Mark will definitely be mad.

I just knew it. Every part of the job with El's client will get on his nerves not to mention that El did not even include him in the discussion.

I came back home that day at 9, had dinner with Mark then went right off to sleep. I did not like to hide anything from him but I needed some preparation to convince him.

I went home late last night. Which messed up my sleep routine slightly but it will be so worth it when I get that diary.

Mike will probably throw a tantrum about the whole thing but I shall appease him with how the job will go down. I am rather curious as to who our mysterious employer is.

I woke up today feeling slightly out of sorts. I did my daily morning routine of shower followed by light exercise. I planned to add green tea to breakfast. This should get me to feel myself again.

I headed to the dining room and as I sat it seemed to me all too silent. So I put on a podcast of the name the Magnus archives. As I ate breakfast I listened to it, it was a rather interesting horror podcast. As the voice actor had a rather soothing voice coupled with an intricate web of well thought out plot and events, it all made up a great podcast.

I felt myself thinking better after finishing breakfast. Today's podcast got me thinking, maybe I should set a contingency plan in case this client had more unbecoming intentions. It seemed like I will cash in some favors as a precaution.

I set to work in preparation for the job. I planned to discuss the details again with Mark so I had no need to go over the details for now.

However, some essential steps were in order. I needed to make the maids prepare another chair in the torture chamber as well as some extra tools. Also adding a hidden camera for any false claims thrown my way by the client. Finally, I needed to prepare a new route into the torture chamber for secrecy.

While I mulled over my thought, I looked at the clock on the opposite wall in the dining room noticing it was already time to get up and start my reading routine. Time is so important to live a regulated life. Especially when planning your day with routines and time.

I called the maids to clear the table. I got up to go to the library. There was no need to go into the study, for today was my casual reading day. I might read books regarding poetry or philosophy. A mental break from the heavy reading regarding my two obligatory reading, torture, and stocks.

I took the door leading to the garden. I marveled at the beauty of the weather today, noting to myself that a stroll would be fantastic. I walked for about three minutes then I arrived to a separate villa that contained the hidden library in the basement.

If that was a normal library, there would be no need for such theatric secrecy but I had quite the book collection. Some were bought in secret auctions others are originals while some are quite the irregularity. I had two books handwritten by Galileo himself, supposedly would be sent to his apprentice but it never made it there.

I went to the villa, it was the residence of the butler, maids, the cook, and the guards. Not even Sherlock Holmes himself would guess that my personal attendant lived on top of a literal gold mine.

Obviously I would not declare it to the public that I was going to the basement. There was an elevator in what was disguised as an electric box. It had an iris scan security measure in place. I proceeded to take the elevator down, into the library.

Since I travel a lot and I have several estates, this one is a tier two library. A tier one library is hidden in a secret location, its interior could rival ancient Alexandria’s library in its heyday. Tier one is the size of a stadium and had permanent guards just for it.

Tier two libraries on the other hand had select few unique books and duplicates of other rare books I have, as well as some possibly more mundane generic books. The unique ones I usually carry with me whenever I travel from an estate to another.

While this library is not the best, it had a comfy lazy boy chair with well-positioned lights for optimum reading. The cherry on top is the book holder and the right temperature to read in. I picked a philosophy book regarding some insights of Socrates that was not as popular as his other works and started reading.

An hour later I was roused from the book as my phone rang. Mark was calling, seemed like his job did not go as smoothly as he claimed it would. I picked up.

“I am betting you will be late.”

“I hate your smugness but you are right. The whole thing went to shambles, a double-cross happened on us and now it seemed like we became the loose end for a change. I should be back home within the week. You better prepare the dungeons by then, if I can I am getting one of the clients back.”

“No worries, all will be ready. I have a surprise for you when you come back.”

“Sure thing, I will avoid dying to see what you classify as a surprise.”, he ended the call after that.

It seemed like I will have more time to burn than anticipated. Thankfully the book-job as I call it will only start the next month. Both sides are preparing suitably for it.

I felt a slight anticipation for the day after tomorrow. I had a job with a frequent client. I just love the stories this client’s guest has, easily one of the top five of the stories I get from the chamber. I always write down all the details after every job, sometimes I write it down the day after during my morning routine.

Regardless, I continued reading the book I was on then I took a stroll in the garden as I went over how the next job will be like. It seemed to me that I will need to recheck my schedule to make time for the book-job.

***

Two days later..

I ate lunch after work, not at the villa but with colleagues. Some kind of celebration for an investment well spent. I like an outing every now and then with common people who I consider friends. The food was not to my liking but the company made up for it, my only issue is they chose the worst day of the week to go out.

I excused myself earlier than usual, they know better than asking why. I just love the kind of understanding friends who allow you to keep the mystery of yourself. The curious type of friends is welcomed by some but not me.

The roads were not as congested as it was in the afternoon, it took me 30 minutes to get home. I went right into the shower, checking to see how much time until the client arrived. It would be 3 hours later, he always came at midnight.

I got dressed in a regular black suit with black shirt and red tie, the standard getup for the torturers. The red tie had the insignia of our house, the Crucintum, while the suit had the insignia of the torturers.

The Crucintum insignia is a red rose, the stem was depicted as a black greenish scalpel while the petals were blood red and from them dropped 3 red drops. The shade of red of the tie contrasted with the red of the petals and the 3 drops, the red were in shades of gold, blood, and purple. An explosion of color quite literally.

The torturer’s insignia is a gavel and a serrated dagger crisscrossing each other, each is at a diagonal rather than forming an actual Christian cross. The gavel is brown while the dagger is silver and their backdrop is dark gold. A sign for truth-seeking by all means. I would wager that this is not the original insignia but it looked as such since the 1700s.

Tradition must be upheld. That is their excuse for the matching outfits and insignias. In my opinion, it was all about the history of the family since back then the people brought in knew the families or at least heard of them so the insignias brought fear thus making the job easier.

After I got ready I headed to the garage where my butler and half a dozen guards were ready to accompany me to the chamber. Ensuring one’s safety is a must, that is my thing. I do not care much for tradition but in this line of work, if a torturer is captured, their end is never good.

We took 2 separate black SUVs with no plates to the entrance of the chamber. Every city had a hall for chambers and every family of repute would have one named after them. This chamber is for their use and in some cases, it is rented out between each other but only to very close allied ones.

Every chamber had two entrances, one from the hall and another from a secret place only known to the family. It is rare for a private business that anyone who owns the chamber would go in from the hall. It is also impossible for the family to accidentally book same room same time.

Since there can only be one official torturer in business in one city from each family. This rule was established for a security reason, imagine if a location was compromised and there was an attack losing all the eggs in the basket and the extermination of the family would be quite the loss.

The entrance was from a furniture warehouse, the warehouse was directly controlled by my family. We all went down an elevator that had its entrance disguised as a wardrobe. All the secrecy is important for as many allies as we had at least double their numbers were enemies.

The elevator led into a tunnel with fluorescent lights. Everything was painted white which makes the three black doors on the right even more striking. There is a holding cell in one room, a waiting room for the clients in another, and the last had the torture chamber. The entire setup is called a chamber as back then there was only a torture chamber and the clients would wait elsewhere but for some reason, that was the setup these days.

The guards distributed themselves, two at the elevator, one at each door, and one following me around. A professional had once advised this plan for the best security detail.

The warehouse staff had notified me that the client came early and they made him comfortable in the client room. I went right to the room and was greeted by him. Antoine the antique, a fun guy as an ally, a nightmare as an enemy. He owns an auction house and an antique shop, of course, that was on the surface he actually deals in drugs, not the addictive kind but the kind that organisations like mine would need.

He was one of the earliest clients I met, we just clicked thanks to our interest in antiques. He liked collecting very strange belongings of historical figures while I collected their books, we had a few deals together.

He was a bald Spanish guy, he small eyes, a hook nose, and thin lips. He always looks like he had an evil plan in mind. He was thin and dressed in suits, I never saw him without a suit. As a matter of fact, I once saw him in his pajamas which somehow resembled a suit.

He greeted me as I went in, “Jack, it has been too long.”

I reached for his hand, shaking it firmly as I smiled saying, “For a good reason, you snatch that antique clock right off me last time we met.”

“I did not peg you as such a narrow-minded person. And you know I was returning the favor, you took away that amazing antique pen.”

“A case closed then,” we laughed. There were auctions with closed cases that were similar to gambling. The auctioneer would say who the antiques belonged to and where it originated from but you would not actually see the antiques. It was supposed to be a fun game but after a few scams, it was discontinued. I and Antoine were the starters of the case closed schtick.

Antoine’s face turned serious, “The guest today is tricky, his body must not show any possible indication he was tortured. So no maiming or cutting into him.”

“You know me too well to start off this way, what is the story?”

“Let’s just say that our guest is a headache to his family however they are very protective of their own. To avoid a headache we had him put under by very powerful hallucination drugs, he might think you were one weird drug trip at the end of it all.”

“Nah, I am not buying it. Since when do you play subtle or nice? Who is his family?”

“You will understand once you see him.”

It seemed like even speaking of the family scared him. This will be very interesting.

I walked out of the client room heading to the holding cell. The holding cell has some personnel of the council who help in running the chamber. It is a security measure in case a guest escapes which will result in a headache for all parties involved.

The first thing I noticed as I walked into the cell was the perfume, which was odd. Then as I looked around I was surprised once more, the guest was sitting on the floor with no cuffs and not even tied to the chains on the far wall of the cell as per the norm. I can count on my fingers the number of times I have seen a guest treated with such respect and fear.

As I examined the guest, he looked like a 20-year old Asian man. He had short stature just like most Asian men but what struck me was his red hair. It is an extremely rare characteristic in general especially so for Asians. His face was just normal looking, not one that you would remember in a crowd.

His upper body was bare and he lied passed on the floor so it was hard to judge whether these muscles were as a result of martial arts training or weightlifting. He had his back to the door and on it, I saw a tattoo. In our world of secret organizations and living in the shadows, tattoos are treated very seriously.

On the right side of his back were two Japanese or Chinese words. The words were written in the style of Japanese Kanji or Chinese Hanji. In my opinion, it looked more like Japanese strokes than Chinese. It was possible for the tattoos to be Chinese Hanji as they were not as clear as they would have been on paper.

I dabble in Japanese but I am more familiar with hiragana than kanji. Basically hiragana is like spelling out the words somewhat like writing English but the Japanese alphabet is more complex, on the other hand, kanji are complete words supposedly borrowed from Chinese Hanji.

Regardless of whether this was Japanese or Chinese one of the tattoos meant the gate of heaven and the other meant to obey. I was familiar with which organization used such tattoos and why Antoine was so scared. The old fool brought a goddamn ninja on my doorstep.