"Thank you for accepting me, Axton." John Sullivan stood in the doorway. "I'm sorry to come without an appointment."

I expected his visit anyway. "For you, I am Mr. Dark."

"Mr. Dark... Okay." John stepped uncertainly into the room. "I understand you are upset. But I made a mistake, Axton." He cleared his throat. "I meant Mr. Dark. I shouldn't have trusted people I don't know. Damned to be my greed. They canceled the deal due to problems with the material."

Really? What a surprise...

I walked to the counter and poured myself a drink. "So, what do you want from me?"

"Let's renew our work together. You would never make a compromise with the quality of your production."

"Hm..." I sipped without giving a response. Watching John sweating gave a great pleasure to my eyes.

"Listen, Mr. Dark. I have to deliver the material. My clients are not exactly patient people. I know you'll understand and forgive my mistake."

"Alright. Alright. Calm down, Sullivan. I understand. Everyone makes mistakes."

John breathed a sigh of relief while I opened the cabinet and took the contract out of it.

"Phew." The sound came loud as he wiped his forehead. "You are a decent person, Mr. Dark. I knew you wouldn't let emotions get in the way of the deal."

"Sure." I presented the contract, opened on the last page, along with a pen. "But a change occurred."

John stopped right before he placed his signature. "What do you mean?"

"The price jumped double high." I opened the first page and pointed to the paragraph.

"What? Even my percent can't cover the difference."

"I know. But you also have to know something about me, John. People, who screw me up, I screw them up twice. Now, sign or go—it's your choice."

The outcome was clear. He was trapped in a dead end. There was no time to look for another manufacturer, even less to wait for the time needed for pre-production arrangements. Well, he surely could cancel his clients' order, but I guessed he loved his head more than the money he just lost the chance to gain.

And although I started to get annoyed watching his trembling hand, I waited politely for him to put his sign next to mine on the page.

"Smart decision, John. It was a pleasure to do business with you."

Sullivan walked out of my house, still silent, with a head down. I sat on the chair and leaned back, looking at the glass in my hand. Yeah, deals like this one deserved to be appreciated with my special aged scotch.

That was an excellent start to my day.

People had to know they couldn't mess with me. John Sullivan and those who would come after him. I kept my word, and I hated it when someone did not. Now, the lesson was taught.

As I walked out of the room, Dahlia suddenly blocked my way. I'd forgotten she would come today.

"Good morning, sunshine."

"Don't 'sunshine' me, idiot. I met the girl. She is scared of both of you. What did you do? Will you ever start to behave?"

I walked past her, not paying attention to her words. Dahlia's melodramatics. She and Cade were a perfect match.

"Don't walk away, Ax!" She caught up with me. "Make an effort and talk to her. She is your guest."

"She is not my guest. She is..." I couldn't exactly come up with a term for what Ella Zanova really was.

"Please. Can you imagine what she is going through?"

"Everyone is going through something, sunshine."

"Don't give me that crap! You're going to talk to her."

There was no point in arguing with Dahlia; she was already on a mission to save the world.

I admired her passion and her pure soul, which remained uncorrupted over more than two decades.

We met when I was ten—four years older than her. She was a sister to my best then-friend. Actually, he stood as such till his very last breath. I was not sure if he would think the same for me if he'd made it alive, but God is a witness that I would save him if only I could.

We were three brothers then, and in an instant, only I left. One went dead, and one deserved to be dead instead. But life was not fair. I never doubted that.

Dahlia suffered most then—she lost pretty much everyone she cared about and was stuck only with me. Well, Cade fit right into the plot, and the two have been in love ever since then. She deserved someone exactly like him, or at least who he was before he came back from the war.

But that made him my right-hand man. We had known each other forever, and I've always considered him like my brother as well, but he was never involved in my world till the moment he realized that he belonged exactly there.

Dahlia shone over the years like sunshine in our dark world to keep the last drops of humanity we had left. At least, she believed that there was such a thing somewhere inside us.

"Okay. I'm gonna talk to her. Be calm and go to annoy your man."

She sent her typical air kiss and went on her way.

***

There were more tasks I should have dealt with during the day. The aluminum factory was not my only thing. In fact, it was the smallest business of mine. I've been working hard over the last few years to make everything legal. Arms production was one of my most significant personal achievements.

My father bequeathed me a lot. Everything I had, I had it from him. Everything I had learned, I had learned it from him. But since he was gone, I managed things my way. Well, there was always someone to challenge me, and I had to respond accordingly, like in the Sullivan case. But that was my nature, which was something I didn't try to change. One thing was to do business honestly; quite different was to get soft.

After Cade and I tested the new arms, the long day came to an end. When in the evening I finally parked in the garage, Ella was there. She didn't even hear me; she looked deeply immersed in her thoughts.

I went a few steps close—a silent sadness radiated from her. Was Dahlia right—was there still a humanity part in me? The feeling I felt when I saw her was strange. I haven't felt that way since... since actually never.

"What did he do to you?" I asked.

Ella turned her face and looked directly into my eyes. "What do you mean?" Right after that, she lowered her gaze.

"Did Grayson do something to you, or did you go to him with a premeditated plan to kill him?" Looking at her innocent expression, it was hard to think that she could make a plan to kill someone. "I can bet it was not the second guess."

"Grayson is a bad person, and he deserved what I did."

Ella was right. Grayson deserved that. He deserved to suffer, to be drowned in his blood without a drop of mercy till the last bit of his breath left his lungs. 

But she didn't seem to feel exactly my way. Tears glistened in her eyes.

"The world is full of bad people, love."

Once again, she looked at me. "Only bad people I know." Her words sounded experienced, suffered; they sounded insurmountable, being said with a quiet voice that seemed to want to be screamed.

"I told you not to be afraid of me."

"You are not any different from Grayson. I saw you. I saw what you and Cade did to that man in the basement."

By the end of her sentence, my blood started to boil, and everything turned black. Without trying to think, I pressed her against the wall and put my hand over her throat. "How dare you go there? I told you you are not allowed to go in the basement!"

But her shaking body under my hand made me realize how much she was really afraid. Eyes closed, squeezed, like in anticipating... for a hit?

Not obeying my rules was something absolutely forbidden that resulted in losing my temper, but for fuck sake, I knew how to deal with it. Only a few have dared to do that, and to their great regret, it was the last thing they did. But I have never ever been in a situation this to come from a woman. I was not sure how to handle this now, but what I wouldn't do was hurt her somehow.

That's why I never allowed a woman close to me. Women are for pleasure and only for that. No chance for dramas or any shits. Because, when shits happen, a fucking man I would hit, but fucking woman I could just not. Fucking Ella Zanova...

She opened her eyes timidly. They were still wet. She locked them with mine, but there was something different in her gaze. She was surprised—maybe she really expected things to get worse.

I stood still for a few more seconds, looking at her. Then I loosened my grip and slowly moved my hand away from her throat. "Get the hell out of here! Go back to your room. And don't you ever dare to do something I haven't allowed!"