Faust

A damsel in distress

"One more thing," I say as I walk to his desk. "I need to burn them."
"You sure you don't want to take a look first?" I stop my motions. Though it over and shrugs.
"Might as well."
Most are documents and records about the Qins recent activities. (Officially their legal stuff is done behind the name 'Qin Ye Limited') nothing too significant here, just about buying some buildings in the city center and rector street, a more interesting one is about they bought a mansion at Monclea.

       Some notes with scribbled Chinese on them. Most of them are pretty boring just some requests made from their establishments. Although one of them is pretty interesting, it says
'There's a market for cut throat business, but none for losing business." Seems like not everyone is happy with the decision of stepping into the arms business.
Handwritten letters to presumably capos of different areas, also some transfer records which I riffle through.
Ivan stops me and points at one of the records. It's another transfer 2.75m in total. Not a small number but not the most impressive amongst them either. Transferring from
Qin Ye.ltd to........what the hell?

"Ganesha. co? Is that some Thailand company?" Ivan smiles a victorious smile.
"Ha! And you consider yourself well-informed and connected." I give him the middle finger which makes his smile even bigger.
        "It's a shell company resides at some fucking island no one heard of in the Pacific Ocean, but in reality, they're at the golden triangle. Specialize in security, riot control......"
"Mercenary Corp." I finish it for him.
"Made a name for themselves by committing genocide at a small fishing village in Burma. Consists of ex-military, killers of local drug kingpins, and generally all kinds of textbook-level human scum."

         For fuck sake, Qin Cuanhua is out of his mind.

"And how much service can one buy with this amount of money?" I point at the 2,750,000 on the records.
"More than enough to control the outcome of the war. But that's not the point. The point is he broke the rules." Ivan stares at the number intensely. "For as long as this city was built, all the gangsters, criminals, and mercs followed them. What happens in Faust stays in Faust. You don't get outside forces involved!"

"True, but I don't think this is enough to sanction him. And he's probably beyond caring for that." Ivan shakes his head. Opening a drawer he throws me a box of matches.
         "Guessing you forgot to bring your lighter again." He grins ear to ear and sat back down on his chair. "Give her highness my regards, and tell her if she lied to me I will personally deliver her a gas mask and a can of CS gas."
***

As I set the envelope on fire. Watching it slowly consumed by the flames at the back alley of Icebreaker. My thoughts drift to all the things that happened tonight. Before I even notice. The whole thing had turned into fire residue, the recorder melted few sparks ignited as the circuits can't withstand the heat. I watched it turned into a scrap of black debris. And stomp on them a few times to make sure it's impossible to comprehend what it was.

           It's 20 past midnight. Nochnaya is still full of shimmering partygoers, I quickly leave Lesnaya and move to a less noisy parallel street. Heading east once again.

           I didn't take rector street this time. The tension in that part is too high according to Ivan. And I'm not interested in getting into trouble at this moment.

           Is weird that people used the phrase: 'I just want today to end.' Or 'Tomorrow will be better.' so often. Even though everyone knows those are bullshit. Today ends..... and what? What makes you think tomorrow will be better? Your problems or struggles wouldn't magically disappear when you see tomorrow's sunrise. I once get into an argument with Viviane about this. In her own words: