Chapter 2
1265 Words
Tyler turned a confused expression to Ashley Belarnt, his supervisor’s boss. The young lady flushed lightly, adjusting her weight against the desk as she wrapped slender arms around herself.
Tyler almost closed his eyes.
“I…I should get back…to Raymond, if…if…there’s nothing else,” he stammered again, but he did not move. Instead, he leaned back in the chair, as if afraid she would touch him.
Ashley sighed heavily, shaking her head slowly as she shifted her gaze from Tyler, her cheeks reddening.
“Raymond’s on assignment. I need you to report to me for the rest of the week,” she said gently, almost apologetically.
“Wha–” Tyler stuttered, but was interrupted.
“There’s no need to disturb yourself with direct reporting, Ashley! We can take the information for you,” Adrian, the blonde assistant, called out, a bit too loudly.
Finally speaking as he tore his eyes from the bespectacled man whose physique looked like it belonged to an athlete or even a soldier, someone who worked with their body to hone it into a machine.
“He’s right, Ash,” Brandon, the dark-haired one, concurred, also too loudly as he eyed the tanned fellow who often hooded his eyes, and moved like a tiger despite his slouch.
Both younger men were also red-faced at this point, but for a far different reason than their boss.
Tyler stared at his knees, shoulders hunched, face pale.
The three people in Ashley’s office were all younger than Tyler. At twenty-eight, he was one of the older people on Ashley’s floor, where most staff were twenty-five or under.
The young heiress had taken up her role at the age of twenty and had wanted people she could ‘relate’ to.
She had been working hard for four years, and her staff had grown with her. Lord Belarnt, however, had ensured that a few older, more experienced people were on hand to help them keep things on track.
People like Tyler.
“Come on, Adrian, Brandon, there’s no need for all that,” Ashley chided her assistants, turning a soft, yet stern gaze to them.
“We’re all like family here. You’re making Tyler nervous!” she admonished them, her anti-clockwise movement causing her skirt to draw higher on her left thigh.
Tyler held his breath.
Ashley exhaled and stood. She stepped to Tyler’s side, placing a hand on his shoulder. Tyler could hear the grinding of Adrian’s and Brandon’s teeth.
Now he closed his eyes.
Babies! She’s your boss, not your f*****g girlfriend! What’s all the attitude for? Stupid brats!
His mind drifted to the life he had experienced. The punishments as a child, the beatings as a servant, the torture in the Vault.
The darkness his world had become as he strove to rise above his station in Ashrone. The light of hope he had found running his black-market operations, even as he faced danger time and again in keeping his business afloat and his enemies at bay.
Tyler inhaled a flowery, musky perfume. Ashley was taking advantage of Tyler Varsen again.
Her fingers were on his shirt buttons – under his tie – her shoulder was at his cheek, and her breast was almost grazing his chin.
Varsen jolted lightly and turned his pale face away, not too much, otherwise, he would graze her, which was what she wanted, but Tyler Esteil did not need to get in the face of Lord Belarnt, the young Lady’s father.
The diligent supervisor of mining explorations, his current boss, Raymond, was good enough. Plus, he needed that young man to keep pushing Tyler Varsen to do work the supervisor found too laborious.
Work Varsen sometimes suggested himself, allowing the young Raymond to run around as he pleased on his personal pursuits, giving Tyler the privacy he required to execute his plans against the Kramers.
“You don’t need to worry, I’m confident in your abilities. Raymond needs to do some work himself, or you’ll never get any rest,” Ashley murmured, her voice too husky for the environment.
Esteil wanted to stand. Varsen sank lower into his chair, struggling to remain upright, to not fold into himself.
“Ashley!” a deep voice rumbled, the annoyance of the owner clear.
The heiress jumped, her hand dropping off Tyler’s broad chest.
She straightened her skirt, rubbing her palms on the front, exactly how Varsen had done on his trousers not five minutes earlier.
Esteil exhaled mentally.
Varsen was frozen in place.
“Dad!” Ashley called out nervously, “When did you get here?”
“You! Out!” Lord Belarnt, the second-wealthiest man in Ashrone, bellowed.
Varsen did not try to confirm who Lord Belarnt was speaking to.
He rose quickly and slid out of Ashley Belarnt’s office as her father shot choice words at his second daughter and heir, as she hung her head, biting her lower lip, while her hooded eyes followed Tyler Varsen’s wide back and strong arms.
Adrian’s and Brandon’s eyes followed as well. They had been there the first day the slightly distracted, soft-spoken inspector built like a sleek jungle cat with pumped-up muscles, had walked into this office to give a report.
And every day after when the quiet, careful mine inspector came more frequently and stayed longer, until he walked in and left with a promotion letter and a reassignment notice.
They were nervous, but for a very different reason.
==========
Tyler headed back down to this office.
“Hey, Raymond! How are you?!” he answered his desk phone cheerfully, reading the caller ID.
“Tyler! Where the f**k have you been?!” Raymond, his supervisor, shot back at him.
“I went to Brighton…I told you about it. You said I should take the –”
“I know what I said Ty! But you stayed too long! Why didn’t you call me or something?” Raymond demanded.
Tyler rolled his eyes as he gazed out of the 37th floor of the Belarnt skyscraper, one of the most beloved, iconic landmarks in Salvena City.
It was a cloudy day, and there was dense fog in the city. ‘Fog,’ but it had nothing to do with the weather.
It was the mines. Gems were reacting to the exposure from the atmosphere.
It happened occasionally, but never with any rhyme or reason. Some said it was nitrates in the air, others said it was oxygen. The health inspectors were on the job. They would clear it within the hour.
Tyler stared, mesmerized by the power of the gems beneath the city. He could feel them, pulsing in his veins, even from his location in the 55-story building.
Some days, it gave him headaches; other days, it soothed him, helped him remember why he loved being alive.
Days like today.
He had always been able to sense gemstones. Regardless of whether they had been extracted or were still buried within the ground. It was part of the reason he had flourished in building his secret empire.
Not only could he find what others could not, but also, placing value on crafted items, regardless of their age or state of disrepair, was a breeze for him. Something he used to his advantage in identifying and buying priceless tools, which he then sold to the highest bidders.
His auction house. An illegal operation in the most lawless city in the Ashrone kingdom. One whose profits, reputation, and influence exploded in a matter of years, while Tyler, the elusive Master of the Miran Auction House, was still a college student.
- Writer
