Chapter 2. Him

People walked past him with their gazes held down, meekly greeting him. He only gave a curt nod to them and continued walking towards his lift. His domineering aura had them hurrying past him, avoiding eye contact at all costs. Their heartbeats became erratic in his presence, their blood-pumping organs almost jumping into their throats.

Nobody knew whose last day it could be at work; a small mistake could lead to a level of humiliation they never knew existed. After all, their CEO had his hawk-like, calculative eyes on everyone, but you never knew when he would be observing you. He reached his lift and hit the top floor button, where his office resided.

On reaching there, he saw his second-in-command, Yawar, standing in front of his office door, engrossed in conversation with someone, unaware of his presence. He rested his eyes for a few moments on the man whom Yawar was talking to before looking away. He went for his office door and walked past them. On noticing their boss had arrived, Yawar immediately dismissed the person and entered the office, the white door silver-plated with the CEO's name, IRTAZA HAIDER SYED.

The name he had built over the years through hard work, making the company progress by leaps and bounds. And so did his family name.

As soon as his second-in-command entered, he found Irtaza standing by the large glass window, viewing the whole city with his narrowed grey eyes. While looking out, analyzing cars that appeared like toy cars and busy city traffic, his mind was elsewhere. "Who was he?" he asked without turning back. His hands were inside his pockets.

"He was Asim, came here for some documents, nothing so important," Yawar immediately spoke.

He only gave a curt nod before facing Yawar and motioned for him to sit, which he did. "Work is done?" he asked after sitting on his black swivel chair, his voice holding authority.

"Yes, boss. May I?" Yawar inquired.

"Proceed."

Yawar nodded and stood, moving towards the left wall of the office, while Irtaza sat typing a message on his phone. Yawar clicked a hidden button inside the wall, and a secret door to a lift opened, revealing a badly beaten man with roped hands, gagged mouth, and blindfolded eyes.

Blood spattered all over his face, his nose broken, and his cheekbones marked with bruises. He was breathing slowly and heavily through his mouth. Another man stood beside him to support him, equally battered. His nose was smashed, and his eyes were almost shut with swelling. His arms were wrapped around his stomach as if holding it in, and he was beaten as badly as could be.

Yawar viciously snatched the beaten man's arm and followed him to the front desk. He made the man kneel in front of Irtaza and stood beside him. The other guard who was in the lift also came and stood on the other side of the beaten person. The blindfolded man knelt at the center while Yawar and the other man stood on each side of him in front of Irtaza's desk.

Irtaza placed his phone on the desk and steepled his fingers, observing him, who shivered. Both his subordinates could feel his steely gaze on them, making them as vigilant as they could be. They knew no details could be missed by their boss's eyes, and they didn't want to challenge him on that. He had always been apt, calculative, and sharp, with a specialty of not showing what was going on in his mind.

Eyes were windows to the soul. This sentence never worked for him, given the training he had received over the years of masking his emotions. And he was the maestro of that. While dealing with business, the mafia, or other matters, his eyes wouldn't betray a flicker of emotion in front of his men. That side of his was kept only for his family.

"Report," he commanded after a few moments of silence.

"Boss, he is Faizan, one of the most trusted men of the second-in-command of the Osmanis," the other man from the lift, whose name was Amaan, reported to Irtaza.

"We found him when we raided one of their warehouses, but he is too stubborn to give out any information other than that they also are going to raid some of our warehouses. Yet he did not spill out their locations," he further reported.

Irtaza signaled something to Yawar with his left hand, and Yawar left the room through the hidden lift. He took a deep, heavy breath and opened one of his drawers to take out his Beretta 92FS. Standing from his chair, the gun in his left hand, he took menacingly long strides toward his prey.

The heavy, sharp sounds of his boots striking against the marble floor enveloped the room in eerie silence. Sweat started to pop out of the kneeling man's face; he very well knew in whose territory he was. The country's most notorious mafia leader had him clutched in his paws, and he very well knew that by hook or by crook, he would soon be spilling out the information.

"So, you feel like keeping your mouth shut? Hmm?" Irtaza was now standing just in front of him, the tip of his gun caressing the man's face.

"I don't know anything," he feigned ignorance, yet his shivering body betrayed him.

Irtaza pressed the tip of his gun underneath his chin, lifting his face and removing the blindfold. The man's swollen eyes now stared directly into Irtaza's piercing grey ones as he asked again. "You won't tell us?" That look, that dark look in his eyes, paralyzed him in fear.

"Th...ey," Faizan stuttered, unable to form any coherent words and taking short, labored breaths. "They what?" Irtaza smirked and removed his gun from under his chin.

Faizan immediately lowered his eyes, not daring to meet his gaze. "Speak up," Irtaza's voice was deceptively calm.

"They are g..going to raid t..two of your penthouses, o...one near to the airport a..and one to the west...st of the seaport," he immediately spilled out the locations. Faizan knew that sooner or later, he would almost torture him to death for the sake of the information. "You should have brought him to me in the first place," Irtaza indirectly told Amman while eyeing Faizan skeptically.

"Will you leave me now?" Faizan asked, fear evident in his voice.

"Yes, I surely will, but first accept this little present of us," he said, amused, and turned the man's face with his handgun to the wall where the door for the lift was, and there came in Yawar with two bodyguards behind him, holding another badly beaten fellow.

Faizan's eyes widened in shock, but he immediately composed himself. "I do not know who he is," he told Irtaza.

"I did not ask you anything," Irtaza quickly reciprocated. "Now did I?" Yawar pushed the man forward, bringing him in front of Irtaza and making him kneel.

Irtaza placed the tip of his gun right above the second man's skull and looked straight toward Faizan.

"See what they made us do," he said to Faizan, nonchalantly, and after a short while, the whole room boomed with a gunshot. It was right into the skull of the other man.

A body lay dead on the floor, blood oozing out from the top of his head.

Faizan only shivered and kept looking toward the dead body in bewilderment.

"Do tell your boss we caught his fucking spy," Irtaza seethed.

He placed the sole of his shoe on his head, crushing the dead man's skull.

"And don't forget to take this shithole with you," he bent down and tightly grabbed a fistful of his hair and smashed his forehead right onto the floor.

"Tell your fucking boss to stop messing with me or he'll have hell to pay," with that, he smashed his head again, causing stars to invade his vision.

"Understood?"

"Y..yes, lea..vee me," he croaked.

"Yawar!"

Yawar immediately nodded and asked the other men to take these two, and they did so.

"He was lying," Irtaza told Yawar and Amman when they were left alone in the room.

"It was all planted; that man was only there to mislead us," he calmly said while sitting back and placing the gun on the desk.

"Sir, then why did you let him go?" his third in command, Amman asked.

Before Irtaza could answer his question, the realization hit him, and it dawned on him that it was all planned. The rivals planted that man to misguide them, but their boss beat them to it and made them think that they bought the lie Faizan told them.

He was once again greatly impressed by the level of intelligence his boss possessed and nodded to him, indicating he got his answers.

"These Osmanis are getting on my nerves; I want to wipe their existence as soon as possible. Yawar, you are going to keep tabs on their head, Khurram Osmani. Station your most trusted and skillful men around him. I want every single detail of his every activity." "Ok Boss, on it," Yawar nodded.

"And yes, you Amman, they soon will be attacking one of our penthouses. I want you to give a red alert to all the penthouses and ask their heads to tighten the security." "OK boss, consider it done," Amman affirmed.

"And that man Faizan, keep a check on him, and right after 3 days seize him again; I'll deal with him," he ordered. His elbow rested on the wooden desk, and his forefinger was pointed in a downward direction as he gave orders.

They both nodded.

"Boss, an issue needs your attention," Yawar spoke.

"What is it?"

"We granted a loan to a man of 20 million, but he died this morning, and his family is not able to pay the rest of the money back."

"Do what is necessary. 20 million is neither a big amount nor extracting 20 million from them is the issue at hand."

"OK, boss."

"And next time, lend money to someone worthy enough to pay back. I don't want this to happen again."

Yawar looked down in shame.

"Sorry boss, it won't happen again. Asim brought that man to me. He assured me that he was reliable."

"Nonetheless, it shouldn't be happening again," he instructed.

"Moreover, send some more men to the west side to help Moosa let go of the drug consignment easily."

Moosa was his first in command and his childhood friend. He was in charge of all big operations held under his Mafia, and this operation of shipping the drug consignment out of the country was the biggest issue for him at the moment. He would be getting a billion after the successful shipping of the consignment, but his rivals were creating obstacles to doing so. And the biggest enemy of his Mafia at the moment was the Osmani family. He wanted to make the operation successful as soon as possible and then deal with his rivals comfortably.

"Yes sir," they both said with unity.

"Now, you both may leave."

Amman left the room.

"Yawar," Irtaza called him when he was about to leave the room.

"Yes boss?" he turned around. Irtaza was twirling a pencil in his fingers as if in deep thought.

"I don't trust that man Asim. If he acts out of the way, then keep an eye on him, and if not, then still I don't want you to trust him completely," He directed and placed the pencil back. Yawar knew the sharp observing skills of his boss; he just had to look at somebody's face to judge him thoroughly. And now he was getting fishy about Asim, so it bothered Yawar, and he decided to follow Asim to gauge whether he acted suspiciously or not.

"Noted sir!" Yawar asserted.

"You may leave," he ordered and opened his laptop to start up for work.

Yawar was about to leave the room when suddenly an old man entered the office.

"Well, well young lad, I am certainly not going anywhere," his jolly voice spoke.

Irtaza immediately recognized the voice, and his head shot up. His grandfather was there. He did not expect him to visit his office.

"Assalam Alaikum Shabbir Uncle," (Greetings Shabbir uncle) Yawar greeted him.

"Wa alaikum salam beta, jeetay raho," (To you too. Live long) He replied.

After exchanging a few casual dialogues, Yawar left the office, while Irtaza stood up, his hands in his pockets, and observed his Dada (grandfather), wondering what emergency brought him to his office.

"Well, dada (grandpa), what brought you here today?" he asked when they were both alone.

"It's not the way to address your grandfather, you little donkey," He spoke while sitting on the swivel chair in front of the desk, and Irtaza sat back in his seat.

"Alright. I apologize. Now tell me," He smiled.

His grandfather was the only person to whom he was closer. And he was the one who passed his Mafia empire to his eldest grandson. In his time, his grandfather was also renowned as the most ruthless Mafia boss. And now he was holding the empire which his grandfather built over the years. Irtaza learned the skills, adroitness, and expertise of the Mafia world from him. Yet his grandpa was the only person with whom Irtaza had his frank and cheerful attitude.

"Huh, young lad, curious, are we?" the old man cheered. "But the first promise you would have to agree to what I will say."

"It depends on what you say," he argued back.

"First, promise me," his grandfather coaxed.

"No, first you tell me," he contended.

"If you aren't going to promise, then I am not going to tell, now it's up to you," his grandfather declared.

"Hmm, ok, fine, I promise," He said pensively.

"I'm gonna show you some pictures from which you have to select one," his grandfather announced merrily.

"For what?" he raised his brow.

"For you to marry my son," was his nonchalant answer.

With that, he popped out a few pictures of some girls, out of his pockets, and handed them over to him.

"Seriously, Grandpa, you came from the haveli (mansion) for this," he contended while taking the pictures and going through them.

Irtaza knew his grandparents were hell-bent on his marriage and overexcited whenever the topic was brought up, but he did not expect his grandfather to barge into his office and make him approve of one of the proposals at gunpoint.

"Yes, seriously, my son, now select."

"You can see it's in my workplace, not any marriage bureau, we can discuss it at home," he randomly turned the pictures. "I'm sorry son, I gave my word to your dadi (grandmother) that I will not be coming back until you choose a girl, so I am not going anywhere,"

Irtaza knew if his grandfather had made up his mind on something he would do it no matter what, so Irtaza decided to do as he said.

He looked at each of the pictures skeptically and after carefully observing each of them, he faked a scowl.

"Ouch old man, you hurt me. You do not know my taste," he dramatically said, smirking.

"If it's not according to your taste then show me the one according to your taste, my boy," he challenged.

"If I show you then promise me you're going to stop showing me girls and pestering me to marry," Irtaza's face suddenly turned all serious, and the little smile on his pink lips flew away.

"First show me the girl."

"First promise me," he coaxed.

"Like father, like son," the old man muttered under his breath. "Ok, I promise now show me!" he exclaimed.

Irtaza opened the drawer to his left side, took a picture out of it, and handed it to his grandfather. He took the picture from his grandson's hand and eyed it, observingly.

"Well, do you like her?" Irtaza questioned him, a foreign excitement on his face.

"Yeah, I certainly do, she is beautiful but....but she seems quite familiar, have we met before?" he asked with uncertainty.

"I do not know that you've met before, but you know her very well," Irtaza smiled, looking him in the eye.

"But first I shall make myself clear that I'll only and only marry her," he declared.

The old man knew if his grandson had his eyes set on something he would surely get it. It did not matter to him if it was seven seas away or if it was deep down the earth, if he wanted anything he would go to any extent for it. And now if he wanted to marry this girl, he would marry her with or without his consent. Because it ran in his blood to always get what he wanted.

"Ok, now tell me, who is she?" He asked seriously. "She is Mujtaba's uncle's daughter, Zahra,"