A cool crisp breeze rustled through Leonard's hair as he leaned against a street lamp, its fluorescent light casting a faint light down the industrial street. He was early, although that was more by choice than accident, wanting to scope out the place before the meeting began.
Although his efforts turned up for naught, leaving him simply leaning against a street lamp and waiting for something to happen. He did cast a curious gaze around looking for Peter Watson, the private investigator he had hired, but to little success, something that he assumed should be a good thing.
“If I spotted him so easily then the Bloodhounds would have to, the fact that I can't bode well.” Although he could have assumed that the man didn’t show, the thought had never crossed his mind. He had learned to trust his gut more as of late, and his gut was telling him the man was reliable, if not a little money hungry right now.
That was also part of the reason Leonard paid the man so much, one hundred thousand credits was an exorbitant amount for a private investigator, if he wanted to, leonard could have paid as little as ten percent of that. It was more an investment for the future than anything else.
“Guess I should head inside now,” the light mist in the air had slowly condensed into a drizzle, and he didn’t particularly fancy being outside when it picked up further. He kicked off the lampost, catching his reflection in a small puddle that had begun to form, his bright blonde hair and unfamiliar new face staring back at him. “Still not used to seeing how different I look.”
An air car touched down in front of the warehouse as he crossed the street, almost taunting him as it landed just moments after he gave up waiting and watching for activity. He slowed his walk slightly, although not completely, not wanting to appear suspicious and waited to see who the car carried.
A man stood out, and Leonard could tell at a glance the man was a gangster. His chest was bare, only covered by a spiked leather jacket that's back was covered in a large patch conveying his affiliation. He gave Leonard a wide manic grin when he spotted him, approaching with two other plainly dressed men that exited the car before it lifted back off.
“So you're the fresh meat huh?” The man slapped his meaty paws down on Leonards shoulders. It took a great amount of will from Leonard to not push the man away, not just from the fake and over familiar way he grabbed him, but also the overwhelming stench of his breath.
“Jared Hagoth,” Leonard offered his hand as the man released him, letting him take a step back. The man grabbed it and squeezed overly hard, the grin reflected in his eyes showing that he wanted to assert himself as the dominantant party in their relationship. Not that Leonard would ordinarily care, but his first impressions of the man were bad, and he wasn’t about to just roll over at the blatant challenge.
He squeezed back, grip tightening around the man's hand like a vice. The man's eyes widened slightly, before he tried to return the favour but to little success. However strong he was in the civilian world, he was still just that, a civilian. Leonard had briefly wondered if he was an undercover agent from Condor or not, however he could tell now that the man was nothing more than a local thug that he doubted even truly knew the people he was dealing with.
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr…?”
Leonard kept his face expressionless as the hand he squeezed gave out a series of low pops, its bones clicking out of place. The man broke out into a cold sweat, however Leonard would give him some credit that he didn’t cry out, holding whatever pain he was experiencing deep within his chest.
“Salvador..” he said with bated breath, trying to keep his voice steady. “but my friends just call me Sal.”
“Sal then,” Leonard released his grip and Sal immediately pulled it back, his two bodyguards standing silently behind finally realising something was wrong. However there wasn’t anything they could do as Leonard plastered his best fake smile and gave Sal’s shoulder a pat. “So very nice to meet you.”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Yeah.. nice to meet ya..” Salvador rubbed his hand and looked at Leonard with apprehension.
“I’ll see you inside,” Leonard gave the man one last pat before making his way past, purposely walking through the middle of the trio and making his bodyguards step aside.
He made his way down the familiar well trodden dirt path down the side of the warehouse, its reinforced door already propped open as a more well dressed member of the gang stood at its side.
“Welcome sir, the manager wishes to meet with you in his office before the meeting begins.”
Leonard nodded to the doorman before making his way down the corridor and into John's office, the office exactly the same as how he had seen it last. The man himself was sat down on one of the two couches, lazily laid back before sitting back upright when he saw Leonard enter.
“Ah, Jared,” Leonand took a seat opposite, not missing the use of his other name. “It’s good that you're here, I thought it might be best to go over a couple things beforehand.”
“Like what?”
“Well first off these meetings are really more of a formality, anything important is decided on beforehand. It's more to make sure our various branches are on task, we mostly keep our organisation compartmentalised to make sure if any one section is exposed the others remain safe.”
“So it's just for the separate groups to keep track of each other?”
“Essentially yes. But the main event, and the reason you were invited is the promotion of one of our members and creation of a new cell.”
“Oh?” Leonard had been thinking why he was so easily accepted into the organisation, but if they had a use for him it would make sense. “What’s the new cell going to entail?”
“One of our.. Fellow organisations have begun expanding their reach into a certain family, and that has worried some of the people upstairs.”
“Are you sure about that?” Leonard asked with hidden alarm, he didn’t have to be a genius to know the ‘certain family’ in this situation was his own.
“I have it on good authority,” John nodded. “And that's why we’ve had to speed up getting eyes inside. We had a few prospects of lower level members that seemed promising, which is what our new cell would have focused on, until a certain someone showed up that is.”
“Me huh?” Leonard thought but didn’t say, keeping such thoughts to himself. “But who is this fellow organisation? The Rochesters? I thought they were working together but could it be that their relationship isn't the best?”
Leonard could very well believe that they could just be working together to combat Bastion itself, before turning their blades against one another once the dust had settled. However what he couldn’t understand is how the Rochesters thought they would be able to defend against such a kingdom by themselves.
“Perhaps they have an agreement, but agreements mean nothing if you lack the power to enforce them. Have they figured this out? Are they trying to distance themselves now?” Leonard shook such thoughts from his head, there was no point speculating on things he had no knowledge on. Maybe he would come across information to disprove or validate his thoughts at a later date, but for now he had more pressing issues.
“So this newly created cell will be focused on this certain family? I'm sure you know certain people would be very displeased if you moved to harm them in any way.”
“Of course,” John showed no reaction to Leonard's not so veiled threat. “We simply wish to know what our fellow organisation now knows, and figure out who exactly they have inside. It’s why we are forming a new cell to deal with this, relations between the two of our organisations would sour if it became known that we were spying on one another, even if we both know that we already are.”
“So this new cell is disposable? If they’re caught you’ll just cut them off and play dumb?”
“Couldn’t have put it better myself.” John nodded. “So what do you think? Will ‘certain people’ as you said be willing to work with us in this?”
“Within reason I'm sure.”
“Very good,” John stood from the couch. “Shall we get going then? Wouldn’t want to be late.”