MIDAS
Ian's PoV
I step out of the car, just as Mr hills walks out of the derelict building.
He strides are even, measured but not as sure. He looks like someone who found answers, yes, but doesn't now know what to do with them. What happened up there?
“There's a man up there I want kept alive, just in case,” he announces as he stops by my side, loud enough for Jay, Sadie and Felix to hear. “Two of you can do that. The other two are with Maximus, Beckett and I.”
We all nod and I'm about to divvy us up for whatever the mission is when Mr Hills sighs and adds, “But if you'd rather go back home, that's fine. We're going to pay the Khan a visit.”
I just manage to keep the gasp inside my throat and by the look of the others they are similar situations. The fucking Khan? Is that who took Miss Angel? If so Mr Hills is already a more courageous man than I am for even attempting to get her back.
Everyone knows the Khan, and even those that don't are taught to fear him either way.
He was like an urban legend to me when I was younger. Even though I grew up at the opposite edge of the city, his influence still reached. He was like the gods of old; powerful and vengeful.
It was when I enlisted in the army that I was privy to the information on how he happened all those years ago.
The Khan was an opportunist. He noticed and tapped into the opportunity of a fucking lifetime.
Downtown wasn't always like this. Some forty years ago, right before it started descending into madness, it was called the Pearl city.
That was because of its proximity to a body of water that had sea creatures in abundance, including all sorts of oysters. Not anymore though, the water has been polluted for as long as I can remember.
It was such a slow-living place, with law abiding, mostly older citizens. So it didn't need police stations.
It wasn't the Pearl city for long, just until people outside the quaint community noticed that and realized the potential for getting away with crime.
Criminals bright their drugs and schemes, killers and pimps brought their bodies, and the like. Not only was there only one sleepy police station in the full town, at the time, the next town over was quite far away too.
That one simple fact led to a harsh influx of crime. By the time the government heard the cry of the residents, beefed up the police station and started building others, the vine had already taken root.
That same year, three of the five police stations closed down due to the vandalization and repeated harassment of the police officers that worked there. Residents started pulling out of the town, opening up more space for scum.
That was when he came in.
He as a fresh-eyed nineteen year old heir, named Hunter Abott, whose daddy had been a hard man himself. Hunter didn't want to take over the timber company his father ran to make his fortune. No, he had way more exciting aspirations.
He threw everything his dad had into funding a large law enforcement division, except it wasn't under the government in any way. It was a private entity that helped solved crime but only for people that could owe him favours, people to that had something so important to protect, they didn't care if they did it legally.
The devil works hard but Hunter worked harder.
His firm was a roaring success. Many months later, because there was no shortage of criminals running rampant, a lot of people found themselves indebted to Hunter.
Some say he sent hired the criminal so he could capture them, others say he used magic to give himself an some sort of an edge. But it didn't matter how, Hunter was right where he wanted to be.
He dismantled the other two police stations and that sealed the fate of Pearl city. Local people had no choice but to come to him to fix their problems.
He established himself as some sort of authority, especially when it became known that the problem didn't have to be a legal one for him make it go away. It didn't matter what it was, If you could offer the Khan something valuable there was nothing he couldn't get you.
Then he cemented himself, as a dangerous man.
A few weeks later there was an uprising started. Criminals organized a raid to go teach the new guy who was trespassing on their property a lesson, the boy who thought he could encroach on this shiny new playground they were profiting they found first.
That was the day The Khan was born.
He not only defeated them but he publicly hanged and burned their bodies. A few days later, videos circulated around of the families and friends of the men who'd tried to kill him in boats, obviously being trafficked.
Then the videos were gone. Scrubbed away but the warning they were meant to convey fully planted in the hearts of the people.
Nobody did anything. Nobody could do anything.
He was owed by high profile people, and where he wasn't he’d collected his payment in the form of nooses around their necks; secrets and information.
By the time he was twenty four, he'd already started to be turned into fable.
And now we're supposed to go pay him an announced visit, asking for something he now considers a his.
I don't know how I feel about that. On wine hand, there's a big possibility that this might kill me.
On the other hand, he's a fucking criminal that needs to be knocked down a peg or two. If I died on this mission, knowing that I inconvenienced the bastard in any way woukd grant my soul rest. Besides my family would be well compensated, I knkw that.
Plus, I have never seen the Khan’s face clearly. The man did not do pictures and it would be cool to look the legend in the eyes.
“I'll come,” Sadie says, beating me to it. We all turn to her, mildly surprised. If it was a contest, my money would be on Jay.
The hard look she sometimes sports is back on her face in full force and a clock if of fierce, deadly determination settles around her. Sadie has something to prove. I wonder what's the story there.
“Me too,” I announce.
“Good,” Mr Hills nods. “The two of you,” he points at Jay and Felix, “Upstairs, secure the man. Remember, keep him alive.”
We all look at each, before they turn and jog into the building.
“He'll draw it out as much as he can because it's me if we walk in through the front,” Mr Hills says to no one in particular, “No we need to get to him as quick as possible through his backdoor.”
What is he thinking?
“So wr need someone that can get us in without raising suspension.”
The he says name that almost makes me choke on the spit I'm swallowing. What the fuck is today?
“Midas.”
If you told me this morni
ng that I'd be chasing villains from what is essentially myth, I wouldn't have fucking believed you.