Breaking Habits

Chapter 3- Micah- Long Day

An accident on the motorway caused traffic delays so I'm late for work this morning. When I get to the office, few employees are gathered at Doreen's desk doing God know what, and they don't see me as I approach them.

"You know, for a security company, you're all busy looking at the wrong thing." I grate over Jams shoulders, my Network Engineer.

He jumps but he doesn't stop looking at whatever is on Dor's screen.

"Hey assholes, I said get back to work!"

"Have you seen this yet?" Bradley asks shifting to make room for me. "The publicity is gonna be huge."

Confused, I think about the new advertisement that's launching soon. I haven't given the go ahead so there shouldn't be anything out in the press yet.

"Let me see that."

Jams who have the best view moves aside, and it doesn't take long to see what they're looking at. It's a gossip blog that has pictures of last night's event plastered over the website. They show me holding Beth in a romantic pose, and the caption reads, Super-hot Model with Super-hot guy. Who is the new man on Beth's block?

It's followed by an article. The gist is we look good together and how I seem the type to rein her in. The writer's 'source' confirmed that Beth and I have been dating for a while, but they question my ability to stay committed because there are other pictures of me with the other two models. I stopped reading after that because the whole thing is bullshit.

"Boss, if you'd told us this is the business we were in, our books would be off the charts. The next time I get a female client, I'm gonna fuck the shit-"

"Shut up Jordan!" Dor lashes cutting him off. He better not be serious about that comment.

"The story is garbage. Get back to work," I tell everyone and they move to carrying on with their day. Following, I head to my office.

"So, what happened?" Bradley asks catching up.

"Nothing happened," I answer stepping into my office. "She was uptight. That picture was me telling her to loosen up."

"You can loosen me up any day if that's how it starts out." Riot, my Strategic planner says coming into the office and carrying a folder.

Jordan, my weapons expert follows with Sevyne, my Intelligence Surveillance Specialist. Everyone in the special ops team is here, so I switch focus to more important things.

"Brief me." I say to Ry.

Sevyne shuts the door as Riot hands me the folder, and when I open it, it's the picture of me and Beth. Baffled, I look at the assholes jotted around my office and they all start to laugh.

"The look on your face is priceless. Hold it, let me take a picture," Jordan hollers.

Doing me, Bradley mocks, "brief me!" then he doubles over.

The only person not laughing is me and it makes them laugh harder, and they can laugh now but I'm sure I'll have the last laugh at the end of the month when I forget to pay them.

"Alright fuckers-what's the deal?"

Riot sobers then she starts the briefing. "We have an extraction tonight at the dockyard...And we're gearing up."

Hearing that I get uneasy. I don't like going to the dockyard. Every time we do, we suit up including weapons, and things always goes bad with the people we run into.

People I tend to stay away from as I don't want myself, my employees, or my company to unknowingly get involved in any illegal activities. I've been down that road before and I know where it ends. That's why there's a clause in my contracts stating whatever our services are being used for, it must be legal. But, if I'm honest, I know we've been moving dodgy packages for some shady clients.