by Elena Monroe
I wasn’t.
Love, happiness, a life outside killing things… they weren’t something I wanted, or needed.
After wasting an hour of my time lifting, I decided showering before was probably necessary. I was already the guy who refused to wear a suit or business casual clothes, like everyone else.
There was something about being the only guy in ripped jeans or fitted joggers in a sea of suits that made me snicker. I honestly didn’t even know why we had offices in the building. We didn’t do any business there. Well, maybe Vic did; he always seemed busy and pissed off at every turn of events.
Death wasn’t something we needed on a daily basis, making going into an office difficult and boring. It was a special kind of torture to sit at a desk for eight hours with nothing to do. I counted the minutes, surfed Instagram for as long as possible, made arrangements with the rotating circle of girls who would come over when I felt like it, and waited for the three others to argue about who was the most important.
I didn’t give a fuck.
War.
Chaos.
Famine.
Death.
The first thing we learned at The Servants of Patmos was how much we are all tied together. That didn’t stop the weekly Friday lunch we had together in the conference room from turning ugly.
We were all monsters. Did it matter what kind? Nope.
Out of the shower, my tattoos glistened under the moisture. My hair was flattened down by the weight of the water, and every drop that fell down my chest to the metal in my nipples almost sparkled. Wrapping the dark gray towel around my waist, I yanked the door open to rustling.
Maids didn’t come until Monday, and the guys knew better than to show up without asking me first.
I had to think for a moment before I realized what time it was. Of course, I didn’t call any girls over.
My mom had a bad habit of walking in without warning, but that only meant that she looked for me until she found me. I would have already heard her barge into my bathroom while I was in the shower.
Mommy issues.
No, this rustling sound was a stranger in my house without any permission, who apparently had access to my gate codes, door codes, and knew their way around enough to not recklessly make noise.
I felt the anxiety of my stalker paying attention as I made my way to my bedside table, where my matte black Walther Q5 gun rested.
The steel of my gun in my hand already had the stalker backing off.
Listening for the rustling, I dropped the towel and stepped into my fitted black shorts with rips destroying the front, knowing how awkward a slip of my towel could be in a gunfight. That’s a heavy piece of artillery with the same kind of steel matching my gun, but it wouldn’t kill you the same way.
With my gun up in the air, I scoped around corners before rounding them. All our training paid off.
If you have an intruder, The Servants of Patmos might be for you.
My walk-in closet was the source of all the noise, and I inched right up to the open door. Peering into the closet, I found a girl rummaging through my drawers with her back to me. Swiftly moving up to her and bridging the gap, I pushed the gun into the back of her shoulder, making demands: “Who are you, and how did you get in?”
Her hands flew up into the air, “It’s me! Abigail!”
Abigail?
“I don’t know any Abigails, sweetheart. What are you doing here? Who gave you my house codes?” Pressing the gun deeper into her soft skin, I choked on the perfume she was wearing.
At least it wasn’t Gucci’s Guilty, my mom’s signature scent.
“Vic’s assistant. We’ve met like a million times. He sent me to make sure you had an all-black suit for the Hunt coming up.”
Lowering my gun, but not flicking the safety on, I crossed one arm under my bicep, waiting for her to elaborate, as she slowly turned around, planted in front of my drawer full of socks and underwear.
“He gave me the codes and sent me to hang up your suit he got you. He made it very clear that anything with holes in it was a no go.” Her eyes shuffled over my body to the rips in my shorts. Judgment was burning into me.
Finally taking a harder look at her, all I was able to gather was that her hair was a natural kind of brown that fell past her boobs, big features depleted of fillers, and her body was hiding in a baggy turtleneck cream sweater that was tucked into the front of her plaid pants.
Who was this girl? How did I not burn her into my brain already?
“Nice turtleneck,” I mumbled, before stalking towards the bed. I patted my sheets for my phone that I had tossed on it.
Vic had been testing my nerves lately, in new and creative ways, compared to his old ones that I called “tough love”.
Normally he’d bitch and complain, then ignore me, then realize I was never going to do what he wanted. Now he had moved on to home invasion and had worked me up enough to want to cave his face in.
Between Vic and Mommy Dearest, I was full on the pushy ideals of how to fix me. Let’s just skip to the end, where I do something so horrible that they deem me unforgivable. I would prefer that.
Short of burning down Clave with everyone in it, I didn’t see that happening. I’ve killed every kind of walk of life; I use torture as a method to get what I want; and I’m pretty sure the anxiety is a side effect of rejecting feelings for this long. Yet, I was still redeemable to everyone in my life.
Remarkable. Utterly-fucking-remarkable.
“It’s cashmere, asshole.” Mousey and natural, but she wasn’t afraid to follow me into the rest of my bedroom.
Pressing Vic’s contact, I put the phone to my ear, waiting for him to pick up. I knew he was awake. It was still early, but not for Vic. He liked to wake up before the world. This was LA; the only people awake were the ones doing sunrise yoga in Echo Park.
“Almost shot your assistant. Didn’t think that one through, huh?” I didn’t even wait for him to say anything when it stopped ringing.
“Is she dead?”
Vic, short for Victory, had no attachment to anything that wasn’t helping him win.
Win what was the real question.
We had won countless wars before they started by burying the right people at the right time. None satisfied him.
He wanted to win against love, hate, fate, karma… life.
“She’s alive. Don’t give my house codes out again, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
Before I could hang up, the phone was no longer against my ear. I could hear his drawn out words, “Wait… She got caught. I have no use for people who can’t follow directions. You don’t have a receptionist—”
Cutting off his words, I clamped my eyes shut, raising the phone to my ear at the idea blooming. Another way for him and my mother to control me, fix me, smother me.
“No. Absolutely not. I don’t have a fucking receptionist for a reason.”
“You know what happens to people we let go, Grimm. You might as well give her the honor of shooting her in your closet then, and save us all the trouble of an accidental death later.” He hung up before I could protest again.
Pussy.
I don’t argue and debate. I left that up to the other guys, until it came down to the fun parts: fists, knives, guns… That where I shined in getting my way.
Twisting around, I looked for Abigail, but she suddenly wasn’t in my room anymore. Almost panicked, I searched the closet and looked over the railing of my very modern and cold house, tucked into the hills of Los Angeles.
Abigail was fleeing the scene, like a professional escape artist out my front door.
Fuck.
Depending on how serious Vic was, he could have put the hit on her right away. He was as ruthless as I was reckless.
Still shirtless and barefoot, I flew through the door to catch her still in my driveway. I don’t know why I cared or why I felt like I needed to save her. She was a stranger who invaded my personal space and just a receptionist for my best
friend, at a company where we were treated like the elite assholes we were.
Catching her arm, I spun her around, caging her against her car door, surveying the driveway and my front yard, like a fucking psycho.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Her face was tearing through all those mousy features to look unamused as much as someone can look.
Realizing there were no red dot sights anywhere, nothing even looked disrupted, except Abigail, who was actually cringing against me.
Her tits were pressed against my chest, and the chunky sweater she had on was building a wall between us.
“Nothing…” Backing off of her, I shook my head at myself.
Fucking hell.
“Next time, warn a girl before you act like a freak.” She yanked her door open, slipped in, and rolled the window down as she pulled out.
This girl, with all her dormant features, decided to cop an attitude… with Death.
Spinning around, with my arms crossed against my chest, I shouted her direction, “By the way, you’re fired! So, be in my office in 30 minutes for your new marching orders, toots!”
Waving as she pulled away, I smiled at myself, knowing I won that round, but she was gonna win the whole damn war if every time she was in a bad position my body jumped to protect her.
It might seem far-fetched to think her being fired would mean someone was ready to put a bullet through her head, but it wasn’t, in my world. When you belong to a secret society that’s pulling the strings of the world, that’s just a reality.
Loyalty isn’t expected; it’s required to live—right next to oxygen and water.
ABIGAIL
I have a theory that no one actually wants to live in LA.
We all grew up with this shiny idea that LA is the one city in the world that lets you blend in and stand out all at once.
Who doesn’t want to stand out? Be that one person in the crowd picked to be “special”?
LA is the single city, not afraid to weigh your worth and dismantle your credibility in the short few years of you arriving. You don’t leave, because that sliver of hope keeps telling you: You could still make it here.
I moved here after I let too many big fish in my small pond back home convince me I should move here to model full time. That was three years ago…
I’m barely working, ignoring the emails of the agency repping me with new audition dates and addresses of men who can help me climb to the top… if I climb on them first.
They were relentless in breaking the morals you arrived here with.
This town was corrupt with quid-pro-quo favors that have heavy implications, men not afraid of the Me Too movement, and everyone is oh so bad.
Even if their outside is damn near perfect.
After modeling didn’t pan out the way I wanted, I ended up applying to every receptionist, personal assistant, and fetcher job I could, until Clave International Holdings called me in for an interview.
I had been staying in a rundown motel that my agency fronted to pay until I got a job, living off cup-o-noodles and envious of the prostitutes living across from me. They had no morals, no credibility, and yet they were waving money around like it was the most frivolous thing in the world. Ten small steps between the single-level motel dividing them on their lawn chairs in the parking lot and me. They were breaking my ability to follow my own rules I gave myself.
On the plane ride here, I made myself some rules to follow that kept me… well, myself.
Read the rules before you break them.
Too many rules was a mistake too.
That’s how you ended up falling into a cult and drinking the Kool-Aid. If I took enough time to really read the rules, I was more likely to follow them. I’m pretty sure I'm the only one still stopping completely at stop signs.
Working for Clave was interesting, to say the least. I felt like a model most of the time, just sitting at the desk outside Vic’s office.
I had theories about everything, including my boss and the office dynamics. Vic was the second most demanding of the four guys who run the office. They were all assholes who thought the world was their playground. They weren’t the owners or the men who interviewed me, but that was the last time I saw those men.
All four of the men who interviewed me combed through my resume, my background, and my experience with a fine tooth comb. They knew things I wasn’t sure possible employers should know… Like how healthy I was or wasn’t. I’ve never had an employer ask me how much I work out or how much caffeine I consume. The paycheck without selling my model figure was the most alluring part of agreeing to start next week.
I had been with Clave for almost a year now, starting as just a girl answering calls, directing deliveries, and stocking the kitchen between making copies. After working my ass off and ignoring modeling, I landed a promotion: working Vic’s desk.
As it turned out, it was more of a curse than a blessing… He was the single reason for our turnover being in the shitter.
Pulling into the underground garage, I was running late already. Grimm gave me 30 minutes to be in his office, and the 405 at this time of morning was a specific kind of hell you couldn’t avoid.
Not that I was taking him seriously. I was the only receptionist Vic had humored this long. Probably because he could dish it out, but I could toss it back with a smile on my face.
He wasn’t that talented.
Grimm was the only one of the four who didn’t have a receptionist at all.
Most of the office girls, female dominated if we are being honest, came to the conclusion he must be gay. I didn’t get the same vibe, but no one could really be sure when we all avoided him like a plague.
The elevators opened right up to the front desk. My best friend, Justice, greeted me with a sly glimmer, like I must be late for a good reason, when really it was a pain in my ass to do extra work off the clock.
She took over my job when I took over Vic’s desk and became my roommate shortly after. It was one of those relationships you don’t see coming and a kind of platonic love you can’t avoid.
“Don’t even start with me. I had to run an errand for Vic…” My eyes flared wide, and I leaned against the desk as she slid me a green smoothie that she always picked up for us.
“Errand for Vic, huh? Does your contract include booty calls?”
She was hoping something was going on to explain all the extra work I would take on, but in reality, Vic wasn’t my type. He’s the obvious kind of pretty—the kind of pretty that you knew he rarely had to try for anything, probably slept fine at night, and his issues were more about what kind of asshole he would be today.
“He’s more your type. You’re just too pussy to talk to him.”
I couldn’t blame her; half the office decided avoiding them was better than getting licked by their crudeness.
“I’m not a pussy. I’m just violently aware that we are on two different planets.” I could see her expression swallow that pill.
There was a very thick line between us and them.
“I better get to my desk before Vic senses people having a good time.” We both snickered as I sipped my green smoothie to my desk outside his office.
There was a perky blonde who could have been mistaken for an actual model, one gracing the pages of magazines and managing her pre-success by holding down a humble job.
“Excuse me, are you lost?”
The girl looked up with a small smile. “I’m new. I work for Vic. Do you need to see him? Let me announce you.” She went to pick up the intercom button on her phone, when I ignored her offer, breezing into his office.
“Are you fucking serious with this?”
Grimm had said I was fired and to meet him in his office, but Vic couldn’t have gone along with that. We had been working well together for this long. It wasn’t my fault his friend is a loose cannon ready to blow off everyone’s head.
I couldn’t work for Grimm. We were oil and water.
I wasn’t even sur
e he was human with his consistent disregard and permanently annoyed expression, like sharing the earth with anyone but his four “brothers” was inconvenient.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Grimm’s office?” He didn’t even look up from his computer and typing.
Asshole.
“Did I do something wrong? I delivered the suit and hung it up, just like you asked. You never warned me he’s a fucking lunatic. I’m not taking the blame for this one.”
“No one is asking you to. You got caught. The whole point was to go in and get out… without being caught, Abigail.” His voice was steely, unbreakable, and cold.
“Seriously?” My arms crossed, and I knew the office was probably watching our exchange. Even though the corner offices were soundproof, the walls and door were glass.
“It’s fired or work at Grimm’s desk. Choice is yours.” Vic picked up the phone and finally made eye contact with me for the first time. His eyes were wide and mouth tight, like a silent dismissal.
I couldn’t give up my paycheck. I wasn’t modeling, and I had become accustomed to not eating cup-o-noodles if I didn’t have to anymore.
I proceeded out of his office to the opposite corner of the building… to Grimm’s corner of the world.
I had drawn theories about these four older men being their fathers and that the company was some kind of family expectation for these guys.
I had theories on everything, rules for everything, and a need for security in my life after this city chewed me up and hadn’t spit me out yet.
Grimm was the exception to almost everything.
His corner office wasn’t much different from the rest of the office: matte and gloss black everywhere, with splashes of gold and greenery for some color.
Our logo was Greek inspired, and it had a snake twisting its way through the middle. It made my theory-driven brain go into overdrive with how much meaning was being hidden in one symbol.
The receptionist’s desk in front of his office was empty, blank, and devoid of anything that could make this transition easier.
With a huff and an eye roll, I pushed his door open slightly to peer inside. I was on the way after his house, when he wasn’t even dressed; there was no way he had gotten there before me.
