The room was silent as the blonde sat on a stool at the kitchen island in the center of his pristine kitchen. The lights above the island were brightly lit while the rest of the room's lights were slightly dimmed, though not by much. The walls were a deep maroon red, the cabinets an extremely dark brown, and the counter-tops a gray, smooth marble. It was a windowless room with a modern air to it.

Screws, pieces of silver-colored metal, and assorted tools were spread out across the island. The blonde was hunched over, fiddling with what seemed to be a glove with pieces of the silver-colored metal attached to it. He wore a pair of magnifying goggles on his face as he screwed another piece to the finger-less, leather glove.

His phone rang, vibrating loudly against the marble of the island (mostly because it had no case). The blonde made a mental note that he should get a case for the phone as he set down his tools and the glove before pushing the goggles to the top of his head, his unruly, curly-ish hair falling over his forehead. Running a hand through his bangs, he reached across the island and grabbed the phone so that he could look at the caller ID and decide if he wanted to answer it.

It was a caller ID that he didn't recognize.

His brows pulled together slightly, if at all, as he swiped across the screen and held the phone to his ear.

"Who's this?" He asked as he stretched in the stool before standing to turn the dimmed lights of the kitchen up.

"It's, uh," the voice of a younger sounding boy crackled through the line as the blonde listened, venturing back to the isle he had been previously sat at after he had turned the rest of the lights of the kitchen to their regular setting.

"My name's Elliot, sir. I was on last night's capture assignment in the Lower East Side."

"That's nice for me to know," the blonde stated with a bored tone as he spun around on one of the stools of the island.

"I was wondering if it was in the report that one of our team members got caught." The blonde stopped spinning.

"No, that wasn't in the report." The blonde stated in a humorless voice.

"Oh..."

"Did you write the report?" The blonde questioned sternly over the phone.

"No!" The younger boy blurted out over the phone as soon as the question was asked. He couldn't have been more than eighteen years of age. The boy cleared his throat, regaining his composure. "No, sir, it was the second in command of our outing who wrote it I believe."

The blonde let out a hum. He at all wasn't happy to find this out. It had been such a quiet Monday for him, though it was a little too quiet since his 'secretary' (more just company so he didn't get bored) had not showed up. "Do you by chance know the name of the team member who got captured?"

"Vincent Torum... Toris maybe? I had seen him around the compound before but I had never talked to him."

"Vincent Torvus?" The blonde asked while standing to make his way to the coat closet to grab a coat and a few other assorted items.

"Yeah, that's him."

"Right, well thank you for the tip. I've got an idiot to demote," the blonde said quickly before ending the call. 'So that's why he didn't show up.' An exasperated sigh left his lips as he searched through his contacts for the number of the second-in-command who had every so delightfully decided to leave out the fact that they lost a team member.

He held the phone to his ear, ringing two times before a click sounded, alerting him that somebody had picked up.

"Who's there?" a gruff, surly voice asked from the other side of the line.

"Your boss." The call was silent for a breath.

"Somet'n wrong?" the gruff voice asked slowly.

"Have you seen Vincent, Sean?" His voice was heavy with a passive-aggressive tone.

The blonde heard an almost inaudible gulp across the line. "I'm not sure wh't your talkin' 'bout, Elijah."

"Really, because I just got a call from a kid named Elliot who was on last night's Lower East Side assignment with you, and he said that a team member by the name of Vincent Torvus was caught last night." The line was silent again.

"I woulda' put it in the report."

A short, humorless chuckle left Elijah's mouth, "You know what, I'm going to ask you an even simpler question to answer: Did everyone return to the compound after the assignment?"

"No, sir," was the only answer that Elijah received.

"See, that wasn't so hard," a smirk crept across Elijah's face as he began the next question. "Who didn't return to the compound?"

A grumble sounded into the blonde's ear, just quiet enough that he couldn't understand what the man had said.

Elijah cleared his throat. "What was that?"

The man on the other end answered with another incomprehensible grumble. "One more time, Sean. And please enunciate for God's sake."

"Vincent Torvus."

Elijah finally sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. How was it possible that this man could make such a simple task so draining.

"And why, pray tell, wasn't it in last night's report that someone was captured?"

"'Cause he was a whining pup 'bout how the rain 'as cold, sir," Sean spat the sentence out, venom lacing every word and a growl behind the word sir.

Elijah nodded, a short hum coming from his throat, "Oh, I'm really hoping you're not using that tone with me." He smiled, mostly because it was amusing to him that a creature could be so bothered by another that he just up and abandoned the other.

"An' what if I am?" Sean was testing how much dominant ground he could gain, something that alpha male Skinwalkers sometimes did, though Elijah thought that Sean knew better than to challenge him even slightly.

"Sean, you've been demoted to cleanup duty. You're eligible to try to make your way back up through the ranks, but just so you know," Elijah paused, "I'll make it a hell of a lot of work to make it back to the rank you were previously at."

"You, you can't do that," Sean stuttered out, "You're not the pack leader! All you do is give us food and make us work for you." Elijah could hear him growling through the phone.

"I run Manhattan, Sean, and I'd rather not have worthless rats at a level even close to mine. Also, I make sure hunters don't wipe out your whole pack. I'm the only thing that stands between them and you. I'm what keeps you and all the supernaturals of this city fed and safe. If you don't want to comply to what I have to say about you being demoted, I can personally escort you out of the city. Permanently." Elijah waited for an answer, and for the sake of Sean's life, he was hoping it was one of compliance.

"Yes, sir." With those two words, Sean hung up before either could say another word.

Elijah wordlessly put the phone into his front trouser pocket and shrugged on the jacket he had retrieved from the closet during the first phone call. He picked up the brown, leather dog collar and matching leash which had been retrieved from the closet at the same time as when he had gotten his coat. The leash and collar stuffed into his coat pocket, he turned the lights of the kitchen off and he was off to find an animal shelter in the Lower East Side.