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“Mr. Haywire...”
T
he name would spring in the air from one side to the other and bounce off the walls in his mind, some days; he would feel like he was merely a vessel being thrown around from one meeting room to another. He took a deep breath as he looked up. His eyes were barely open, and the name-calling had started; his hands had started to shake a little as he barely even opened his mouth to reply when an espresso shot was placed before him on the glass conference table.
His eyes met with Cindy, his assistant, a skinny white woman with blonde hair. She would often jump on his nerves, but he had a way of keeping her existence out of his conscience, forgetting she even existed at all. Before he had even thought it through, he heard it again, his name echoed between the plain white painted walls of the meeting room, and he finally gathered the energy to lift his head up as he spoke.
"Mr. Haywire, what do you think about the statistics on the Eastern Side? Dispatch has been growing, and labor is reducing due to the new efficient scheme of hiring we have taken on."
The man had a straight face; his suit was so tightly pressed to his body David wondered how the man was even breathing at all. He was completely expressionless to the point that David could have sworn he would mistake the man for a wall of cement after a drink or two.
David stood up rather abruptly, leaving the espresso cup on the table filled to the brim. He turned to the groups of people dressed the same sitting around the meeting table looking like Sims as he spoke after he cleared his throat, catching the attention of everyone in the room within seconds.
"The statistics do not matter in this case; I asked for a full report on the subject feedback. That's where we always go wrong. Take in what the public thinks and use it to your advantage."
Before anyone had the chance to say anything at all, David carefully closed the first button of his well-ironed suit. He offered a nod to the men in the meeting, and as he turned around, he could practically feel the eyes rolling. It was his thing; David never stayed for the full duration of a meeting. Instead, he would stay just long enough to point out the first flaw before he would leave them with something to fix and be well on his way.
He had merely made it out of the conference room when he stopped in his steps. From a distance, he began to hear heels clicking against the tiles of the building’s floor. He closed his eyes and exhaled; he knew exactly who it was. He hadn't even opened his eyes yet when he heard her approaching him, and even with the distance between them, she began to scream from the other side of the hall.
“Two o’clock...turn before the flash!”
David instantly turned to his right without wasting a single second; he jumped towards the other side of the hall. He exhaled deeply at the second he moved to the other side of the hall; he saw the camera flashes from the exit of the huge corporate building. He covered his eyes, and soon, the screams started. From the other side, reporters began to spew questions from their mouths one after the other, and he felt the overwhelming wave of anxiety rushing to his chest right away.
There was one person who was quick to take it away, the feeling that the world was about to swallow him whole at any given moment; all eyes would be on him. Slowly, David turned his back from the camera flashes in the distance, and his eyes instantly met with May’s; the girl's eyes were fixated on him.
Her hair was pulled into a ponytail as she looked up at him and immediately gestured towards the hallway on the other side. He nodded his head and began to follow her with the reporters screaming in the background; he picked up the pace. She was running ahead, and he was running behind her.
May was easily the only person he truly trusted within the whole empire that he had made. She was his childhood best friend, and she had practically been by his side from the start. She had seen him grow into the person he was. She would be one step ahead when it came to the paparazzi or any external power trying to bring him down. She ran towards the emergency exit at the end of the hall towards the right; her chest was heaving up and down as she spoke.
“Go, go, go!!”
He stopped in his steps and stared at the exist; he was out of breath too as he spoke.
“Where the hell did this exit come from?”
She gave him a look, the classic look that May would offer when she would judge him as she gestured towards the black Range Rover that was parked outside the building. The windows were tinted and the engine was running, waiting for him to jump in. he ran towards the car and May jumped in. As soon as they got in, the driver pressed upon the paddle and May turned towards him in the back seat. She was three years younger than him, and she would be bursting with energy at all times. She had dyed the ends of her rather jet-black hair a bright shade of pink as she spoke up in a rather serious tone.
"Jules and his people have been taking a lot, the word is spreading across the streets, and maybe it's time you deal with it?"
She was still not sure of the reply. David turned away from her and began to stare out of the window as he watched the city pass him by in the distance. He placed his head against the glass, and soon enough, the silence began to spread through the car. It was so sharp that David felt it pinching at him slowly, and he knew that if he didn't say anything soon, he would go crazy. His eyes remained fixated on the street and the people, the shops and the tiny food vendors that the car passed by. He opened his mouth, and the words drifted out slowly and almost silently yet just loud enough for May to hear.
"Don't stress about it; I'll take care of it."
He could see a slight glimpse of her face in the reflection of the window, and he knew that she was worried about him. Soon, the questions would begin pouring from her mouth, and as much as he loved her like a little sister, there were days when her inquiries drenched in worry would start to get to him; he knew he needed to get away from her to stop himself from saying something he shouldn't.
He took a deep breath. She was still staring at him, but he refused to give her the attention; instead, his eyes landed on a bar across the street; he knew instantly what he needed to do. The name of the bar was way too familiar for it to not be true; it was on the rather dirtier and sketchier side of Brooklyn; before the car moved towards Manhattan, David jumped forward and called out to the driver, telling him to stop the car.
The man's foot pressed upon the brake abruptly, and soon enough, the sounds of car horns at the back began to go off. David's eyes landed on May, and he saw the fear flashing across them for a mere moment, and she spoke up right away as she noticed his hand was resting on the door handle of the car.
Her voice was filled with concern when it reached him.
"David, where the hell are you going?"
He turned to stare back at her, but he knew that he didn't have much time, and so he yanked the door to the car open as the noises of the angry traffic erupted outside, getting louder by the second. As he stepped out into the city, he turned back to notice that May's eyes were still stuck to him, and so he sighed before he spoke up.
“I’m taking care of it.”
She didn't get the chance to ask him anything else as she watched him slowly moving away from the street towards the sidewalk. The car picked up the pace once again, and he disappeared into the distance.
On the other hand, David had just walked into a bar on the edge of Brooklyn; the lighting was rather dim, and the place seemed oddly peaceful. There was a wooden bar placed in the center of the room in which music was playing in the background as he looked around.
At first, his eyes landed on a bunch of men sitting together by the edge of the bar; they were grouped together with tattoos going up against their sleeves and along the sides of their necks. He squinted his eyes looking for a specific person, and just when he had started to think that there was a flaw in his source, he heard the sound of the bathroom door opening from the corner of the bar. He turned around instantly, and there he was, the man who had threatened his place in his empire. David didn't waste a single second; he charged towards the man with all the force inside of his body, and the man with rather stringy blond hair looked up; his eyes met with the rage inside of David's eyes, and he instantly knew he was in trouble.
The man didn't get the chance to gather himself or even attempt to run as David charged towards him. Almost out of habit, David's knuckles collided with the man's jaw, a scream erupted into the air, and that was when all eyes fell upon him in the bar.
The man's body hit the ground with a loud thud, but David wasn't really done yet. He climbed on top of the man, and before the other person could even comprehend what was going on, David raised his fist in the air once again; it came swinging down until it collided with his jaw, and another crack was heard.
The man wasn't in any mood to stop at all; he kept going. His knuckles had practically started to turn the crimson red, and his vision had started to blur. The man on the ground was begging for mercy, but David wasn't in the mood to give up. He was pulled out of his trance when the people in the bar began to scream at the top of their lungs; the men on the other side of the bar stood up one by one. David heard the footsteps approaching from the distance, and he knew what was coming.
"Hey, man, I think he's had enough...."
He heard the words from behind him, and he froze for a moment; the man was still lying on the ground with crimson red spilling from the cracks along his face. His bottom lip was split open, and he kept begging for it to stop.
David paused briefly and looked over his shoulder, and he came face-to-face with a man in a leather jacket. David took a deep breath; his chest was heaving up and down as he spoke in a calm manner.
“Do you have a problem?”
The man gave him a look as he replied right away.
"Come on, man, you're being a little extreme."
David raised his eyebrows at him; he slowly pulled himself to his feet, and from the reflection of the mirror behind him, he noticed what was about to happen. Another one of the men from the group had grabbed onto a wooden bar chair, and as he raised it above his head, David was quick to move out of the way. Before he knew it, the sound of the bar stool splitting into multiple pieces filled the air. He felt his body now slowly filling up with anger, and he turned to face the man who had thrown the barstool towards him and spoke up right away.
“You really shouldn’t have done that.”
The rest was a blur.
By the time he was done, sirens could be heard in the distance, the bar was a mess, glasses were smashed, and stools were split in two. David's face was covered inch by inch in bruises that had started to turn purple, and the skin on his knuckles had split open. David limped towards the owner of the bar who was standing in the corner shivering. The old man was about to beg for mercy when David placed his rather bruised knuckles onto the counter of the bar and spoke.
"I promise you my company will deal with the damage, and the place will be brand new by morning."
The man didn't respond; he seemed to be too afraid and traumatized by what he had seen. Just before David stepped out of the bar, his eyes landed on the man on the ground, and he knelt while flinching as he spoke.
“You better think twice before you spread anything about me ever again.”
As he limped out of the bar, it seemed like a casual day to him. Once again, going back into the public's eyes a completely different person.
