Discord was sitting in his office looking over various reports. The phrase, "the banality of evil" did not even begin to cover the tedium of what he faced. It's been said that running a criminal enterprise was no different than running a legal one. That was wrong; it was worse! Like any business he had overhead: employees, storage, transportation, and all that other fun stuff to worry about; but he also had to cover a lot of it up. You couldn't just have a spread sheet saying he moved this much coke, this much pot, took in this much from prostitution, trafficed this many people, paid off this many cops, and so on. Also, unlike regular businesses, the head of HP wasn't trying to kill the head of Dell or Ford wasn't kidnapping GM employees. At least he didn't think so - who knew these days.

The one silver lining was he was almost retired. True, crime bosses didn't retire exactly the same way other CEOs did; but there came a time when those who lived long enough, did step aside and name a successor. His time was almost here. He had given himself one last year and then he was out. He was tired. What he did had become boring and predictable. The wild, wooly days of the 80's and 90's were gone. Also all the new groups coming up, the vulgarians, as he thought of them; had no class, no style. Thugs had their place as enforcers and the lower echelons; but not at the head. Crime went from being chess to tic-tac-toe.

Unlike other syndicates, Discord had no plans to keep his running after he left. Instead of picking and grooming a successor (he had no children so a familial dynasty was out as well), he was simply going to "sell off" his business. The English mafia would take over east coast operations and the Japanese would get the Pacific. Those were the two who still had class. Even the Russians weren't as cerebral as they used to be. The Italians were marginalized, and the Latin Americans, well he didn't even want to go there.

All that was off in the distance though. Now he was still here, still in charge, and still had to read these god awful reports. So enough day dreaming and back to it.

Just as he was starting to get back into the proper head space, a knock came at his door. "I'm busy," he said flatly; unsure if he was relived or annoyed by the distraction.

A voice, Rocko's it sounded like, came back, "Boss, um, it's really important."

Discord sighed but he was intrigued. There was a fear in his voice that caught his attention. Rocko came over from one of the Italian gangs Discord had pushed out as he was taking over. Rock was the perfect blend of thug and gentleman. Strong and extremely violent when needs be, but also a thinker as well. He wasn't rash or overly angry. It's why he had chosen to bring him aboard in the first place. So for him to sound afraid, meant something.

"Enter," he said as flatly as the first sentence.

Rocko, Ryan, Henry, and Phillip walked in. All four were top lieutenants. For all of them to come in together added even more to the seriousness of whatever situation they were bringing to him.

"We have a problem." Rocko said.

"Obviously," Discord responded annoyed. "So will you stop wasting my time an just tell me what it is?"

They all looked at one another nervously when Henry spoke up. "We have, one of our girls, hookers, is dead." Henry was in charge of the sex trade. He kept an eye on who was where and did what with whom.

Discord's face went slack with disappointment. "That's it? We always have dead hookers. That's what they do. They have sex for cash and get murdered. Last I checked, there was no shortage on women, so we'll be fine. I hope there's more too it than that."

Once again they all looked at each other before Henry spoke again. "She was eaten. Devoured. Alive."

"Hmm. Well that's a new one; but still, eaten, dismembered, dissected, strangled, who cares. I still don't see the need to interrupt me like this."

"Show him the picture." Henry told Rocko. Rocko just stood, shaking his head.

"What picture?" Discord asked even more annoyed.

Rocko took his phone out of his pocket, fiddled with it until he found what he wanted, and handed it to Discord.

Discord looked at it and knew exactly why this was so important. It was a picture of a wall with DISCORD, I WOULD HAVE WORDS WITH YOU, written in blood. "Well," he said as he handed the phone back. "Not very subtle, are they?"

"And not the first. I mean, it's the first for one of ours, but two other bodies have been found, eaten, just like this one over the past week." Phillip said.

"Oh yes. I remember hearing something about a local butcher being murdered."

"And an old lady, down town." Rocko added. "That was about three days ago."

"Hmm." Discord wasn't shaken. In fact he was actually becoming excited. Rivals kidnapping and chopping up your associates had become somewhat normal these days but this didn't fit that paradigm. No, this was something new, novel. It reawaken those old feelings of anarchy and fun in him. But he remained cool and calm in his demeanor. "Where did it happen?"

"At one of our hotels." Henry said. He brought up the laptop he had been carrying. "I have the security camera footage cued up."

Discord owned and ran several hotels and motels. They were both great ways to launder money through legitimate businesses and they also provided safe places for him to run some of his not so legitimate businesses. All were monitored inside and out with cameras. Some in plain sight, most hidden. They served to protect his assets as well as provide potential blackmail material.

Discord nodded and Phillip put the laptop on his desk. He started playing the footage. "Here. A white Merc pulls up and a woman gets out with our girl," Henry said.

"You know I can see right?" Discord said irritated. "I can just watch it. I don't need you to provide a running narration."

Henry nodded and step back.

The outside camera footage showed the women enter a room with their girl. Next it cuts to a split screen. On the right, it's just the white Mercedes; waiting. On the left, it's video of inside the room. The two women banter a bit then the "customer" undresses. Their girl does likewise and lays on the bed. Some more talk happens as their girl caresses herself. The other woman crawls onto the bed, on top of their girl and then static. The image on the right jumps as well but quickly regains focus.

"What happened?" Discord asked.

"That's it," Phillip said, "we don't know. All the cameras inside the room fried out at the exact same moment. Same with the TV, clock, everything electrical. It was like a giant electrical pulse took everything out. Even some of the stuff in the adjacent rooms. Even the parking lot cameras were affected a little bit as you saw."

Discord kept watching. Henry came over and speed up the footage to where the other woman came out. Discord raised his eyebrows in surprise. It was the same woman, only about 10 years younger looking. "Most interesting," he said in hushed, awed tones.

"Now you know why we're all here," Rocko said. "So what do you want us to do?"

"Nothing," Discord simply said. They all gasped in surprise as he watched the footage of the white Merc driving off. "I know that car, I know who owns it, I know where he lives." Discord smiled a broad, wicked grin. "No, you don't do anything, I'll take care of this personally." Discord got up. "You are all dismissed."

"Are you sure about this boss?" Rocko asked in shock.

"Oh my yes." His smile increasing. He turned and looked back at the laptop. "Something about that woman, something about her, something's familiar. I can't put my finger on it, but I do know if she wants words with me, she shall have words with me."

Author's Notes:

This is actually only half of the chapter I was planning on writing. But I got a really bad headache tonight so I decided to cut it down so I could get to bed and hopefully get rid of this headache. Hopefully you still like what I did.