Moral Degeneration

My stomach grumbled. “Ugh, I forgot the pizza,” I said. 

“Shutup,” Beatrice said as she chewed her nail. We were walking toward the elevator in the lobby of the apartment building. “You better be fucking right about this or I’m fired.” 

“You just talked about quitting,” I said. 

“I wasn’t serious,” she said. “I-I-I-fuck-I don’t know.” She was getting cuter the more frantic she became. Most people would have either run away, attacked me, or gone to security. I felt she really did see some opportunity here and was willing to risk it. 

We stepped into a new elevator. “What floor does he live on?” I asked.

“2 above mine,” she said with a sigh. I scanned the keycard and punched the numbers. The elevator dinged and we began to rise. I was getting more excited with every floor that we went up. 

“You seem calm,” I said.

“I’m not!” She spat.

“You are,” I said. “Your heart rate is barely up.”

“How the hell can you- nevermind,” she said. Letting out a long breath as she watched the numbers above the door go up and up. “I guess this isn’t the first time I’ve broken into a boss's home.”

“Oh yeah, do tell,” I said. 

“This city is cutthroat,” she said. “Fucking old boss of mine humiliated me. Took me a couple of years but I broke into her office, found out she’d been embezzling a lot. Hiding my gains and switching them as her own.” 

“Ouch,” I said. “What did you do to her?”

“Blackmailed the shit out of her and forced her to step down,” Beatrice said. 

 

“Gotta say, sounds pretty hot,” I admitted. 

“What the hell,” she said. “What are you?” 

“An adrenaline junkie,” I said. “I love a woman willing to get her hands dirty.” 

She blushed, but her hands continued to fidget. “I seriously have no idea who you are.”

“We did meet yesterday,” I reminded. 

“Oh my god. And I let you onto the top floor of my office.”

“And in your home, and let me cum inside you, like a lot,” I said. “You barely know me.”

“I will fucking end you,” she warned, and I believed her. But it only made me like her more. I was on her in an instant. My hands holding hers, my lips were on hers. She fought me for a moment but was then into the kiss. Moaning in my mouth, unfortunately that was when the bell dinged.

Pulling away as fast as I was on her I stepped out of the elevator. Instead of a hall we were met with a small room. It was most likely for deliveries, but there was a door. Again a small black box acted as the lock. I pulled out the keycard I found in my dad’s desk and it dinged while the door opened. 

Inside was as I expected. The same aesthetic as Beatrice’s office, the hard wood floors and furniture were the same colors, but everything was simply more. The ceiling was taller, the windows were crystal clear, an actual fireplace by the balcony I let out a long whistle. 

 

“Ever been up here?” I asked Bea.

“Christmas party once,” she said, stepping out with me. 

“Any idea what is where?”

“We weren’t allowed through that door,” she said, pointing.

I nodded and headed for that door. Nothing was locked and there were no cameras inside. I began a complete scorched earth rundown of the apartment. I pulled drawers out of cabinets, threw art pieces to the floor, moved rugs, ripped books off shelves, cut into mattresses. The last one I did just for fun, and didn’t provide anything. But after a good 3 hours I felt confident we had it all. 

 

Splayed on the dining room table were 6 guns. 2 antique, 2 automatic rifles, and 2 pistols. 12 complete sets of jewelry. By sets I meant some custom job where they made necklaces, rings, and matching earrings for whoever they were for. There were dozens of expensive art pieces that I wasn’t going to bother stealing. 

 

I found about 2 dozen nice watches. I pocketed quite a few of those, but left the really expensive ones. There were gold and silver bars as well, but that stuff was heavy so I skipped those. The best of course was the cash. 2 duffle bags worth I guessed about $500,000 in total, doubling my wealth again. I was already planning what businesses to buy next. I would really have to step up my laundering if any of this was going to see the light of day. 

 

“What the hell,” Beatrice said as she finished reading the report on me. “You were locked in a cabin for 14 years?”

“There about,” I said, ignoring her. I was trying to decide which watch I wanted most to wear. One was a rolex with all the gears showing. The other was a nice copper color that was very unique. It drew the eye to it. I decided on the copper one and put it on. 

 

“Are you seriously stealing all this?” She asked, looking at everything on the table. I stood up and began throwing the jewelry boxes in the duffle bags. 

“Just this,” I said when I was done. I decided on about half of his material goods. The expensive pieces were the art so I wasn’t touching that. But the money and jewelry was mine. They came with fancy authentication certificates as well, so it was a nice score. “Want anything?”

“No! I still haven’t found what I need to not get fired!” She yelled. 

“Oh check the 2nd stack there,” I said pointing at one of the many dossiers in front of her. 

She began to leaf through it then slowed down as she read it all. “This is a dossier on Jacob,” she said. “Why would he have this on himself?”

“It’s old. So maybe someone used it to blackmail him,” I said. “But check out his education. He doesn’t have any schooling. That doctorate from Yale? Complete fabrication. He paid for it.”

“Fuck me,” she said amazed. “That could kill our stock if it got out.” 

“Exactly. You’re holding all the blackmail you need to keep your job,” I said. 

 

“This is like…kill me worthy of blackmail,” she said, dropping it like it was a venomous snake. “Fuck me, Russ! This is-shit.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “He will be so pissed at-” I stopped talking as the elevator dinged. Bea and I both stiffened staring at it. The elevator near the wall our eyes widened as my hand went to my gun. The door from the vestibule opened. A man and woman walking in, they were kissing heavily as the girl kicked her shoes off and began to disrobe. 

“Daddy’s home,” I said with my biggest smile causing the woman to yell and the man to turn to me. Everyone had a deer in the headlights look as they focused on me. “We meet at last.” I stepped away from the table, walking over to him. He was as I expected. Taller than me. He had bags under his eyes so he was tired. Still in a business suit he had a briefcase in hand that dropped as he recognized me. 

 

“Sorry for making myself at home,” I said. Jacob moved for his pocket and pulled out a phone. I pulled out my gun as he dialed a number, leveling it at his head. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” I said. He froze, his eyes widening in shock as he stared at the gun. “You calm your tits,” I told the woman I guessed was his secretary. “I won’t kill you, but it’ll be a bitch to go to work with a limp, trust me. Now, you and I have a little talking to do.” My eyes were all for my dad. He really did look like old me. I chuckled at how scared he was. I doubted I’d kill him, but I had been tempted if things didn’t go my way. With his reaction to the gun, I felt they would. “Now, sit,” I ordered, waving the gun toward the large table. 

 

He noticed Beatrice then, and all my loot. His eyes only getting bigger I kept him a few feet away as I followed him with the gun. “You too,” I ordered the secretary. She squeaked and moved. 

“Jacob, what’s going-” She tried to say but he hissed at her. 

“Quiet,” he ordered. “I’ll handle this.”

“Yeah, you should be quiet. Just watch the show,” I said. I walked over to Bea as they sat down at the end of the table. Picking up my own dossier I brought it over and threw it on the table in front of him. “You have quite the information on me. I always wondered why my mom was so paranoid she bought a place in the middle of nowhere and hid me away. Looks like you were planning to take me from her when I was still breastfeeding.”

There had been a lot of information, but I was great at scanning. “Kind of hard to be pissed at her now. She was already paranoid as fuck, and your people only made it worse.” 

“Russ…” He said.

“Yes?” I asked. He didn’t say anything. “Fine, I’ll continue. Here I am in DC. Less than 12 hours after they heard about me, you already had people watching my every move.” I opened the dossier to show my picture. I must have been rather weak to not notice all the people tailing me. “Here I am at the hotel, meeting Audrey, shopping. Here’s my favorite. Putting on those stupid tight clothes boys wear.” I scoffed. “Look, me on the plane. Then my friend Ry and I. She’s fine by the way. She was there for both attempts at my kidnapping. Fucking amateurs. Let a 14 year old get away. And you hired the same people for the 2nd attempt?” I laughed. 

 

I opened it further. “This time they were smart though. I gotta give them that. But still they underestimated me, as you did. I mean, I’ve been walking around your office, and tearing apart your home while you were fucking miss daisy dukes here.” I gave the secretary a wink. She was less scared now, her eyes on the pictures of me as she put together who I was. 

“And my brother,” I said. “I’ll try to get in touch with him, but looks like you stopped caring after you shipped him off to where? Dubai?” My dad didn’t answer. I pulled my chair back out. My gun resting next to me I stopped pointing it at him. For so long I had wanted to do this, it was disappointing to see how scared he was. He really wasn’t as big and strong as I pictured. Commanding people to kidnap me from his fancy office. No, this guy was not what I had hoped. 

 

“What do you want?” He finally asked. 

“Answers,” I said simply. “Why? Why take me?” He and I locked eyes. It took time, but he answered. It wasn’t what I expected. 

 

“Because it was how it was done to me,” he said. I thought I heard him wrong, but he continued. “I was taken from my mother at 1 year old. Like your brother was. Shipped off to South Africa. No explanation. Just told when I was old enough that the people raising me weren’t my parents. It…wasn’t until I was 16 that they told me. My real dad was John Hodgins. I didn’t know who that was. He came to see me a few weeks after that. Said he was glad I made it. He explained that I was part of a deal he made. I would impregnate the women there. They would become more diverse. And if I proved myself worthy, and I could make it back to America, he would teach me how to take over for him.” 

I shook my head, fighting laughter. I hadn’t expected that this man had been through the same thing. I wanted to think on it more, but he continued. 

 

“At first I hated him,” Jacob said. “But I grew up in poverty there. I worked my way up slowly. All with the drive to get out of that hell hole. Eventually I bought a ticket out of there only to find out I couldn’t leave. The authorities there had me marked. I was stuck there, so I had to become more resourceful. It took a few years but I got out of Africa. Saw the world in fact. And when I came to America, my father accepted me with open arms.” 

“Shit,” I muttered. “You know, you’re making it pretty hard to hate you, right?” I asked. The old man had the nerve to laugh. I shook my head again. “Why though? Why do it to us?” 

“Because this is how it’s been done since the Pox started,” Jacob said. “It started with your grandfather. He was an orphan in Ireland in the 20s. He made it up from nothing. He always felt that it helped make him who he was, so he wanted the same for me. We Hodgins’ are business men. We only want the best. If you can’t start at nothing and work your way up, then you’re worthless.”

“Fucking secret society decoder ring bullshit is what it is,” I said. “Who the fuck asked you where I should live my life? Huh? 14 years I was trapped in a cabin. You saw.” There were pictures from inside the cabin. A diary, apparently my diary that had been hidden under the floorboards. I didn’t have the heart to read it. 

“I’m sorry that happened to-” 

“I don’t want to hear it,” I said. “Where? Where were you sending me?” I asked. 

“The first time?” He asked. “Russia. The second, China.”

“Goddamn,” I said standing up. “How much was it worth?” 

 

“What?”

“How much to send me over?” 

 

“It wasn’t about the money,” he said. “It was about the challenge.”

“Life is already hard enough and you’re making it harder. Fuck dude. I saw the list of the women you’ve been with. Yeah, I know you keep a list. Have you ever checked in on one of your daughter’s out there? They have it way harder than I would. This is a fucking man’s world still, despite there being so few of us. Women get stepped on and forced to work their asses off to try and skimp by a living. And still they do it, still they give their all to have a kid so they can have someone to go home to. But no, all you care about are the boys.”

“What-”

“I’m saying you’re the fucking problem,” I said. “You were looking to have me shipped off somewhere for some sick initiation test. I tell you right now, I’m out of the running. I have no interest in you, your life or anything you have to teach. I’m breaking the cycle of this stupid game, and I expect to never see or hear from you again.” 

“Russ…” He said again. 

 

“What?” I asked. “You keep saying that name like you’re going to say something. Say it.”

“I-you’re my son,” he said. 

“Fuck if I am,” I said as blatantly as I could. “You didn’t raise me. You didn’t know if I even lived until a few months ago. You are nothing to me. I could kill you right now and not lose a wink of sleep.” Jacob’s eyes darted to the gun. “I am not going to….but if you send one more squad after me. If I catch a whiff of anyone following me at any time and I find out you were involved. I will march here and kill you personally. It took me less than a fucking week to enter your place of business, go to your home and do whatever the hell I want. You can move. You can try and hide from me. But I will find you. This isn’t a warning. Not some bluff. This is a fact. I will not give you another chance if I see you again. So you sure as shit better stay out of my way.” 

I picked up the 2 duffel bags filled with my loot. Tossing the gun in one. “This is my inheritance by the way. I hope I never see you again,” I said and walked away. Angry at the whole situation I really wanted to hate the guy, but he was simply the outcome of the actions of those before him. 

 

“Bea!” I yelled as I got into the elevator. I heard her curse then run over to the elevator. Getting inside she eyed me nervously. “Your floor or what?” I asked. 

“Huh?”

“Are we going to your floor, or what?” I asked.

“M-mine,” she said. I nodded and pushed the button. It beeped an error. Scanning her keycard she pushed her floor numbers and we went down. The door opened soon and I turned to her. 

“Do you want me here? Or are you going to try to salvage your job?” I asked.

“I-I-don’t leave,” she said, grabbing my hand. I stepped out and we headed to her condo together. Dropping the duffle bags down on the floor I let out a sigh as I moved to sit on one of her couches. Facing the city through the glass bay windows I tried my best to calm down. 

“Are you alright?” Beatrice asked. 

 

“I’m probably thinking too much about it,” I admitted. “I just really thought he was…more.”

“More what?” 

“More like me,” I said. “He was so…frail.”

“Ha,” she said, moving closer. She sat down, her body facing me. “I guess the office is more his home.”

“Yeah. Papercuts all he has to worry about,” I said. My hand moved over to her, grabbing her ass and pulling her to me. She let it happen. Her chest pushing into me as she fell against me lightly. “I’m so sorry for dragging you into this.”

“No you’re not,” she said. “You would have done it to someone else anyway.”

“Probably,” I agreed. “Still…I’m sorry.”

“I really don’t know if you have anything to be sorry about,” she said. “I kept this and all.” She showed me the dossier on my dad. 

“Careful with that,” I said. “He has-”

“I think he’s more scared of you than me,” she said. “I’ll just tell him I have your baby and he can start shaking again.”

I laughed loudly. Smiling up at her. Our smiles disappeared slowly and she moved down to me. Our lips touching the kiss lingered and it became more heated. Her legs moving to straddle mine she moaned in my mouth as I began hiking up her skirt. 

 

“What the hell have you done to me?” She mumbled as my face buried in her neck. 

 

“Made you mine,” I said. She moaned louder, pulling my shirt up and trying to undo my pants. 

 

I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but this felt right. I had a lot more money now. I’d confronted my dad. There was nothing keeping me in New York any longer. I doubted my dad would make a move against me, but he knew what would happen if he tried. I wasn’t sure what my future with Bea would bring. I could hope. Despite what I said, I wanted everything my dad owned. This would all be mine whether he liked it or not, but not yet. 

 

I had to be ready. I had to get my own fortune. Then I would swoop in and take it all. He was a weak man. I knew that now. He would fight and pay others to deal with me, but that was the difference between he and I. He paid people to do his dirty work. I did my own. 

 

I thrust up into Bea and her drenched cunt was what I needed right then. Her voice squeaking in my ear she began to rock back and forth on me. Just as desperate to have me as we consummated a successful heist. At least I hoped it was successful. Tomorrow would tell.