Doing research for this chapter probably made my ISP put me on a watchlist somewhere.

Oh, the things I do for my readers.

It was quite eerie how human affection worked.

Attraction was easy. Beauty was in the eyes of the beholder. Things instantly got more complex once you established a deeper connection with someone. And when the affection was returned, it was like a never-ending drug high.

Geese still needed to get adjusted to the presence of Mai and the power she, unintentionally, held over him. Romantic love for a person was a different, rather difficult thing to process. It was a time for caution rather. So now when he had her, someone, he should do what he could to not repeat the same mistakes as before.

And yet, Geese stood with a heavy sense of regret after sending Mai to the claws of Wolfgang.

His brother was just a snobbish prick, not an outright malicious asshole. Even snobs had a code of honor – hopefully. Geese however would be lying if he didn't acknowledge the worry that tended to keep him up at night. He trusted Mai enough to know she'd do her best and not jump into Wolfgang's bed or something like that, but it was nevertheless bothersome that she had been requested of all people.

The biggest missing piece to this mystery was exactly why. And how as well. How did Wolfgang know about Mai, by name even? Geese knew that Wolfgang employed several shell companies to embezzle his criminal activity but none of them had been contacting him since the gang wars started.

The estate felt so quiet without Mai and she had only been staying the night once. Naturally, Geese hoped she'd stay here forever when she returned. He'd have to make it up to her somehow. Maybe book a vacation somewhere and spoil her absolutely rotten. Maybe he could buy her a gift or two as a surprise when she returned.

This relationship business, he had done something akin to it time and time again, primarily in his youth. He didn't love those women; it was a purely transactional affair meant to benefit him in some way. He'd pretend to care about them and they'd give him power or influence. When he met Marie, it was a different story. He married her after a circus act of proving to the Heinlein family that he was worth something.

And yet, the marriage was probably only approved because no one else wanted her. A shame as Marie proved to be a good woman. Geese would concur that they had loved each other and that their marriage had been a happy one. Maybe. Marie knew of the man that he was and the dirty deeds he did to obtain power, yet she accepted it.

She never offered advice or tried to talk him out of it. She chose to remain close to him, be someone to turn to when he was at his weakest. Even as her illness progressed, she did what she could to make him happy. When he neglected her, she only had kind words to say in the letters they exchanged.

Years later, Geese suspected that Marie had been rejected by every other suitor because of her frail, sickly constitution. He found it quickly that she caught every common illness under the sun rather easily. The tower was still in its infancy back then, and so he decided to put her elsewhere for her own safety and that of their unborn child, keeping his distance out of fear.

It was tragicomic, wasn't it? Geese could never quite find it within himself to forgive his own father for abandoning him and his mother. Yet history had chosen to repeat itself and the irony didn't occur to Geese until after Marie's passing. The one difference between Geese and Rudolph was the reasoning behind their neglect of the women in and children their lives.

Maria was a conjugal visit.

Marie was kept out of harm.

Mai was….well Mai was still in the testing period. Geese would not repeat the same mistakes, he concluded as he finished shaving. He had been unbelievably lucky with Mai entering his life and staying. Even luckier that she agreed to meet with Wolfgang. It befell Geese that he would have to do whatever it took to keep her happy in life in exchange for her goodwill.

To look at the warmth and joy in her eyes was a treasure he'd like to keep forever and always. On the off chance that Mai wanted children of her own, Geese would have to adjust to that. Although there was a part of him that was somewhat disturbed by that idea. He had made that mistake once before and God knew he didn't need any more reminders of his own fallacies or memories of Rudolph. Oh well, topics like those existed to be discussed between two grown adults after all.

Geese left the washroom after that, heading directly for the wardrobe to get dressed for the day. After all, Mai had booked all those meetings for him, so he was occupied for most of today. There was an hour until the first meeting and so Geese had Hein bring him breakfast in the office while he mulled over emails sent to him over the weekend.

Most of it was standard jargon that warranted a soulless corporate response or developments on the meetings in Canada that warranted something more nuanced.

Just when he thought he was done, a new email entered his inbox. From the very casually worded header, Geese was hardly surprised to see the name "Cheng Sinzan" as the sender. It had been some time since they had talked, mostly because both of them had been busy with literally everything else.

Catching up or even discussing business opportunities ranked extremely low on Geese's list of priorities, however. He figured Cheng didn't exactly miss him either, so it struck him as a little odd that the blubbery buffoon had even made contact. Upon reading the email, Geese almost wished he hadn't.

"Hi, Geese! Long time, no see! :-D. How's it going? Thought I'd say hi. Over here, business is booming. Gives me a bunch of capital. OwO. You want to meet up and catch up? Maybe do business together? We, rich people, have to stick together after all, right? ;-). You should come to Taipei. There's this amazing ramen place with stellar reviews. I should know because I own it! :-)"

The overtly friendly, annoyingly positive writing, filled with smileys after every other sentence, was on par for Cheng and Geese struggled to find a proper response that didn't dip into bitterness. Cheng might be four years older than Geese, but his chirpy optimism was akin to that of a child. Somehow, it made the old man Tung prefer Cheng second to Jeff…and over Geese, who still felt a ping of bitterness at the thought of being cast away. If anything, Geese did still have one of the Sacred Scrolls. Ugh, maybe Cheng was trying to butter him up so he could get it for himself.

The phone to the office began to chime, causing Geese to close the laptop lid down, forgoing actually writing a response to that blasted email as he answered the call.

"Sir, the director of Blackrock Inc. has arrived," The receptionist said, and Geese let out a quiet breath of relief before he answered. "Send him to the meeting room."

By the end of the day, Geese found himself free to spend his time however he wished. It had been a rather long and uneventful day, filled with meetings and scant details about the coalition. Around noon, Ripper had informed Geese of some developments happening in regard to the coalition. "Good and bad news," he had said, and Geese subsequently spent the afternoon in anticipation. It was only in the evening that he found himself finally able to breathe, clearing down the meeting room.

Even from where he was, he could hear the endless congestion of traffic and when he looked out of the window, he saw the millions of headlights move at a snail's pace. Geese was more than happy with living where he worked since rush hour was his personal nightmare. As the congestion began to die down somewhat, he left the meeting room and entered the elevator, and traveled to the underground parking lot where Ripper and Hopper stood ready, opening the door for him and driving off.

Through the tinted windows, the sky was as black as tar although the moon occasionally peaked through smokey, dark clouds. In order to avoid the last residue of rush hour, the car drove through various shortcuts and side roads, until the shape of the abandoned train station could be spotted. Already several foot soldiers and cars were present.

In the meantime, Geese sent a message to Mai, asking for any updates on her well-being mostly. It had been one of many texts left unanswered actually. She had arrived at the Stroheim castle the day before yesterday, occasionally sending quips about her new surroundings until she just stopped. She didn't respond this time either and Geese sat with a strong sense of discomfort.

When he was done here, he'd have to call her. Again.

For now, he put aside the fact that he had a heart and exited his vehicle, heading for the train station with Ripper and Hopper taking front and rear guard respectively. Just for safety's sake, Geese also happened to carry a couple of firearms with him. Ripper pushed the door open, and a metallic, wretched stench oozed out of the entrance.

The strong smell of death.

The scent was warranted as the indoor lobby looked like a scene from a horror film. Several men and women, around four of them, were laying splayed on the floor. Geese recognized them for they were some of his lower-ranked goons. Their heads had been decapitated and shoved into their sliced-open stomachs with eyeballs, lips, and noses missing. Around them, intestines lay in visceral, fly-infested lumber, soaked in dried blood.

To add insult to injury, their limbs had been severed and dismembered, then reassembled in the wrong order. Wrists to shoulders, hands to elbows, forearms to torsos. Whatever psychopath did this, surely had their fun. Next to the bodies, untainted by blood, Billy stood with a note in his hand. He did a wide arch around the corpses to get to Geese.

"We found them like that. We also got this," he said as he passed over the paper.

In the meantime, Geese heard the young man commanding the goons to get rid of the corpses. They were put into garbage bags alongside their pile of guts. Afterward, several foot soldiers scrubbed the floors free of blood with Billy overseeing their efforts. Geese only scantly paid attention to them, shifting his attention to the letter which had been handwritten in an eloquent font, that reminded Geese of old romanticized history films. It had been written with black ink, that was still slightly damp, probably penned not too long ago.

"Let it be known that the Lord of Black, the great Earl of Stroheim will assist you. He will care for half of your burden. Let it be known that the Lord of Black, the great Earl of Stroheim did not end the lives of these sheep." It read and it wouldn't be surprising if Wolfgang wrote it himself with the backhanded, snide, and egomaniacal auto-fellatio that seemed to ooze through every word.

Geese did know however that Wolfgang employed a couple of spies to flutter about in South Town on occasion. No doubt one of them had brought the letter here and notified the tower about the bodies. Wolfgang seemed to know an awful lot about what was going in in this city and specifically about Mai.

Under the horrid message, eight addresses were written with names next to them. The location of the opposition's leaders. The crime families and the gangs. This better not be a trap.

The smell of blood in the room was soon replaced by soap and sterile cleaning agents, almost masking the pungent aroma of rubbing alcohol. Outside, cars began to drive away towards a proper burial site for the corpses as Billy, still wary of where all the blood had been, walked a big arch around the now-empty spot again. He loomed over the note as Geese gave his general thoughts.

"Looks like we got our work cut out for us. Comb through every address and kill the name listed. I want to squash this little coalition before the end of autumn," Geese said and passed over the note, before heading outside.

The fresh air felt like medicine in his lungs as he drew a deep breath. Even if it was rife with carbon dioxide, it sure beat the stench of death. From the main road, a singular car drove by and slowed down, possibly in the process of rubbernecking. All the body bags had been driven away so there was only a bunch of men and women in suits moving about. Geese did however notice that the car slowly began to lower its windows and in the pale glow of streetlight, he saw something glint; the barrel of a gun.

As the gunman pulled the trigger, Geese threw himself to the ground, behind a nearby vehicle. Its windows were thoroughly smashed, although quickly forgotten as a bullet storm rained over the train station. Random gunfire was as common as a bird's nest in this part of the city, so much in fact that the police had long since given up on trying to curb the crime.

Which worked perfectly for Geese as he could do his business without detectives trying to get on his case.

He took his pistol and fired at the offending car, which had already been riddled with several bullet holes. One gunslinger was hit directly in the forehead, while another was hit in the chest. Considering the amount of people, they were up against, they were idiots fighting a losing battle. With another gunslinger being shot in his eye, there was only one left from the looks of things. Another round of bullets was fired and then silence as the smell of gunfire lingered heavily in the air.

The sound of a gun clattering on the asphalt came from behind the car before the surviving shooter sprinted away from the scene. However, Geese, not in the mood to let the maggot get away, took aim and pulled the trigger, hitting the would-be survivor in the neck and he crumbled to the ground. Blood began to pool around his neck and Geese casually walked over to him.

Soon the shooter was surrounded by black suits, clinging to dear life, spitting garbled curses before his head was used as close-quarters target practice. With the number of bullets to his head, it exploded into a pile of blood and brain matter with a single eyeball escaping total annihilation.

And then, silence. Sweet, merciful silence.

Above them, the moon had vanished entirely, leaving only a mass of formless black circling the sky. Somehow the clouds looked even darker, and Geese had the feeling that it might rain soon. Good, that way they didn't have to worry about the blood.

"Fuck me," Geese pinched the bridge of his nose, turning around to look at how many of his subordinates had survived the shootout. Extraordinarily, everyone did, injuries notwithstanding.

"Let's get rid of the bodies and go home. I'm sick and tired of getting shot at."

What happened to the good old days when people would just show up to a good fistfight? Geese almost missed Terry invading his privacy to challenge him.

By the time they returned to the tower, it was late evening, and the downpour was in full swing, washing away the blood to the sewers, about to be forgotten like the rest of the filth. To clear his mind a bit, Geese found himself at the uppermost floor of the estate, staring over the city he had worked so hard to make his own. Part of him anxiously awaited a response from Mai but there had been none, not even when he called.

Worry began to wriggle and worm its way through his stomach as it was not quite like Mai to ghost him like this. They had parted on good terms, he felt. They had even talked after she landed in Germany. Maybe her phone had run out of power, which was reasonable.

Then why was Geese unable to let go of this heavy sense of dread? Not even jealousy, just dread and the feeling that things might not have gone so well. Obviously, Mai had been doing something right if Wolfgang offered his services but what exactly was that something?

Voices talking from somewhere further away, caused Geese to put a lid on his worries as curiosity got the better of him. As he followed the voices, he recognized them as Billy and Hurricane Upper Joe. This floor just happened to have a blind spot where no lights were present, shielding whoever stood there in very dim visibility.

It was where Geese could faintly spot Joe and Billy. They never looked to see him but with the noise they were making, Geese certainly saw and heard them. They stood relatively close, huddled together, switching between talking loudly and whispering like giggling schoolgirls. Seeing Billy in such a casual mood was not uncommon or unwelcome.

After everything which had happened, he probably needed relief and something sweet to balance out the sour. It just so happened to come from that loudmouth ape who hung out with the Bogard boys. Said ape however didn't latch onto them as he did with Billy. How quaint. Geese let them be, grateful for that momentary distraction. Tomorrow when the sun rose, he'd have to contact Mai again.