Running an organisation which specialised in the manufacture and distribution of crystal meth was lucrative to say the least. Right now however, Hunter Helmsley wasn't thinking about the money that the venture made for him and his wife, Stephanie. Right now, he was trying to keep his fragile temper under control as a short, bald man in a badly tailored suit patted him down. As if he would actually show up at the office of his biggest and most hated rival with a gun inside his jacket. In this line of work, whether you hated someone or not, you had to play by the unwritten rules, which meant being prepared to have conversations with even the bitterest of your enemies while maintaining the illusion of civility. It was just how things were done.
Hunter straightened his dark blue jacket and watched as the fruitless search for weapons moved on to the blonde woman beside him. She didn't say anything. She rarely did. Her facial expressions usually did the talking for her, not that she had many of them.
"You can go through," the man announced, as if bestowing a great gift on Hunter and his right hand woman.
Without any acknowledgement, Hunter walked forwards several paces and pushed open the large wooden double doors which lead to one of the offices of the man he had come to meet. This particular office was part of the most plush and luxurious suite, on the top floor of the most expensive hotel in the city. A huge man with long black hair tied in a back in a ponytail stood up behind a mahogany desk as his two visitors entered. He wore a smile that didn't reach his eyes. Hunter would have preferred to throw the son of a bitch through one of the full length windows that made up the entire wall of the office than return the smile, but there was a game to be played. The glass was much too thick anyway. Even so, it was very tempting to try. For those who cared about such things, the view would have been considered spectacular.
"Hunter," the man greeted. "Drink?"
"Roman," Hunter acknowledged, managing to sound pleasant. "Whisky. No ice."
Roman stepped over to a table in the corner of the room, on which there were various alcoholic drinks, along with several glasses. He poured out a healthy shot of whisky into a shot glass and held it out towards Hunter. "And for you?" He asked Hunter's companion, who had closed the double doors behind them and taken up a position against the wall, watching. Her opposite number in Roman's organisation, Scott Steiner, sat in a chair in the far corner of the room, also watching. His face remained expressionless.
"Ronda doesn't drink, you know that," Hunter said, not completely hiding his impatience.
The statement was considered for a second by Roman. "Doesn't drink. Doesn't even talk from what I've seen. What exactly does she do?"
"Saw her beat a man to death with a golf club one time," Hunter said casually as he sipped his whisky. "I bet it was a bitch of a job to get that third tee cleaned up. Can we get on with this?"
Roman looked at Ronda for a second as if imagining the scene that Hunter had described before gesturing to the comfortable leather chair in front of his desk. He re-took his own seat behind it. "We can get on with it, for what point there is."
Taking the offered seat, Hunter looked his rival in the eye. Before that last comment, Hunter had already known that this meeting was going to be a waste of time. This younger generation had no idea how to do business, how to work out problems sensibly, rationally, without bloodshed. People like Roman thought that they could arrive in a city, start throwing money around building huge glass fronted office buildings and hotels wherever they liked. They also thought that they could start manufacturing and selling meth on someone else's turf. On that final point, Hunter had long since decided, Roman was wrong. No one fucked around on Helmsley turf. The very implication should have served as a first warning. Hunter was about to deliver the second. There would not be a third.
"You know why I'm here," Hunter said, as if talking about the weather.
"You're selling that suite at the golf course that you operate of and you want to move up market by renting one of mine? About time. No one does business on the golf course anymore."
Hunter made a point of looking around the office distastefully, even though he did actually like the look of the place, completely ignoring Roman's lame attempt to get a reaction. "I don't like the decor," he quipped.
"So why are you here?" Roman said, brushing off the insult.
"You're still selling that garbage you call product in my city," Hunter said, . "I thought I made my position clear on that?"
"You did," Roman said, sipping from his own drink as he leaned back in his chair, relaxed. "And I made mine clear also. We both sell a much sought after product. We should negoiate a dividing line. I sell in the northern half of the city, you sell in the south. Simple."
"There's no money in the south side," Hunter said, his voice growing ice cold. "You actually have the nerve to come to my city, start selling on my turf, and then try to dictate terms to me on where I can sell?"
Roman smirked at Hunter across the desk. "You'd rather I offered you nothing?"
Rather than explode, Hunter calmly downed his drink and set the shot glass on the desk. "I'm sorry we couldn't come to an agreement."
"Me too," Roman said, standing as Hunter did so simultaneously. "But thank you for stopping by. It's always a pleasure."
He offered his hand and Hunter shook it. It won't be a pleasure next time I stop by, asshole, Hunter thought as he gripped the hand tightly and stared into Roman's eyes. "We'll re-visit this soon," Hunter said.
"I wouldn't make a bet on that," Roman snorted.
"I would," Hunter assured him.
Something deep within Hunter's ice cold eyes unnerved Roman for a split second, but he brushed it off and gestured dismissively towards the door with one hand, disrespectfully signalling that the meeting was over.
A few minutes later, Hunter and Ronda walked out of the building and into the fading evening light. Hunter's black Bentley Flying Spur V8 sat ready and waiting right out front. Ronda opened the door for Hunter and climbed in behind him. The driver pulled away immediately, merging into traffic.
In the back of the car, Hunter rubbed a hand over his very short hair and let out a quiet but angry growl. "Someone's going to have to kill that son of a bitch," he mumbled to Ronda. "In fact, I think a message needs to be sent. I'm going to do it myself, and I'm going to do it tonight."
"It's about time," came the mumbled reply. It was about as close as Ronda ever got to sounding pleased about something.
Aside from the quiet purr of the engine, silence descended on the car for the rest of the journey back to Hunter and Stephanie's mansion. Hunter was using the peace and quiet to relax his mind, and to put together a plan. By the time the car pulled into the enormous, tree lined driveway half an hour later he knew exactly how he was going to go about killing Roman Reigns.