October 26, 2021

Syn

"Let's go," I order D. She jumps in her seat surprised by my presence and I roll my eyes as I stride past her. Before she started working here I told her that I'd treat her as I treated all my other employees, and she was fine with it. I suppose she didn't truly understand what that meant until she got here.

I walked past the empty desks in the large area and headed towards the elevator. I could hear the rushed clicking of her heels behind me as she tried to catch up, yet I didn't wait for her. I pressed the elevator button a couple of times before waiting impatiently. When D finally made her way to my side she let out a tired breath and I gave her a side-eye.

When she noticed my look, she gave me a tight-lipped smiled and pulled at her shirt to fan herself down. "Sorry," she said. "It's harder to run with boobs than you'd think."

"Nobody told you to run, Dimitri," I muttered. "You would have made it here if you were to walk. It's an elevator."

"Right." She let out a small laugh and I looked in her direction. I noticed her hands were empty as she clasped them together and I raised a brow. She gave me a questioning look before her eyes widened in remembrance and she scurried back to her desk.

Unfortunately for her, the elevator opened on her way to the desk and I stepped inside. I pressed the button to the first floor and leaned against the wall as she tried to hurry back. I let out a huff of laughter when the doors began closing, but my humor immediately fell when I saw her raise the middle finger at me through the small opening in the closing doors.

Wow. Firing her had become one of my dreams in the past couple of months. She was annoying, her work was subpar, and her attitude was inappropriate for an office environment. The only tether that kept her in her job was me being too busy to find another assistant, her having to maintain her image as Mia, and Hades's insistence that I give her a chance...She was on her hundredth chance by now, but after how loyal he's been to me, I suppose I could honor his wishes for a while longer.

The elevator dinged open and I stepped out to see D next to the elevator fanning herself with a binder. "Shoot," I said as I walked past her.

"You have a press conference in an hour, a meeting with the witches to discuss barrier security in the Underworld, a missed call from Drake Kincaid that you need to return; he says it's urgent. Also, Stella DeMarco has made a move on you on your latest social media post that you should respond to," she read quickly.

"I'm aware of the press conference as that is where we are going right now..." I muttered as I opened the front door. "Let the witches know I'll be there at four. Fuck Drake Kincaid. And who the hell is Stella DeMarco?"

"Okay so firstly, are you sure you want to ignore Mr. Kincaid? He's in charge of the vampire faction now and he's kind of known for being...dangerous?"

"I don't care," I replied as I rushed down the steps. "If he has an issue, he can take it up with me in person. Speaking of person, who is this Stella girl?"

"That was a really bad segue, Syn," she mumbled from behind me as I continued walking down the busy street. "You've seriously never heard of her?!"

"Nope."

"She's one of the most famous pornstars ever, dude!"

"I don't watch porn," I said dryly. I ignored the eyes of the people staring at me as we passed. As always, their thundering heartbeats were always a joy to listen to, but their faces were annoying.

"Ever?"

"Never have, never will."

"Dude, please tell me you're joking," she said.

"What is there to joke about? I have better things to do than watch people have sex."

"That's not all it is," she pressed. "It's an art!"

I abruptly stopped walking and turned around to face her and she almost bumped into my chest before stopping herself. "Do you feel that it's appropriate to be speaking to not only your boss but your king, about porn?"

"Well, I consider you as a friend as well. Especially after you saved my life and everything."

"Reconsider it."

"Damn."

I could detect the slight undertone of pain behind her voice, but I didn't care enough to talk about it. Besides the people I was already friends with, everyone else was held at arms length. It wasn't fair to them that they'd potentially befriend a person that didn't give a shit about them, and it wasn't fair to me that I'd have to be around them.

I turned away from her to cross the street to the cafe, and she continued to follow after me. I could hear her shuffling through the papers until we walked up to the door, and I peeked back at her. "What is it?" I held the door open for her to walk in and her eyes remained on the files.

"You'd benefit from at least going on a date with Stella," she muttered.

"Oh boy," I groaned in annoyance.

"Hear me out. You don't have a lot of human support, Syn. You'd gain a noticeable following from them if the two of you went public. Not to mention if the both of you date. I mean you're single so..."

"No."

"No what?"

"I don't care about support from the humans. I'm the king of the Underworld. If they don't like that, there are plenty of other realms they can visit."

"Fair enough, but don't you want to be liked? Everyone is so afraid of you."

"No, I don't want to be liked," I said. "Get me a black coffee."
I sat at a chair at a random table and D shot me an irritated look before going to the barista. I responded to emails as I waited and after a few minutes, D sat down across from me. I continued typing away on my phone as I focused into my zone. The world around me faded as I continued working, but like a thunderstorm, I was snapped out of my focus.

I looked directly ahead at D who was responsible for it and glared at her. "What is it?" I seethed.

"I was just unwrapping my muffin, bro."

"Keep it down."

"Okay," she whispered in a mock voice. I returned to responding to emails until she interrupted me once again. "Sorry, but shouldn't we be getting you ready for your press conference?"

"What is there to get ready?" I said and took a sip of the scalding bitter drink. "They're just asking questions."

"You're not good at answering questions, Syn."

"What do you mean?"

"Okay." She blew out a breath and looked up at the ceiling. "Take this, remember that one girl who asked you about the massacre in Jeradua when you were a child?"

"I remember," I said in a grave tone as memories of that specific night flooded my mind. It was my first time killing anyone, and I had good reason...I just never told anyone those exact reasons. Not even Xavier. That night in particular was the moment I was branded by the society around me as some monster. Which I was, but again...I had good reason.

"And instead of telling her 'no comment', you broke a fundamental rule of Hell contracts and told her...and I quote: "Your dead husband is sucking titties in Morocco'."

She raised a brow and waited for me to remember my actions and I laughed softly. It wasn't one of my best moments, but I was pissed. Her husband came to me after faking his death, and it felt like that was the best time to reveal the news. I was stuck in the tabloid and painted as the biggest asshole for weeks, but if I had to go back I'd say it all over again.

"As far as I'm concerned, she deserved it."

"Well because of you, she found and killed her husband a few weeks later."

"Sucks to suck." I shrugged. "Hell got another soul and that's all that matters."

"Still, it would be nice to avoid all the hate, wouldn't it?"

"Young Dimitri—"

"I'm hundreds of years older than you."

"Young Mia..."

"Wowwwwww!"

"The first thing to know when dealing with me...is that I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter to me what people think about me. I like to be feared and respected rather than loved and walked all over."

"Fine, fine...I get it," she said in defeat. "If we won't talk about that, we should at least talk about your affiliation with—"

Already knowing what she was going to say, I picked up the muffin and stuffed it into her mouth as I looked around. Her eyes widened as she glared at me and I held a finger against my lips. "Eat the muffin and shut up." She nodded slowly as her hand moved to the muffin and I dropped my hand slowly. We stayed in silence as she ate and I drank coffee. I began to notice the sad expression on her face and I sighed before sitting up in my seat. "Are you okay?"

"No," she answered lowly.

"What's wrong?"

"I got the wrong muffin and now I can't return it because you smushed it."

I sighed. "What flavor did you want?"

"Blueberry."

I got up from my seat and pulled out my card from my wallet. I set it in front of her and she looked at it in confusion. "Buy yourself a new muffin and finish the day at the office. I can go to the conference alone."

꧁꧂

Author's Note

And we're back hehe with regular every other day uploads expect tomorrow I will be posting the second part of this dumb. 10 at once seemed excessive to start w lol.
I hope y'all ready thooo😩🤞
Lmk your thoughts ✨