Red Entaries

Sixteen

There was a dark atmosphere brightened by the starlight through Trevor's open draperies. He searched wearily through every desk, cabinet, zipped locked briefcase, but to no avail. There wasn't a lead, a rumor, or even the smallest clue; Joanna was gonna make a getaway with his heart, and he knew it. The small desk light remained ever vibrant like a constant reminder of his dismay, as the shadows of his office became ever deeper and stretched, thinking the streetlights were turned off as morning approached, yet in the still darkness.

Trevor searched the top of his enclosed desk last, pushing aside the chair in front from his last meeting with an associate. Not knowing to clear off his table with violent thrusts or bite down on his pen, he stabbed it hard into the glossy finish between an assortment of wireless coms. Then he grabbed a com to break it in half, as his mind paused for a second giving up, falling backwards into the chair not caring if it caught him, while his cloak rested softly on his ankles above the executive desk's round scarlet rug.

Trev meditated, looking through the nearest window hoping the answer to his heartfelt problem would soon arise and surface. He then felt his heart pounding as he rested on the old hickory, until he lost himself in thought and began to nod off, but there was a glimpse in his mind before he could no longer hold his eyelids open; Trahern believed he lost the love of his life.

It was 4:49 a.m. when Trevor heard a fire crackling sound near the front gate. He slowly got up from his nap to check the monitor on his desk. The shaky keyboard vibrates when the orange glow of the screen's password is accepted. Once he saw a triad of hover limousines with men wearing masks, leather, and bling while only some had suits pulling out and carrying shiny objects or flashlights, he wished he got up faster...

There was a sudden thud of adrenaline coursing through Trevor's veins as he felt the dark weakness in himself. Knowing that he could be killed and how far he might go to protect himself. The chairman had to get a closer look, peering through the window on the backside of his desk with royal blue curtains.

It was a risky maneuver to reveal his shadowy visage in the peak-skyline of his office building. Trev appeared as a thumbnail of light from below, but vanished before any thug took notice.

Trevor saw an entourage of Mob members well past the north gate marching near a curve-linear roadway around his fountain, appearing as ants half-past to his looming skyscraper, being back-lit by one limo slowly tailing them.

"No, it's the Mobsters!" Trahern said with all his rage.

Trevor felt a grave ambition to let his longtime security guards know trouble is on the way. He quickly picked the computer's pixelated icon, revealing nineteen mini squares of security camera projections, hastily searching for any guards remaining in the complex. Noticing they dozed off he zoomed into their squares and grimaced to cover his mouth with bright eyes. He saw that Thomas at the front desk had a sword through his throat, and the other two, in lofty guard towers on adjacent corners facing the north wall with terraces thatched in a parapet, under the cover of grass-colored turrets. One was shot in the back of the neck while the other halfway bent hanging over the edge, with a hole in the forehead.

Trahern felt the darkness of the situation in his mind's recesses. He was either giving up, letting the police operate. Or, he would be the redemption his fallen security guards deserved, in his own mind's eye.

Trev grabbed the closest com off his desk's raiment to call his bodyguard Tyrone. Trevor kept his eyes close to the monitor as his associate did not pick up. He left a recording message: "Ty! Where are you...darn it! The Mob is attacking, Tyrone, there's a small army at my front door—"

The small squares on Trevor's monitor screen representing the lobby cameras blinked black one after one, until all four went out. Trevor started to pace back and forth, feeling that he was going to be raided any minute like a giant ant hill.

Trev's memory was illuminated once again when he heard merciless laser-fire. He looked above his tall wall safe, seeing a picture of his father to remember better days, but Trevor remembered the drone wouldn't stop shooting in Eddy's prophecy. Trahern wondered if it would come true.

But this time Trevor wouldn't stall...not this time. He quickly opened the fortified steel compartment reaching in to unsheathe its gun now regretting for slacking off when it came to the shooting range, Trev made sure it was securely cocked in its holster and the safety was off before heading towards the elevator.

One-handing the holster with his thumb over the hammer, Trevor rapidly pressed the elevator's terminal to come. Then he tightened the holster-belt about his waist, he looked above the gold plated streamlined decorations to see the delayed elevator was on the first floor. Someone is using my elevator, he thought.

Trevor decided to meet the elevator three floors down after it passed, taking the stairs. It would only save him seconds. He knew that Blake was in for the worst. He had to get down, if there was anything he could do...

Trev ran across hallways with designs of blacklions on each wall and a small white ceiling lamp five feet from the next.There was a pagoda framed before the exit to the first stairwell, reminding himof a time his great grandfather spent in China and the first place he met hiswife. The hallway of the next stairwell had a wide framed painting of the greatwall of China. The sixteenth floor for business management had soothing pinkfloral wallpaper, and that's where he came in, catching the elevator just underhimself.