Uncovering The Boss

CHAPTER 1: THRONES AND BULLETS

Twenty Years Later…

"On a scale of stupid to imbecile, how useless do you think you are?" I calmly asked my assistant. He visibly flinched, and I took a deep breath trying to calm my nerves

"Alex, listen, I'm a nice boss right? I pay great money, give easy tasks, and provide the required necessities for employees like you. Right?" I asked.

"Y-yes s-sir. Y-y-y-you're g-great sir." He answered while trying to avoid my deadly stare.

"Tell me" I began as I approached him slowly while keeping eye contact. "Do you know how I built my empire Alex? Do you know why I'm both envied and despised by most people?" I stood in front of his slouching form as he sat in front of my desk. I proceeded to sit on my desk so he looked up at me.

"I built this empire out of perseverance, skill, and calculated actions Alex. I never once made the mistake of losing." I whispered.

"I'm s-sorry for my mistake. I-my-I-I wasn't, they were. I mean I- It was-"

"STOP STUTTERING AND SPEAK UP!" I shouted. This i***t is testing my patience. I should just shoot his tongue and get a new assistant that has a brain at least bigger than a chicken's.

"Listen Alex. I kept you in this company for five years because despite your clumsy nature, you are competent for the majority of the time. However, you chose the wrong time to be worthless and make mistakes, Alex. The deal with this company isn't that big because I don't want it to be won in the first place. However, I wanted to see the competition by means of intimidation. I don't care that you actually lost it." He stared at me questioningly.

"Right now, what matters to me is that you were dumb enough to ALLOW that stupid CEO to refuse. Now he thinks he can insult me AND refuse me." I pulled his clipboard and threw it in the garbage can near my desk.

"I want you to get everything ready. Make sure that company loses every contract with every investor they have. I don't care if you need to pay our staff double. Make sure that company falls to the ground without so much as a penny left." I whispered as I looked him straight in the eye.

He nodded his head and ran out of my office. I pressed a button and my secretary came walking in seductively.

Another gold-digger with a rock for a brain I said to myself. I really need to get better employees that are at least half useful for the company and not just in bed.

"Veronica, get someone to post an advertisement for a new secretary. Make sure that person is the best of the best. Whoever that secretary is, I want her here in my office by tomorrow afternoon." I said without looking up.

"But sir-" she stuttered. "I-I'm your secretary. Did I do something wrong sir?" she said and began to walk towards my desk.

"You've served your purpose. As far as I can see, you're no longer the best since you can't even recognize your own mistakes." I said while looking at her dead in the eyes. "Your incompetence has reached its limits and I want you to find someone better than you. Now, you can pack your things after getting that ad up. HR will attend to you and give you your remaining salary. Now leave. I have a business to run."

She angrily slammed the door shut as I began to get comfortable on my seat and open my laptop. Being the top mafia boss of Italy’s underworld was difficult, but being a businessman was even more difficult. I still needed to keep up the façade of my Alpha and Omega group of companies for me to stay under the radar.

As I looked down at my laptop, I felt the urge to destroy it as I recalled Alex’s mishaps with one of the possible partners of Mondragon Inc. I tried my best to make sure the Mondragon empire will remain beneath me, and failing to get small companies is not good for my name. I know the Mondragon threatened that family into rejecting my offers.

If that old man thinks he can mess with me, then he's got a death wish. No one gets in my way.

I stared at the screen on my laptop and began to type the bastard's company's name "Mondragon Inc." I saw the gray haired man with a chiseled jaw and a powerful posture. A practiced smirk was plastered on his lips, and as I looked at the old man, he didn't look like he was sixty one. The photo made him look like he was in his late thirties.

His company was the only company that could rival mine both in business and in illegal trades. The underworld's past boss. The only thing that hindered him from maintaining his spot five years ago as the king, was because of his deteriorating health. Now that the old man is feeling better, he's trying to take back what I now have.

"You know what? You look like someone I knew in the past. I just couldn't figure out who. Your steel grey eyes are a splitting image of a man I once knew."

I kept hearing Señor Fuego Kane Mondragon's words the first time I met him five years ago. The head of the Mondragon empire radiated authority as if it was his truest form. I was a rising threat, and I knew that I was radiating the same threatening and authoritative energy as him.

Five years ago…

We were having a meeting at a restaurant after he offered to buy shares from my company. I was a rising threat, and I knew the head of the Mondragon empire wanted me to either submit to him or fail.

"I'll help you reach your goals, De Angelo. You are the same age as my heir, and merging our company would allow us to rule both the business world and the underworld." He said confidently.

"I know you have potential, and when you combine your potential with my son's potential, no one can stop the both of you."

bang! bang! bang! Three shots penetrated the glass window of the restaurant and hit Señor Fuego right at the hip, shoulder and abdomen. I was able to roll away from the window after the first shot, but Señor Fuego wasn't so lucky.

Both our body guards came in and covered us as bullets rained again. Two of my four guards died as they took all the bullets, while the remaining two were severely injured. Three of the five bodyguards of Fuego died and the remaining two continued to pull their boss out of the room.

No one caught the men who shot the bullets, and there were no clues as to who did it. I left with a scar from the bullet, but Señor Fuego left with his life on the line as his eyes held hatred while he looked me dead in the eyes.

I took a deep breath as I pushed back the memories of the day the Mondragon's empire started to crumble down. It was at that moment I proved that the heir to their empire was not nearly as good as me when it comes to building my empire. The true builder was Fuego Kane, and his son could never match the brilliance of his father whether in business or in running the underworld.

Veronica then loudly closed the door wearing nothing but her heels and stockings. The brainless woman is making my own head throb.

I looked straight at Veronica and ignored the body that she shamelessly displayed in front of me. It was beautiful, but a used toy with a chicken’s brain was not my type no matter how much it was offered to me.

"Veronica, what are you doing naked in my office? Put some clothes on right now and leave while I still have the patience and pity I rarely have." I said as she walked slowly towards my office table.

"But sir, you said I'm no longer the best, so I wanted to prove you wrong." She's now in front of me with her bare body within reach. I sigh and stare deep into her eyes.

"There is nothing to prove Veronica. As tempting as you are, I would rather have a fresh fruit that's like a chef's kiss than something that's already passed its expiration date." I said firmly.

She threw the nearest folder she could get her hands on and slapped my face hard. I wasn't fazed. Instead, I pressed the button under my table and two guards stormed inside my office, breaking the door in the process.

"What?! You called security on me?!" She yelled as she desperately tried to cover herself. The two woman guards were holding her coat and gave it to her as they kept dragging her out of my office.

"You were right about that gold-digger, Stephanie." I looked at the head of the guards standing still at my office. She looked unfazed by the scene of my naked secretary thrashing as the guards dragged her.

"You know boss, sometimes I hate how right I am, but I know you hate it more than I do since your pride could never handle it properly.”

I saw the teasing light formed in her eyes as I allowed myself to release a small and genuine laugh at my friend’s comment. She has been a friend of mine ever since I was a teenager, and we became close when we found out that we were both orphans and lived in different orphanages until she was adopted by a rich family when she was ten years old.

I was never permanently adopted unlike Stephanie was, and when I reached fifteen, I decided to run away. I found a job as a smuggler for the mafia family that adopted Stephanie. When her adopted father decided that he saw something great in me when I tried to kill one of his guards that tried to bully me in the training room, I was privileged to train with Steph and her trainer.

“You’re right, Steph, my pride can never handle the thought of being wrong and outsmarted by you. Imagine the boss of the top mafia in Italy was outsmarted by the security.”

“You’re right, boss. What would people say when they realize the great Michael De Angelo was actually just a nerd that was outsmarted by his head of security who was also a woman?”

We bickered for a few more seconds just so I could relax. I knew Stephanie allowed me to bicker with her as a way of helping me get my mind off all the mishaps that occurred today.

“By the way, boss, I found a few things that could be of interest to you. However, it’s best to discuss that tomorrow after the meeting tonight.'' She threw a black folder on my desk and waited for me to open it. I eyed the folder and instantly opened it.

“I found your brother Gabriel’s tomb in an abandoned cemetery in Corricella, Procida Island. Apparently, his body was found by the locals, and since no one bothered to file a claim as to who he is, he was buried in a cemetery for people who are unidentified.”

I was shaking as I read the police reports about a body found washed ashore, and an investigation that only lasted for a few months. The man had no records whatsoever, so he was buried, and the case was forgotten.

“It took a while to find him because he had no records, but I was able to identify him when I remembered that he had a dragon’s tattoo with a small crescent moon on his wrist. It was a good thing that you told me about him and his tattoos a few years back or else it would have been impossible to find him. We can visit him when everything is cleared, and I suggest talking about this after your meeting for today.”

I just nodded as Steph left to give me privacy. My heart dropped as I scanned the photo of a memory I buried deep in the past. My brother's decomposing corpse was laying on a table inside a morgue, and on his left hip, there was a small tattoo of a red dragon that I once adored. The tattoo that my brother had on his left hip was the same as the crest of the Mondragon empire.