That day had started as any other day for Nolan Ross.
He woke up beside his boyfriend at 6am. He took a shower, brushed his teeth, dressed for the day and sipped at a cup of coffee while checking on his stock market share as he waited for Marco to finish his own shower and get dressed so they could drive in to work together.
It was a Tuesday, which meant it was Marco's turn to drive them in his car, a smart silver Lexus. When it was Nolan's day to drive, they would take his black BMW. They were running a bit late, but what did that matter? Nolan was the CEO and Marco was his CFO, no one would give them any grief for being a little late for having stopped at a Starbucks on the way into the office.
It pays to be the boss, he mused as he looked out the window and took in the view from his high-rise apartment.
It was the year 2001 and things were going so very well. Nolan was fully coming into his own as a man. He had developed ideas upon ideas for new technologies and cyber applications, so many ideas that he'd had to establish his own company to contain and develop them. It had taken him years of determination and one small initial investment for NolCorp to get on its feet, and now it was fast becoming a known name in the budding cybertech industry.
And Nolan himself? Nolan Ross, the one who had dreamed as a child and studied as a teenager and struggled so damn hard as a young man?
For the first time in his life, Nolan Ross was happy.
The man had fought for this life and earned his happiness.
The money that his company was generating had bought him more than just mere things. Yes of course he enjoyed the flashy fast cars, for every man was still a boy at heart, and yes of course he was having fun showing off in fine clothes and dining out in five-star rated restaurants and being sought after by celebrities and journalists eager to hear his story.
Yes, the money and the fame that had come with his rising star was all very appealing to his vanity, but there was so much more that was shaping his life behind the scenes.
His money and his eccentric genius had bought him a measure of freedom. Where he had spent so much of his life hiding who he was behind library stacks and computer screens and thick Coke-bottle glasses, he now could live outside the shadow of his father and that small town in Vermont where he'd been so horribly stifled.
Here, now, after the new millennium and with so much rewarding hard work, Nolan Ross was free to flourish as the man he truly was. He was living a public life with his boyfriend and despite a measure of stigma, he was earning the respect of colleagues and rivals alike.
He and Marco were in love and building a real life together - this above everything was what had brought Nolan fully into himself as a man.
For the first time in the entire span of his life, Nolan Ross was loved and accepted, he was believed in and respected. He was gaining confidence and a strength he'd never known before.
Yes. I'm happy, he thought as he felt the small bulge in his breast pocket. Only one thing can make me happier.
He looked up and smiled as Marco came into the room and took up his briefcase and keys, ready to tackle another day at NolCorp.
"Are you ready?" Marco asked.
Nolan nodded and straightened his tie, at once nervous and excited for their day ahead.
Looking back on those days, at how sweet and relatively carefree a life he'd lead, Nolan sometimes wondered if what followed was somehow the cost for that happiness, if such happiness had had to be paid for by everything that came after.
To this day he still wasn't sure.
Nolan did miss those days, but he'd known down to his bones from that first day and the day that he'd kidnapped Amanda Clarke, that there would be no going back.