For the fourth time that week, Felix Callahan sat in a meeting room bored to death by everything that was going on around him. Cool air blasted from the air conditioning system. People of all ages sat along the long oak table with laptops, papers and Styrofoam cups of coffee or porcelain cups of tea in front of them as they tried to come to an agreement on an investment deal. The office overlooked the busy city street and although they were high up on the top most floor, Felix could have sworn that if he squinted hard enough, he could just make out cars and people going about their activities. In that moment, he wished that he were just a normal man without the responsibilities of an entire company on his shoulders.One of the major problems of inheriting a successful tech company from his grandfather, Tobias Jackson, was that he was expected to keep the company successful. Under no circumstance would he be allowed to let their monthly profits showcase anything lower than six figures.
Sighing, Felix peeled off his navy suit jacket and tossed it on the couch. He didn’t bother about picking it up. That was the maid’s job not his. He took in all the details of his apartment. The walls dividing his apartment from the outside world were made out of glass, letting him see the world around him but preventing anyone outside from knowing what was going on inside his apartment. Most of the furniture in the living room were in various shades of gray, from the plush leather couches to the throw pillows on top of them. Even the coffee table in the middle of the room was a shade of gray so dark, it almost appeared to be black. The room was devoid of personal pictures. Instead, the only things framed were artworks that he had purchased and had been gifted over the years. A huge flat screen television was mounted on one of the opaque wooden walls. Briefly, he considered watching a quick movie or checking whether the game was on but he knew himself and knew that he won’t have just
Cassie stared at herself in the smudged mirror. Tired blue eyes stared back at her. The eyeliner and mascara that she had failed to wipe off from the previous night had smeared into a messy blob, making her eye bags appear more gruesome than they actually were. The appearance of her collarbones and cheekbones were heightened by the lack of a proper diet. That and her dainty wrists served as stark evidence of how little and infrequently she ate. Her brown hair hung limply over her shoulder, the tips riddled with split ends. She was in desperate need of a proper salon treatment but that was something she couldn’t afford. The only form of hair treatment she could afford were dollar store hair dye and two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. She was still dressed in yesterday’s clothes – a white sleeveless button down shirt with sparkly skin tight pants. Considering the weather, it wasn’t exactly her first choice in fashion but it was the waitress uniform at one of her three jobs - Club Indigo
The assailants didn’t stop shooting and the patrons didn’t stop screaming. People were trampling over themselves in a fiercely determined effort to get out of Club Indigo. Cassie was sure that she saw the club’s most recent dancer, a redhead whose name she never caught, dive out of the window the second the gunshots started. The club’s music had since come to an abrupt end when the DJ had taken a shot to the head. He lay slumped over his spin table, his sticky blood slowly dripping from the gaping hole in his head to mix with the confetti to form a messy pool on the floor.Ever curious, Isabel strained to see what was going on to try to deduce the cause of the commotion. From her hiding spot behind a black leather couch, Cassie yanked her friend back down to a crouching position.“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?!” Cassie hissed amid the chaos. “Are you trying to get yourself killed? Do you not value your life?!”“Hey.” Isabel started as she tried to avoid the broken glass and
Still sobbing, Isabel squirmed under her friend’s grasp. “No. Don’t say that. There’s no certainty that we’re going to get out of this alive. You should have just let them take me. Why did you have to offer yourself off like some sort of sacrifice? I have nothing to lose. I have no family. No one is going to miss me. If these guys kill me, you know that Big Daddy is just going to get another person to dance in my spot at Club Indigo. He’s not even going to waste any time.” She managed to say between sobs. “But if you die, what’s going to happen to the twins? Who is going to take care of them? Did you even think of that?”Cassie’s breath caught in her throat as she held the crying body of her friend even tighter. “Of course I did. And don’t say that Isabel. If anything were to ever happen to you, I’ll miss you terribly.” Then she brought her voice down to a whisper. “We just have to find a way to get out of here.”Isabel stopped crying but she continued to shake. “How? We can’t just rol
Felix Callahan woke up to an incessant ringing sound. He felt around for his digital alarm clock that was placed on his bedside table. He was seconds away from hitting the snooze button and going back to bed for just a few minutes when he visualized his mother’s disapproving face looking and calling him lazy. Groaning, he got up from his bed and surveyed the room. There was no evidence of his and Sapphire’s encounter the previous night. The torn items of clothing – both the thong and the dress – were gone. He couldn’t help but wonder how she had made it home when her clothes were in shreds. The phone that had fallen out of Sapphire’s hand after he had startled her was no longer where it lay the previous night. Sapphire herself was nowhere to be found even on the other side of the bed where she lay. The only evidence of her presence the previous night was the faint lingering scent of her perfume. At least she had been a good fuck. She would be getting a five-star review.Sighing, he go
There was a chorus of excited applause as Isabel and Cassie walked into the salon where Isabel had her night shift. Hair Glam was a quirky little salon owned by two sisters who treated all of their staff and customers like a part of a big happy family. It was a charming salon that was decorated with varying shades of grey, blue and gold. Two wide rectangular mirrors placed parallel to each other allowed the patrons to view their hair as it was being made. The line of midnight blue swivel chairs placed in front of the mirror was half occupied with customers whose hair were being worked on by various staff. The salon’s standing hair dryers and hair washing basins were currently not in use. The flat screen television overhead was playing reruns of a reality television show. The room was illuminated by LED ceiling lights and tulip shaped all lamps. In the furthest corner of the room, was a section which the patrons and staff alike referred to as the vlogging center as it boasted a faux g
Felix was hyper aware of how many traffic rules he had broken as he sped along the streets of Atlanta in a desperate effort to get to Saint John’s Hospital in record time. When he had inputted the address in his car’s navigation system, it had informed him that the drive to Saint John’s Hospital would take almost an hour. Determined to make it there ahead of the estimated time of arrival, Felix had ran four red lights, ignored multiple stop signs, driven over multiple pedestrian crossings and disregarded the speed limit.Somewhere at the back of his mind, Felix was intensely aware of the kind of danger that he was putting himself and multiple other road users in by driving that quickly and carelessly but at the moment, he didn’t care. He needed to get to Rose as soon as possible. The lady on the phone whose name he had forgotten to ask had told him that Rose was going to be fine but he still wanted to be there for her. She had always been kind enough to bring him homemade chicken nood