Heirs And Hunters

Chapter 11

Trigger Warning : Mention of Suicide, Depression and self harm. Readers discretion advised.

I V A N

The mounting of a million-dollar painting should have been left to be done by the professionals. But there aren't any other means to extinguish the time that has slowed down since little Miss Winter Lane confirmed our dinner plans that are scheduled for tonight. The hands of the analog clock couldn't be nearer to seven and yet so far. It's like living in another dimension, separated from the rest of the civilization where the rules of time have been remade.

Vicing the grip on the hammer I compress the brackets with each hit. Dousing myself in the labour, I fall into a rhythm of mechanical movements. Once I strapped the brackets by the frames I foot down from the step ladder and inspected the level at which I had hung the art. The indoor elevator rings, it doesn't deter my focus from observing the quality of the installation as I happen to know who the intruder might be.

"Another addition?" Matthias Fort's masculine utterance reverberates through my barren apartment.

"What's your take?" I turn around to deliver him a clean view. Though I can recite the exact phrase he was going to abide by.

"Not my field. Parade me a weapon and then I can talk. That's an art to me" Matthias adjusts the communication device in his suit jacket, a box of Chinese takeout hangs stiff from his free hand. I have known him for as long as I can remember my life. He was the young, devoted, and massively built security personnel from the Windsors unit. The giant bodyguard clouded over Astor and Aaron when they were kids. He would be there watching and supervising them when I would visit the Windsor for a play day, during the naive phase of childhood rebellion his presence would feel like a nuisance not realizing why his hands often went to the hilt he strapped his gun in whenever a possible danger approached us.

The brutish demeanor of his scared away the friends Aaron would attempt to make. He was and is the social gadabout in the mix. Soft at heart, sun in smile, and easily baffled at the prospect of violence. If there was one person among us who wouldn't have survived what had went down in the past- it was Aaron. Somewhere in the insufficient means of compassion that I bore, I am appreciative of the fact that he was able to save himself.

"I have plans for tonight" Eyeing the food that Matt unboxed atop the kitchen aisle I inform, which I should have done earlier through a call. But my mind had been hauntingly occupied by the slow passage of time to had been thinking of anything else.

Matts brows shot theatrically. He resumes piling up chopsticks and sauce cans with a smug smile, I have no doubt that he can finish off my portion with ease. His militant body can accommodate food beyond its capacity. The man is built like a tank.

"With a girl?" He is in his late forties. And the relativity to his age ends there. I heard him giggle once while bingeing through a sitcom.

"With a prospect" I say, he is somehow humored by it as he breaks into a beam. "Not the way you are deducing it" I add to nullify his foresight with a dead face.

"I don't want to know what you kids are up to these days. I am planning on an early retirement" he sighs, clipping in a shrimp between the chopsticks. I brim up with another form of prospect, he catches sight of the wheel in my head swerving as he shakes his head.

"No. No, I am sorry I can't work for you"

My brows dip in question. I grab a towel off the rack and wipe the sheen of sweat that's layered by my jaw and neck from the hours spent on carpentry.

"Why not?" I toss the towel into the laundry basket behind Matt. "You have worked for me before" My reasoning isn't convincing enough for him.

"You needed me back then. You were a kid and you needed someone to take care of after-" he swallows his bite and points the utensil at me "- you chose me to accompany you" he rearranged his original sentence. Everyone does it when they have to bring up my Mother in the conversation. Dancing around the gut of truth instead of being upfront. Not that it's their fault to remain cautious of a theme that's uncomfortable to speak of.