasing.

Luca turned towards him slowly, his eyes as dark and icy as a winter sea. He approached the table where the contracts lay in neat piles. With each step, the rhythmic clicking of his shoes against the black, obsidian floor could be heard.

"The representatives of the Veritas clan believe that they can use Arthur Sterling's passing to their advantage. It's not true."

He extended his hand in order to sign the papers but suddenly pushed all the documents off the table, letting them crash noisily on the floor.

"Luca!" Thorne exclaimed.

"The contract is nullified," Luca said calmly, with the same amount of coldness contained within his tone of voice. "I refuse to merge with weaklings. I tear them apart."

"But their infrastructure"

But we'll get them when they go into receivership, interrupted Luca, bending closer and filling the air with the smell of mint. With hands laid out flat, he pinned the room with a look that was both commanding and threatening. I want them desperate, I want them craving a hero who never shows up.

With the precision of a surgeon, he readjusted his tie, cool in his detachment, cutting through the racket with ease. But he didn't think about the way or profit, but about the girl in the rain with resolve in her backbone and promises in her eyes.

Veritas Family would fall apart, he muttered, more to himself than to the others trembling at his feet. And it would start with her.