LANGUAGE Warning.
This chapter is short, but very important. Still not satisfied with it, but its close enough. If you don't like him as I've depicted him, you won't enjoy the rest of the story.
oh, and a MUST ANSWER QUESTION:
About what size do you all think HG's feet will be?
DON'T OWN, DON'T SUE.
Snatch
Warren Bering was not having a good day.
First his morning started off on the wrong foot. He had stubbed his toe on the side of the bedpost on his way to the bath, and then he gave himself a cut across his left cheek while shaving. By the time he made it downstairs for breakfast, he discovered his coffee was cold, and when he distinctly told his wife he wanted three sugars and some cream, she only put in one sugar and no cream. Instead she told him something about being heart healthy and offered him porridge, baby food for crying out loud, to eat for breakfast.
As he took his seat at the table, Warren told himself that tomorrow would be different. That he would make sure to push the bed back half an inch and would buy a new razor blade. That he would have his wife or assistant leave the bowl of sugar and cream out for self serving. And that most of all, he would restore order and control in his life.
Total control.
Once his plan was settled, Warren went on with his breakfast. He buttered his toast then sipped his cold coffee. He even sprinkled a handful of berries (picked fresh from the garden) on top of his meal. Just before digging in, he reached over to the left and for the first time that morning, he smiled.
On the corner of his bowl was his newspaper neatly folded and in its proper place.
Every morning for the past nearly forty years, Warren read the newspaper as he ate. It was always the New York Times and The Economist. Unlike some people, he read the entire paper, front to back, and then if time permitted, he would take out a pen and fill in the crossword. It may sound strange, but reading the paper and filling in the crossword was the only time Warren Bering felt at peace. With the pressure of running the Bering-Sons Corporation all three hundred sixty-five of days of the year- that five letter word was a rare commodity for the multi-billionaire. There were always too many business trips, too many board meets, and way too many kiss-up campaigns for that word to even exist. He just didn't have the time for peace.
After a quick note of the clock, 8:48 am, Warren spooned some of his cereal and roughly flipped the page. The smile on his lips faded just as quickly as it came.
There in bold Times New Roman point 36 font was an ugly reminder of the one thing in his life he couldn't control no matter what-
TWO DAYS COUNTING, MYKA BERING MISSING!
-His eldest daughter.
Forest green eyes widened as they traced over the front page. Immediately, Warrens bowels snaked with fury.
Ever since the day she was conceived, Warren knew she was going to be trouble. After months of treatments, test to be certain he would have a perfect heir, and one of the best geneticists that money could afford and yet still, she came out as just that- a girl.
It was an unspoken rule in the family, all of the firstborns, if there were to be more than one child, were boys. Always had, always should've been. Being first made you strong. More tough than any sissy boy lastborns, and stronger willed than middle children. And all he got was a girl.
Then there was school.
Like the Bering's predecessor's, all Bering's studied Business or Engineering. Always had, always should've been. Not his firstborn daughter. She went off to Harvard and spent his money not on an International Economics Degree as was planned- she came back with a double major in History and Philosophy.
What the hell did a billionaire need with a degree in Philosophy?
He could've wrung her neck with that Magna Cum Laude scarf they had the nerve to award her at the end of the day. Seriously, who fails at reading crusty old books anyway? That's all she did with that degree. Or at least, that's what Warren believed.
And then there was the icing on his cake, Paris.
She did get an invite to study Law there. Though it wasn't a Bering thing to do, Warren willingly admitted it was about time they had a lawyer in the family. That case, the Bering's would no longer have to rely on secondhand resources with their legal issues and such. With a lawyer, they could officially keep the company completely family owned and operated, totally Bering controlled.
Things were allegedly going great in Paris. They found out she was offered to seat in a high firm and she even got featured as a rising lawyer in the Law Review.
But then there was that guy.
Don't get him wrong, out of many of her boyfriends, Sam was actually not that bad. He didn't reek of ganja nor was he spewing Socrates every few seconds. He knew how to wear a suit and tie, and he also knew what cufflinks were. He even had a good palate for wine and fine dine despite being a Southern roots youngling. And most of all, he wasn't a sissy when it came to getting down and dirty with work. All those things normally made an impression on Warren, like most fathers he was the toughest critic when it came to their daughter's choice of mates. But….
Warren couldn't stand that son of a bitch!
Why did she have to fall in love with the son of his RIVAL Merchant?
Out of all the men in Paris, she would stumble across the one man who just so happened to be related to the southern oil merchant Evers Martino, aka BIG TEXAS.
Warren hated the Martino's. They were nouveau riche and they all thought they knew something about oil. The Bering family had been in the game for years, nearly a century, and to think these people, these so-called Martino's, thought they could up come the Bering Dynasty- Warren wanted to laugh.
Just when he was getting used to the idea of a Sam Martino being in the family, the idiot just had to go and die on them.
Warren didn't know what was worse, that idiot dying in a motorcycle crash or his idiot daughter getting so distraught that she turned bohemian and gave up on her career. Who does that?
It was one thing to get sad cause someone passed, it's a whole different spin to turn into the great American Whore and go gallivanting around, not combing your hair, and becoming a hippie cause your depressed. It was disgracing seeing her on the front covers of the tabloids, running her mouth off about changing Tax laws in favor of the less fortunate, showcasing her liberal lifestyle through live press reviews, and even having the nerve to be shacking up in Paris as an so-called, "Artist". It made him sick to his stomach.
Then just when he thought her antics were dying down, she had to go pull this garbage.
Both spoon and paper shook in Warrens hands as he read the headline for the 1000th time. When the acid growing in his mouth grew too much to bear, he tossed the paper sideways and it knocked the bowl of berries over. Red and blue scattered across the white tablecloth in the semblance of a poorly construed American flag. The billionaire huffed at the image.
Warren never thought it would've got to this point with his daughter. If now ever was the time, he knew without a doubt that if she ever was found he would definitely have a few choice words he wanted to give to that little ungrateful bitch. For all he knew, she probably decided she couldn't go on anymore and killed herself somewhere. Myka was always a smart girl. Maybe she figured if she faked a kidnapping, it would save her father the flack of them finding her dead body.
The older man snorted once again and aggressively shoveled the now cold porridge into his mouth. If he could've he would've shoved her back into the womb day one.
Myka was always his biggest mistake.
Warren had worked up to his fourth spoon full, when the dining room door popped opened. The unannounced visitor was his assistant holding the cordless house phone.
"Someone wants to speak to you, Sir," the assistant squeaked.
Warren stared at the young man for a long moment before wiping his mouth off on a napkin and briefly responding.
"Who is it?"
The younger man flinched at his cold tone. "They didn't say, Sir."
The senior Bering waved him over and roughly handed the phone. Before speaking into the receiver, Warren tilted his head and locked eyes with the young man. The look he gave him was withering.
"Remind me to fire you after I'm done," Warren said.
The assistant's Adam's apple bobbed and he curtly nodded his head. At that, Warren dismissively turned his back and pressed the phone against his ear. He didn't speak until he heard the sound of the assistant tripping on his way out.
"Bering speaking, what is it?"
Ten seconds of heavy silence followed. Thinking no one was there, Warren went to hang up but then there was a crackle on the other end. He pressed the device to his ear and the voice of the last person he ever expected to hear resounded through the ear piece.
"Six years sounds like such a very long time, but in fact it's no time at all. More or less, half a decade in fact..."
Warren's face blanched, his hand gripped onto the table as he reeled. He hadn't heard this voice in years. It was the sound of a land divided by sea, of an aristocracy older than even his own hand-me-down Dynasty. A tongue older than the America's itself.
It was English.
"I've been thinking about these years. How one can get so much accomplished in six years, so much created, so much destroyed and buried. And yet for certain individuals, these year's that have passed only seem to mark the anniversary of absolutely nothing..."
"Not a peep. Not a scream. Not even an explosion."
As if he expected someone to walk in Warren's eyes snapped to the door. He quickly crossed over to the window and peered through the blinds. There was nothing and nobody. He abruptly locked each of the latches and snapped the blinds shut. Once this task was complete, Warren hustled his way over to the dish cabinet and pulled out the middle draw. Secreted away inside of the draws false bottom was a dull silver revolver. Withdrawing the weapon, the billionaire felt a burst of courage. For the first time since picking up the phone, Warren Bering spoke.
"How did you get this number?" he said. His voice held the edge of a threat.
As if he never spoke a word, the voice on the other end continued its drawl.
"… I found myself wondering even more. If six years have passed, each and every year as infertile as the last, what if it's not that these individuals are lacking creativity, but what if,"
There was a pause here that caused the senior Bering to sharply intake a breath.
"What if the creation is simply being hidden?"
Warren Bering bit the inside of his mouth so hard he could taste the alkaline of his own blood. The billionaire fingers fumbled for ammo while at the same he focused on steadying his breathing. He could practically hear the smirk on the speakers lips as they continued uninterrupted.
"The only people who would know the answer to that, are the people who were there to witness the creations inception."
Pause.
"Where were you then Warren?"
Warren gulped, his hand holding the phone trembled but the one cradling the gun was taut. His eyes flickered over to the clock again. This time it was 9 o'clock precisely.
"What do you want?" Warren stiffly asked.
"Are you sure?"
"What do you mean by that?" Warren said.
"Warren, you and I both know how much you loathe sharing your toys."
Warren's finger gripped so tightly over the gun's trigger, had the safety not been on he would've shot himself in the foot. He released the weapon and instead placed his hand on the receiver. His voice dropped an octave as he harshly muttered into the phone.
"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, or what kind of sick game you think you're playing, you sure as hell aren't scaring me or my family,"
There was breathing.
"But I already did."
The line went dead.
Fingers shaking, Warren dialed another number. On the fourth ring, the line picked up and there was a voice of a friend groggy with sleep. Before Warren spoke, he thickly gulped. He wished he could just go back to eating his lousy cereal.
"Arthur, he knows."
/
..Dundundaaa….!
THIS IS something new for me, but I'm going to try UPDATING every Wednesday...Or at least every other Wednesday. Scout's honor ;)