The Gift by Notakebacks

Prologue

Thrum. Long pale fingers thrummed incessantly atop the rich mahogany desk. Thrumming and thrumming ... He’d been waiting for this moment. Though it had felt like a lifetime, it’d been but a mere blink of an eye when the cruel mistress of immortality had you by the balls. Even so, what should be an unending patience, given such circumstance, had run its course.  

In human terms it was a long game, or so they say, and as every man is the architect of his own fortune, he’d held his cards close to the vest so he wouldn’t be cheated. He’d played them discriminately, discreetly, and strategically over the course of the last several years and now he was finally ready to collect his prize. 

Any minute now he’d be face to face with his life’s true pursuit. Many thought him a cutthroat business man who had stepped on every mortal imaginable to procure his place at the top of the corporate ladder. He was a titan of industry that had paved his path with the carnage of his competitors brick by brick and stone by stone. Ruthless. Cold. Calculating. They wouldn’t be wrong.

 
Others believed him nothing more than a spoiled arrogant asshole who’d been handed everything by a father who was the builder of businesses as corrupt as they come and the king of society’s seamy underbelly who had police and politicians not only in his pockets but at his beck and call. They wouldn’t be wrong either. 

Perfection personified in every aspect conceivable and yet here he was on a random Tuesday waiting almost...anxiously in his office to bask in the glow of his most coveted win. He’d never been more determined, more cunning than when it came to this particular acquisition. Finally, he could move forward into the next phase of his goal to achieve the ultimate conquest- 

The thrumming stopped as a loud buzz suddenly rang through the air, cutting the silent contemplation of the CEO who’d been staring listlessly out his floor to ceiling windows at the city below. It was time. 

His eyes darted briefly to a framed photograph sitting on his desk. He smirked almost malevolently as he slowly reached for a button on his phone allowing him to speak. Sitting straight, mask in place, he closed his eyes to savor the scene as the words he’d been waiting to say rolled off his tongue. 

“Send her in.”