Hi everyone!

Thank you so much for you reviews and follows, it means a lot! I'm glad that so far people are enjoying this story! Todays chapter is a bit longer, exploring two of this stories characters in a bit more detail. I hope you enjoy! The next couple of chapters will be... Eventful.

As per usual, please leave reviews on what you think of the story and all rights go to Gaston Leroux etc. I don't own most of the characters... Just a few!

Enjoy :)

~oOo~

Howard Rooker owned an apartment in the Upper East Side of New York City. In fact, he owned several but this was his favourite sanctuary, a 3,250 square foot, two floored modern apartment overlooking a tangle of buildings. It was smart, sophisticated and clean in the sense that the maid cleaned it every Tuesday and Thursday. It was clean in the sense that the surfaces remained polished, the rugs hoovered, the bed sheets washed and changed. Yet every cent, nickel, dime and dollar that had been invested into this apartment had been covered in blood. From the murders Howard had committed in his younger years to the financial gain of owning the biggest drug cartel in New York, he was quite literally living in filth. Yet this filth was something that he had worked hard for, it was justified in his head that he deserved to live like a King and so, he did.

This was what he always thought about when he stood on one of his private terraces, taking in the commanding view of the city skyline. With an instant coffee in one hand and the other pocketed into his charcoal coloured dressing gown, Howard gazed at the city he called his. He wondered vaguely how many lives he had ruined or how many people in his radius were using drugs they bought off of his men. When he was younger, this was a thought that put a smile on his face and made his eyes alight. Now, he had grown bored of the idea and this worried him. Howard Rooker may have been filthy rich, but he was also going soft.

He tipped the dregs of his coffee over the balcony, disturbing a flock of bedraggled pigeons that had been roosting underneath and turned back into the open floor living room. It was swathe of grey, white and black, with hints of gold and slashes of iridescent copper that came in the form of the ceiling lights dangling above him. It was his favourite room in the whole apartment, one that he shared with no one but his troubling thoughts. Howard placed his mug on the white quartzite countertop in the kitchen and ran a hand through his shoulder length silver hair, wondering why his mind was playing up on him. He knew eventually that he'd have to pass his empire over to someone else, someone that he could trust with his life. With no sons or daughters to call his own, his only relative was his distant brother that lived in Arizona. A man who he hadn't spoken to in ten years. A wife was an anomaly to him, of course he had had lovers in the past but they were flings that meant nothing to him. So who the hell could he leave it all to? There was Sam, of course, but he couldn't pass his baby over to a man who acted cool yet was paranoid that he was being followed all the time. Sam thought he hid it well but Howard could read him like a well turned book. No, he was good for carrying out his dirty work but anything extra would be suicide for Howards hard earned money. A handful of men popped into his mind, Musaf or Darius perhaps, but they both still had a lot of work to do to prove their worth to him. Too much work in fact, especially since the debacle with Tyreese's men that had left four dead and Tyreese swearing vengeance on the Rooker cartel. Idiots. Howard rubbed his face roughly with his hand, digging into the corner of his eye so that he could remove the sleep that lingered there. It was when he pinched the bridge of nose that he suddenly remembered the man he had completely forgotten about, the man he was supposed to meeting today and Howard found himself laughing at his own stupidity.

Erik. Now there was a man that showed promise. Howard had never come across a man who was so sharp witted and naturally talented. He was ghostly, with that black mask of his that hid all emotion and made him impossible to read and yet that was what he liked the most about him. You never knew when he was about to strike. He was deadly. Indeed, this had already be proven to Howard and backed up by the extensive record of jobs Erik had carried out in London at the mere age of nineteen. Ah, but there was the crux in the matter. Erik was so young, still a little immature and sure headed that arrogance came to play, arrogance that could be suicide for such a natural. Yes, Erik was a possibility but Howard needed to work on his work ethic and besides, he didn't trust him completely yet for there was something dark about the boy that he just couldn't put his finger on. A test today, perhaps, would prove to Howard if this was the man to pass everything down to. Howard conjured up a plan as he changed for the day ahead and it was only when the intercom trilled that he was drawn from his thoughts. With a disgruntled sigh, he paced down the stairs as he knotted his navy blue tie and stabbed the 'accept' button on the machine.

"Yes?" He barked into the intercom. It was the one piece of technology he hated more than anything else, it was such an ugly thing that marred his beautifully decorated home.

"Sorry Sir, but a Mr and Miss Day are here to see you." Said the crackling voice of the concierge Carol Schmidt. Howard smiled into the intercom.

"Tell them to wait in the lobby, I'll be ten minutes. Thank you Carol." He turned the intercom off before she had a chance to reply. With a smile playing over his thin lips, Howard reached for his phone and scrolled through his contacts until he came across Sam's name. The phone dialled four times before it connected and Howard held the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he pulled on his black Erskine gloves and slipped his feet into his leather brogues.

"Yes Sir?" Came Sam's voice from the phone.

"Sam, drop anything you were supposed to do today and hand it over to Musaf. There is something that I need you to do."

~oOo~

Erik awoke at 7:30 in the morning with a cramp in his left hand. That was his own fault for writing music into the early hours of the morning but it was not the cramp that had stirred him from his heavy sleep, instead it was the harsh vibrating of his phone that sat adjacent to his head on the bedside table. On and on it went, until he found himself reaching for it in a daze and placed it against his ear.

"Hello?" He mumbled, but grew confused when no one answered the other side. He blinked heavily, holding the phone out at a distance and realised that no one was calling him. It was his alarm demanding to be switched off, telling him that he must get up for the day. He lobbed it across the room. "Piss off." He murmured sleepily, feeling his eyelids grow heavy again. When the phone did not silence itself, he let out a loud groan and rolled out of his bed, kicked the phone even further across the concrete floor and padded into the small washroom, slamming the door shut behind him. He did not bother with the lock and was confused why there even was a lock in the first place when this little cellar was only meant for one person.

Erik ran the faucet until the water was icy cold and splashed his face gingerly, cringing at the sting he felt before pausing. The contact had released a sudden tingling in his marred cheek, so slowly, he raised his head and chanced a look in the small cabinet mirror that stood before him. It had been a while since he had looked at his face and it all it did was bring back a tumult of horrid memories, ones that he had kept locked away in his prison like brain. The scarring had affected the right side of his face the most, curling up into his hairline and round his eyebrow, rippling across his cheek and had flattened part of his nostril down. It snaked down his chin, narrowly avoiding his lips, channelled its way down his neck until it stopped at the ridge of his collarbone. Less extensive scarring still carried on down his arm and below his ribcage, but the peppering of small scars on his forearms had been of his own doing.

Though he wanted to tear himself away from the mirror, he found himself transfixed by his own reflection, as if it was something he had never seen before. Without realising, his breath got shallower, quicker and the lights seemed to dim around him though that was impossible. His long fingers curled around the basin squeezing the ceramic tight that his knuckles blemished white against his already pale skin and everything around him seemed compressed and heavy. It was as if he was bound to the sink, glued to the spot and he all to clearly felt the weight of the solid earth above him. The anxiety that had be niggling away at his brain suddenly pierced through his mental barrier and sweat prickled on his brow as he looked up at the ceiling. Everything reminded him to much of the cellar in his childhood, of the darkness and cold, the suffocation he felt when his step father locked him in a compartment no bigger than a coal shed when Erik misbehaved. With his throat constricting, he reeled on the spot, forcing his knees to lock in place so that they didn't buckle beneath him.

"What the hell, Erik…" He breathed to himself, focusing on bringing his heart rate down. He felt it, loud and sure, thrumming against his chest. He'd forgotten that he even had one, was surprised that it was still beating. An episode like this hadn't happened in a while and he cursed, shutting his eyes tighter as old voices he thought had been forgotten came back to him and faces he had tried to erase soon swam back into vision.

"No. Go away." He spat to his step fathers emotionless face.

"You will never be able to escape me, Erik. You do know that, right?" His step father's voice whispered through him.

"Go. Away." But it didn't. The face remained with its horrible, detached voice.

"Look at you. You're so ugly Erik. How could your mother possibly love you now? I am the only one she loves." Erik found himself looking in the mirror at his reflection again, and brushed a finger against the scarring, grimacing at is texture and grew hot with rage.

"You ruined my life!" He screamed. The voice merely laughed. Faster and faster his heart beat went, his breath erratic, malicious taunts racing through his head and before he could even think, he was pulling back his arm and thrusting his fist into the mirror, shattering it instantly. Slices of glass rained down on to the floor, the voices stopped and the world had stopped caving in around him. For a while, Erik remained in the same position with his fist oozing thick, crimson blood that marred the delicate white of the basin. With a controlled sigh, he slowly regained his cold, calculating mind and pushed away his anxieties, meticulously locking them away one by one.

"Bastard." He spat, washing his bloody hand under the tap before wrapping it in a beige coloured towel that had been hanging crisply on the rail beside him. "Absolute bloody bastard." After toeing the pieces of glass against the wall, Erik stormed out of the bathroom and located the bandages. Once he had finally bandaged his hand properly, after three attempts and one savage smash of the first aid kit against the countertop, Erik drew in a deeply frustrated sigh. His body was still prickling with sweat and though his breath had regained some steadiness he still felt incredibly on edge. It did not take him long to get changed, probably with the pressing knowledge that he'd be late for his meeting if he didn't leave soon. With a final flourish, Erik zipped up his black parka jacket, tucked his scarf into his coat and swiped up his phone that he found in the middle of the living room floor. He made sure his mask was secure and with one last distasteful glance around the room, he got in the lift and made his way up to the surface.

The fresh air that rushed to meet him was perhaps the best feeling he had all week, even if it was a mixture of grime and city fumes. All he knew was that he was glad to be out of that hell hole and soon he was setting off for Central Park with his long, spidery gait. He'd be late but not by much… He just only hoped that Howie had an easy job for him, no murders or jobs on the sly. Erik knew without a doubt that it would not take much for his anxiety to be triggered again today and that was something that he did not want Howie to see. In his jumped up state, he stormed across the Brooklyn Bridge, the wind ruffling through his hair. Perhaps if he had been calmer that day, he would've noticed a few different things.

Like, for example, that his was not the only shadow that had decided to follow him.