A theory

A servant came inside the dining room pushing a trolley with a silver basin and a soap bar placed on a delicate matching soap rack and a fluffy white towel for Gustav to wash his hands. His hands were sticky with blood after throwing punches to his heart’s content at the man they brought in. Three other men came in to carefully place the dead body of the man into an open body bag for disposal and two other servants came in with cleaning supplies.

Aleck remained, waiting and watching his boss as he sanitizes his bloodied hand with warm water. They were all used to seeing the senior man have his way with a stubborn captive. Most especially a proven mole. The man worked for Gustav for more than a decade and had the guts to double cross him. Gustav handed him the gun he used and the man inserted it in his breast holster. “They are getting bolder, sir.”

Gustav raised his head, almost in a prayer mode and sighed. “Competition these days is tough, Conrad. How is your assignment doing?”

“Lizzie is easy. That woman can be plied with expensive handbags and romantic dates and she’d spill the information she knows about your enemy.”

“Hmm, good. Good.”

“How long do I have to pretend?” Aleck queried; he is not very fond of being in the limelight. “She’s beginning to ask for photos together and if she could post them in her social media platforms.”

“You don’t like the publicity,” Gustav pats his hand with the towel while stating the obvious. Aleck has always been very private and he’d prefer hanging out with his boss than being out and about and pretending to be a rich fellow with old money. “I am sorry that I have to be an inconvenience to you, Aleck.”

Aleck paled, he swallowed hard. That was not what he meant. For the man who gave him another shot in life, he’d do anything. He wasn’t complaining but he had to let the man know that at the age of modern technology, if the photos will not come from Lizzie herself, one of her peers would surely leak a photo and his cover would be blown. Before he could explain why he said what he said, Gustav cackled. Making him more uncomfortable. “I know you don’t mean it that way.” He winked at Aleck.

Only then did Aleck heaved a sigh of relief, “you do?”

His answer was a mere nod, oblivious by the cleaners scrubbing the floor off the red and sticky substance that stained his off-white marbled floor. Aleck offered for them to change room although he knew that one of the many quirks of the senior man aside from beating a traitor to death, just like what he did to the mole he brought to his presence was to linger on the same room and watch as the blood disappears.

This was something that he’d never understand but was too scared to ask. “Of course. Don’t worry. When Meredith is ready, you can lie low. Thank you for doing this for me, Aleck.”

“Sir? Permission to ask, if I may?”

“Go on,” Gustav sat and finished his platter of fruits like it was any normal day.

“Why me…and why her?”

The man fished a bite-sized green cantaloupe and inspected it before popping it into his mouth. “Why I chose you to do what I asked? And why I chose her even if she’s new?”

Aleck lowered his head; he was trained to obey and not to ask questions. But Gustav had long expressed that he could ask him anything as long as it had merit to his job. From where Aleck stands, knowing why he was handpicked was very obvious----Gustav trusted him.

But the woman? He doesn’t think that it was just that. “Y-yes.”

“I trust you. That’s all you have to know. I have a lot of men at my disposal but I won’t trust them with a task as important as yours.” He took another slice of fruit and inspected it once more, “I won’t deny that there’s something in her but I won’t tell you that.”

A knock interrupted whatever Aleck’s next query was. For he was really intrigued and Gustav’s answer only added to his already piqued mind. Gustav will not handpick a woman like her. He was also certain that her brother was lured into the gang. It occurred to him that Gustav was pissed when he learned that the men who took Nick and Dixon into the basement and had the kid beaten to death almost met the same fate.

His boss is ruthless. Gustav Pallino is not the type of man who’d hesitate to pull a trigger on a child if he had to. Why he was so nice to the Gomez siblings puzzled him.

“Come in,” Aleck said.

Victoria’s head pops and declares that the language coach is already in the garden and that a real estate broker is waiting for his turn to see Gustav in his office.

“Thank you, Victoria. Tell him I’d be there in five minutes. You know what to do.” Gustav dismissed the woman who was gone the instant he said his last words.

“Um, a real estate broker? Are you buying another property, sir?

The man washed down his food with water and wiped the corners of his mouth with the table napkin. He took his medications for the day and rested a while. Gustav is no longer young and he no longer had the spring on his feet the way he used to when he was younger but his mind was wiser and clever. This had always amused Aleck who looks at the man as his idol in life.

Gustav is two steps ahead of his enemies. That is why he is still in the business until now. So many wanna-be’s came to challenge him but failed. And only one was succeeding to get into his veins.

“I am.”

“A warehouse?”

“No, Aleck.”

“Oh.”

“It’s a bungalow house.”

Aleck assumed that it was for Gustav himself, but a bungalow? Not quiet his boss’s taste and it won’t fit his men. “A vacation house, sir?”

Gustav told him while they were treading the hallway that it’s a bungalow in the city of New York. Which added to Aleck’s confusion as to why he’d need a bungalow. To his surprise, the realtor presented a house that was located in the middle-class part of the city. “Aleck, what do you think would fit Meredith’s taste?”

“Excuse me?” Was Aleck’s reply. He thought he misheard him. “For Meredith, sir?”

“And his brother.”