Jin walked into the old, dingy warehouse with his head held high.

  He figured just because he was about to die didn't mean he had to be a pussy about it.

  Seven large men waited inside.

  Dark, well-tailored suits.

  Serious expressions. Blank faces.

  A distinct look of absolute apathy in their eyes.

  A cacophony of firearms and weapons rested in their hands like props they'd carried a thousand times.

  No rage.

  No excitement.

  Only boredom.

  The same look Jin wore when his employees bitched about overtime, or when the police on his payroll nagged him about being more discreet with his team's activities.

  To them, what had been the most introspective and emotionally turbulent day of Jin's life was just another day at work.

  They would finish business here and make lunch plans the next moment, probably before his body was even cleaned off the floor.

  That should've scared him.

  It didn't.

  It pissed him off.

  Because this was privilege in its purest form.

  The privilege of being the ones to take his life.

  The privilege of tasting the beauty of power, even in front of someone who wasn't powerless himself.

  Someone like Jin.

  And from a twisted standpoint, it only validated his ultimate goal even more.

  Absolute power.

  Never more than at this moment had he wanted to feel what these men in suits carried in their hands in nearly every situation they found themselves in.

  Because the beauty of power wasn't the weapon.

  It was the calm.

  It was the boredom.

  Power meant control.

  Over fate. Over experience. Over the world around you.

  These men had more of that than Jin could—or would ever have—in this lifetime.

  And nobody in the room had more control over the universe than the only man sitting down in the entire building.

  Dearil.

  The man known to his colleagues as the harbinger of death, and known around the world as the leader of the Tyre Cartel.

  Dearil wasn't like his men.

  No boredom. No empty stare.

  Just disturbingly normal.

  A cheery old man with a sunny disposition, he looked like he was getting ready to read the newspaper, not decide whether a subordinate who personally managed millions of dollars' worth of product lived or died.

  Jin took a few steps closer.

  Dearil lifted a hand.

  Not another step.

  The stare that followed felt like centuries to Jin.

  To the well-dressed men, it was nothing.

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  They stood there looking half-dead, contemplating wether or not McDonalds had brought the McRib back.

  Silence filled the warehouse.

  Thick.

  Heavy.

  Deafening.

  Then Dearil suddenly shouted with a goofy grin on his face.

  "Yo Jin! How are you doing, man? You don't look so good. You been dealing with that insomnia again?"

  Genuine concern sat in his eyes.

  Like a concerned uncle who hadn't seen his nephew in a while.

  "No, sir. I'm just worried about why you felt the need to personally see me for my quarterly review," Jin said.

  Dearil sighed.

  "Jin, you were always the type to put business first. That's why I always liked you the most out of all the city managers on this continent, you know that?"

  "I didn't know you had such a high opinion of me, sir," Jin said through gritted teeth. "I'm truly honored."

  The pained expression gave him away.

  Jin was a terrible liar.

  Dearil already knew, though.

  Jin had hated him since the moment they met, when he recruited him all those years ago.

  Did that matter?

  Of course not.

  Jin's ill will amounted to dirty looks and unspoken words.

  Nothing more.

  Because feelings and emotions without the power to turn them into action were nothing.

  Both of them understood that.

  Feelings, ideas, dreams, none of it mattered until action followed.

  And action belonged to the people with power.

  Right now, Jin didn't have enough.

  Dearil did.

  That was why Dearil had supported Jin for so long.

  Disrespect was tolerable when the profits were good enough, and up until now, Jin's profits had been more than enough.

  "So why didn't you continue focusing on my business like you had been doing?" Dearil asked.

  "What exactly have you been doing that would justify missing the tributes two quarters in a row?"

  The question had been waiting for him since the first missed payment.

  Every lie in the book was already prepared.

  Some of them were extremely believable, even under investagtional scrutiny.

  But Jin's mouth stayed still for a fraction too long.

  Because it felt like a test.

  The first quarter he missed a tribute payment, for the amount of investment Dearil had given him, surprisingly little was said.

  The understanding was simple.

  Pay double next time.

  Make up for it.

  Dearil let his city managers have an extraordinary amount of freedom.

  He didn't even monitor heavily what type of product was being moved the most.

  As long as the money was growing, he was happy.

  And the quarterly tributes were the biggest way managers proved that Dearil's money was growing under their care.

  Yet the whole thing was bullshit.

  A carefully constructed image.

  A leash disguised as freedom.

  A way to get city managers to trust him while he diversified the cartel's revenue streams.

  Because how could it be possible that Dearil, a drug overlord with ties not just in a few cities, but across the entire world, could ever let anyone have real freedom with his money?

  At the end of the day, no matter how lavish the lifestyle or how much "freedom" they were given, his managers were simply that.

  Managers.

  Employees.

  Direct underlings.

  Never close to the level where they could make decisions the boss didn't know every detail about.

  Powerless slaves in slightly fancier chains.

  At least that's how Jin had always seen it.

  And that was exactly why the bigger risks happened in the first place.

  Exponential profits.

  Hidden resources.

  Jin wanted a way to store enough money to one day break free from Dearil's grasp.

  Dearil's eerily faux-friendly face made the whole picture impossibly clear.

  So maybe it was anger.

  Maybe it was acceptance.

  Maybe it was that newly found sense of self.

  Either way, hiding stopped feeling worth it.

  Truth was cleaner.

  Jin was sure the truth would get him farther than any lie Dearil probably already knew.

  "I hate the way you look down on me as a slave that works all day just to line your pockets," Jin said.

  "And I hate that's all I am. That's all you make me out to be."

  "So I took risks to exponentially increase profits so you could place more value on me and give me more freedom."

  For the first time since Jin walked into the building, interest showed on the suited men's faces.

  Nobody talked to the boss like that.

  Not even on their deathbeds.

  Work finally got entertaining.

  Nobody doubted how this would end, though.

  Not really.

  Jin did.

  He had just taken the biggest gamble of his life.

  Mostly truth, spoken cleanly, placed on the table like an offering.

  If his gamble was right, he would live another day.

  Dearil sat there for a few seconds, waiting.

  Expecting more.

  Then the faux-friendly smile disappeared.

  The squintingly kind eyes disappeared.

  What replaced them wasn't rage.

  It wasn't even hatred.

  It was worse.

  Sadness and apathy beyond anything the suited men had shown all night.

  A disposition that cared for nothing, including human life, love, or happiness.

  Dearil's eyes looked like the abyss itself.

  A shiver ran down Jin's spine.

  "You were right to think telling me the truth would help you live," Dearil said, as if Jin's thoughts were written on the walls.

  "But your greed for power truly knows no bounds, Jin. For the slight chance of more power, you would be so willing to throw your life away?"

  Jin tried to salvage it immediately.

  "Everybody strives for power, sir, but you know I'm not stupid enough to forget my place. How could I strive for power if I'm dead? That's why I came clean and told you the whole truth."

  Dearil sighed heavily.

  "You really were my favorite, Jin. But I can't have a slave that thinks it's their destiny to be the master."

  "I know about the secret accounts."

  Jin's eyes widened.

  His mind went into overdrive.

  Strategies. Angles. Words that could stretch time.

  Anything that could extend his life by even a few seconds flashed across his brain.

  Too late.

  Dearil's hand moved.

  A Ruger LCR revolver came out of his waistband from seemingly nowhere.

  The barrel settled between Jin's eyes like it belonged there.

  The trigger pulled.

  His head came clean off.

  Just like he himself had predicted, Jin was dead.

  But his story was far from over.