Chapter 32

The suit is perfect, far better than the one I wore to the office today. An occasion such as this requires the best finery I can afford, and I can afford the best. The custom-tailored handmade suit is a favorite of mine, though only for auspicious events.

A hefty glass of my finest tequila completes the accoutrements, and I sit in my favorite leather chair by the floor-to-ceiling wall of windows, overlooking the city. The first sip is rich with agave notes and the alcohol, a favorable combination along my taste buds, but the intensity builds, becoming darker, deeper as the oak shows its smokiness. The second sip amplifies the flavors even more.

It is a worthy drink, as worthy as my suit to be a hallmark of this moment in my mind when I remember the importance of this day.

I look over the city, watching the ants scatter this way and that. Leaving work and heading home, to what? A second job that pays nothing, cooking for unappreciative partners, or cleaning a worthless shack? Such futile endeavors.

I look through the telescope toward the Goldstone Building, which glints obnoxiously. Run, little ants. You leave every day thinking tomorrow will be another day in the wheel, never reaching new heights because the running is all for naught.

But not this time.

Tomorrow will be a new day, a gift for each and every one of the peons below me in the city.

I don’t show them mercy because they are important but merely because a god’s power comes from his worshippers. And they will all be mine.

I will not become irrelevant like some pagan deity who’s had his day and is no longer remembered, his legacy dying out when his most devout believers pass on.

No, the people of Roseboro will understand that I built this city. They will appreciate that I continue to bring abundance to our borders, making each and every one of them thrive, and they will revere the hallowed ground that I tread.

They will be my congregation, recognizing the true greatness I deign to share with them. This city will be my legacy, and my flock will see that my immortalization knows no bounds.

As soon as I defeat those who dare to oppose me.

Him.

The Golden Boy.

The only one to ever stand up to me, both in action and in achievements. But my greatest success will be in taking him down.

Quite literally, I think with mirth.

I listen in to the bug I had placed in his penthouse apartment, amused. Thomas is a fan of bugs. Used one to catch my saboteur, in fact. The irony seems poetic.

He thinks his security is top-notch, and I’ll admit that his investigative cousin did a thorough job of vetting each and every member of his team before allowing them to upgrade their system. But not thorough enough to thwart me.

I listen to him opening the envelope, another instance of poetic justice that I hope Gabriel Jackson will note. Ah, he does.

Glee burgeons forth in my soul, righteous joy that I’ve not known in years.

Finally, Thomas Goldstone will know my wrath.

I hear Thomas’s exclamation, instructing everyone to get out. But it’s far too late for that. He should’ve never come to Roseboro in the first place. The day he stepped foot into my city is the day his fate was written.

I have controlled his destiny all along, letting him grow in my fertile soil for this moment where I smash him beneath my shoe like the weed he has become.

A text comes through my phone . . .

10 . . .

I continue the countdown myself, eyes locked on the monstrosity across the city.

5 . . .

I stand, leaning forward toward the glass, wanting to be as close as possible to the hell I bring to Goldstone’s existence.

3 . . . 2 . . . 1.

There’s a rumble, audible even from here. A growing, deep guttural boom that demands everyone’s attention. Down at the street level, ants freeze, cars slow as confusion percolates their dulled minds. But they’ll know soon enough.

A deep boom rends the air, then another.

I watch, childlike glee filling me as the Goldstone building implodes in a dramatic chain-reaction series of explosions, just like Thomas Goldstone’s empire. Glass shatters upward, floor by floor as each level collapses, and his monument falls from the sky, rushing toward the ground, a cloud of dust billowing out from ground zero.

Chaos reigns.

It’s a symphony composed by my own hand. A beautiful destruction, a swarth of dark now visible where gold once stood. Not a new beginning, for I’ve never stopped my direction of Roseboro, but perhaps a fresh claiming.

A consecration of the land, that this city is mine. Always and forever.

My lips quirk, my teeth reflecting in the glass before me. I’ve done it, reduced the competing king’s castle to crumbs while mine stands tall, resolute, eternal. A laugh erupts, fogging the glass, and my hands move of their own volition, applauding the show I orchestrated.

My phone buzzes on the floor where I dropped it in my excitement. I bend to pick it up and see one last text.

Mission complete.

Indeed.

Bravo.