7th Heaven

Prologue

In an empty basement lit by a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling, a middle-aged man sat in the middle, tied to a chair, unconscious. It was a normal day for him. He kissed and hugged his wife goodbye. Drove to work, only stopping by the coffee shop around the corner from his office. He ordered his usual, double-shot expresso, before spending the entire day in his tiny office cubical; only to be greeted with a bag over his head the moment he stepped into his house.

The man’s vision blurred as he slowly regained consciousness. He looked around, trying to get a sense of his surroundings; there was nothing within the dark grey concrete prison expect for himself and a metal table sitting in front of him. Like any other functional human being, he started to panic. He wiggled and tried to get his hands free but only succeeded in giving himself rope burn.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you” A deep voice echoed throughout the empty room, bouncing off the walls as multiple footsteps slowly approached from behind.

“What do you want from me?” The man was trembling so much that the group standing behind him couldn’t help but laugh, “I’m just a simple office worker”.

A tall man dressed in an immaculate suit, whose aura screamed ‘leader’, walked up and sat against the metal table, casually. “Now now,” He leaned closer, looking straight into the other man’s eyes with a smirk, “We both know that’s not true”.

A different man, equally as tall, came up and handed the ‘leader’ a thick file with a charming smile, “Dave here, has been very busy lately”.

The ‘leader’ started to flip through the file with a raised eyebrow, “Really? How so?”

“A handful of calls by the neighbours filing for domestic abuse, buying and selling drugs with the streets rats, forcing his loving wife to sell herself, and he is one of the owners of the underground child prostitution ring”, the charming man with soft features listed off from the top of his head.

Dave’s eyes widened as all of his secrets were spilt right in front of him. In contrast to his image, he, himself, was a powerful man; but there were others even more powerful than he was. And they promised that he will have power and money as long as he owned the prostitution ring.

They promised 100% anonymity.

They promised 100% no risk of a run-in with the law.

They promised 100% protection.

And they were someone not to be messed with.

Dave gulped nervously “How-how do you know about that?”.

The ‘leader’ whistled, stilling flipping through the papers, “No wonder a simple office worker with a below-average paying job, can afford to drive a Mercedes and spend his monthly vacations in Paris”.

“How do you-”.

“Do we all have to be here for this?” Bass toned voice said tiredly from behind, followed by a loud yawn, “I haven’t slept in the past two days for that stupid file”.

The ‘leader’ sighed at the interruption as the man standing next to him rubbed his arm in comfort, “You can go. We’re nearly done here anyway”.

“Thank you,” The voice said sarcastically, “Babe, let’s go, I want cuddles”.

“We’re leaving too then” A new voice grunted before multiple footsteps left the room.

The ‘leader’ shook his head before returning his focus to the man in front of him.

“Sorry about that. Teenagers.” The charming man started to laugh at the word and smacked him on the arm. “Where were we?”.

“How do you-”

“Oh right, how do we know about everything single thing that you’ve done?” He laughed, “It wasn’t that hard. It took less than five minutes to gain access to your information, although it did take two days to collect and print them all. It’s okay though…”. The ‘leader’ dropped the file onto the table with a loud bang, “…cause you’re paying for the cost”.

“What do you want from me?” Dave started to wiggled again, under the piercing gaze, “Money? I can get you money”.

“Why do they always think we want money?” The charming man rolled his eyes before sauntering out of the room without another word.

“You don’t want money?” The tied up man spluttered as if his tiny brain couldn’t believe that there were people in the world who don’t want money, “What do you want? Young girls? Sex?”

The ‘leader’ leaned down again with a murderous glare, “What I want is for you to shut up”.

Dave’s mouth immediately snapped closed as the man continued, “As you can see,” He raised his left hand, “I am happily married…” And indeed, there was a simple silver band sitting on his fourth finger.

“…so just stop talking for I break your jaw. You are here, sitting in front of me, ruining my Tuesday night, because someone wants justice”.

“So you work for the government,” Dave stated, despite the previous threat.

A loud snort came from behind him, making Dave jump out of his skin. “Ha. Good one. Us. Working for the dogs”.

Dave tried to turn his head to look at the owner of the new voice; he thought that everyone else had left, leaving just him and the ‘leader’. He hadn’t heard a single noise from the guy up until now, not even the sound of breathing.

“No, we don’t work for those dogs,” the ‘leader’ let out a laugh as well, “let’s just say, we’re private contractors”.