What Happens in Vienna {ManxMan}

CHAPTER 1 (Carter)

I used to have a brother. Well, a step brother, but he was a brother nonetheless. Someone I considered my best friend, the one who would stay up all hours of the night with me if I had a bad dream, the one who would help me with my homework when I was having trouble, the one who would watch the silly kid's movies with me despite how he wanted to watch a horror movie, and if we decided on a horror movie then he would let me hide against him because it was too scary for my little mind.

Yes, I used to have a brother, but these days I could hardly remember him. The warm smiles and the hand that ruffled my hair, the annoying kisses against my cheek in public just to embarrass me, and the insistence that he hold my hand so I didn't get lost in the crowds, gone. He was my whole world, but now he was a memory in a photo album, sealed away as a picture in the locket that hung around my neck.

My brother didn't exist anymore. The man sitting at the table beside me was nothing but a monster, and I was horrified in myself that it had taken me this long to realize it. After everything he had done to the world, and to the people closest to him, I always told myself he was just sick, that it would get better, I just had to stay with him and support him and he'd go back to what he used to be, but I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong.

Bay Donovan Blu was sitting in his "throne" as usual, just to my left, and across from me were the other two pawns, Vinet Ivanov and Rupert de Vois. There were a few foot soldiers and scientists sitting at the table as well, but I couldn't care less about them. Just a bunch of extras Bay would shoot without a second thought the moment it struck him to do so.

There was a fifteen-year-old boy kneeling on the ground between Bay and myself, and I couldn't stop my eyes from wandering to him occasionally. He'd been there for around two years if memory served, still defiant as ever, with hair black as night and eyes the color of dark gold. His skin was pale and scarred, a sleek metal collar secured around his neck with a panel on one side as the only way to remove it.

His name was Demitri Inou, kidnapped by us when he was thirteen years old as a political gamble, revenge against his father, who refused to work with us. His head was bowed, hands in fists on his lap, and seemed to be struggling to contain screams while Bay talked. I couldn't blame him, sometimes that man's voice was like nails on a chalkboard. Lifting my eyes up I looked over at Bay himself, his dark hair slicked back as usual to show his dark listless eyes and the mad grin on his lips, happily going over the latest plans he had set up.

"Vienna," he was saying, tapping the table in front of him with one finger, "A warehouse near the size of a shopping mall filled with weapons is what our contact has revealed. Smack in the middle of Vienna, sitting pretty for us next to a lovely mansion."

"Do we know who lives there?" Vinet asked, and Bay shook his head with an exaggerated sigh.

"Unfortunately not. All we could deduce was that it is protected by a small military. Of course, why else would they have a warehouse of weapons at their disposal?" he tapped the table again before leaning back in his seat, snapping his fingers at the boy on his knees, prompting him to lethargically move up and crawl closer to the chair, his eyes empty of emotion, "So, Carter," Bay addressed me as he tangled his fingers into Demi's hair, "I have a mission for you."

Great, a mission to Vienna is exactly what I needed right now. The sarcastic comment was on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed it down before it could slip out and gave Bay a short nod to show I understood and was waiting for further instruction.

"You will be flown to the very outskirts of Vienna, left with the bare minimum of supplies, whatever you need to survive until you call us back. What I want from you is infiltration. Find the warehouse, get inside, get me a head count of both soldiers and weapons, maybe a few samples of what they may offer. I would like to know who lives in the mansion, who runs everything, names, status, weaknesses, anything that could get us into Vienna so we can take them out and take the weapons. Understood?"