Noel’s POV

“Ben, what exactly are you saying?” I shouted, angry into the phone. The air felt thick, my men bowed their heads in fear, everyone but the voice on the other end.

“Noel, chill. Calm down, why are you getting worked up over this? I told you I took care of it already. The person I sent is an intern I trusted the most. He’s intelligent, skilled, a nobody, just perfect for the job and the secret will never get out as far as I wire the money.” Benson sounded casual, almost amused. He could talk like that to me and still feel safe because he was my childhood friend turned brother, the most important person after my sister, Jacinta.

Ben had always handled these kinds of things for me, and of all days he chose to disappoint today. He called in with a flimsy excuse about food poisoning from one of his numerous girlfriends. Of all days, he got food poisoning today. I had had enough.

Today had been hell. Lying almost lifeless on the table in the next room was Richard, one of my trusted men who suddenly wanted a death sentence. He had been linked to a rival, the Akunnas. He had been spying on me for almost a month until I found out.

The Akunnas were the family suddenly trying to measure up to me in the export business. Some weeks ago they had stolen a small deal right from under my nose. It was a petty thing, but an insult nonetheless. When I realized Richard had sold me out it all made sense. Nobody took what was mine and walked away unpunished.

Richard had been on the run for one week since I discovered his betrayal. It had been infuriating. Finally, today I got my hands on him, but my anger took over before I could extract all the information I needed. I couldn't help putting a bullet in his abdomen, he has been unconscious since. That was why I needed Benson. I trusted the way we worked together, a little pain to keep the criminals awake until I had what I wanted from them, then send them to their grave.

“Sir, they are back,” someone informed me.

“Ben,” I said into the phone, “just pray your recommendation works out. If he flips, don’t blame me when I return him as a corpse.” I hung up before he could argue.

My men entered from the entrance. Behind them stood a tiny girl who looked like a lost child. For a moment I wondered if I had misheard Benson when he said he had recommended a “he.”

“Sir, here is Miss James,” Shedrack, my second-in-command, announced.

“Good evening, sir,” the girl greeted, calm but with a flash of shock on her face. She stole a sharp look at me and then bowed her head, she recognized me. Not that I minded, I expected it. It was as if the country itself knew the Ezugwu name.

My name is Noel, second grandson of the Ezugwu family, a name that shook the country and beyond. My family controlled the main resource and stock exchanges. I handled exportation, my uncle and his branch handled importation. The export side had been my father’s domain until my uncle, Moses killed him. Yes, he killed him and I would prove it someday and take my long-awaited revenge, but for now I focused on the matter at hand.

“Miss James, in the next room is a man at the brink of death. I need him alive and healthy,” I said. At first I wanted him merely alive long enough to answer questions, but I changed my mind. I wanted him strong, strong enough to withstand what would come after the questioning.

It had been a long time since I tortured someone, and I worried I was beginning to lose it. Torture kept me sane, an ugly truth I admitted only to myself. It was like a drug I could not go long without it. I was not about to let this one pass.

They called me a psychopath with no emotions. They said it behind my back but I hear it all. In the underworld of business I was a beast the public never saw. Only this way could I pursue the revenge I craved.

My father’s death had been the hinge that bent me. I was fifteen the night everything changed. My sister and I snuck out in the night for her friend's birthday party, our parents didn't want her to go but I couldn't stand her tears so I took her unaware that would save us from the tragedy that loops. The image of my father bleeding on the floor the next morning, the hollow look in my mother’s eyes afterward had been seared into me. My mother had been left broken and wandering the house like a ghost, she had been mentally unstable ever since. I had learned, with a clarity that felt like frost, that attachment bred weakness. From that clarity I built a shell.

I trained myself to feel less. I catalogued pain the way other people collected trinkets. Where most felt shock and grief, I had felt a cold, precise rage that tasted like metal. It made me efficient. I taught myself to dissociate when necessary, to watch a man die and judge the efficiency of the method rather than the tragedy of the life. That dissociation became muscle memory the cruelty did not come as impulse but as calculation.

By being ruthless, smart, and impeccably controlled I could compete with my uncle for the Ezugwu empire. Only at that level could I convict him, only then could I pass the sentence I longed for. Only then could I keep my sister safe. Jacinta is my only family now. I owed her protection, and protection I would give however in order to do that I have to make sure I stayed sane without losing my mind and many people I had to break to deliver it.

“You can do that, right?” I asked her, forcing a smile.

She hurriedly nodded.

“Sir, please, can I have my phone back? I don’t feel comfortable with it taken from me,” she pleaded, biting her lip so hard I could see the tremor in her courage.

“No. You don’t need your phone here. You’ll get it back when you’re done,” I said. “Now get to work. I trust you. I really hope I won’t be disappointed. It doesn’t end well for people who disappoint me.” They escorted her to the next room.