Elite 2: The Wrong Side of Revolution

by Joseph C. Anthony

  “Gordon benches three-hundred pounds?” Daniel asked Jordan, incredibly surprised that Demérs had that kind of strength. Daniel always knew the man was in shape, but he had no idea he was that strong.

  “Uh huh,” Jordan replied, short on breathe. “He’s one strong dude.”

  The fact that Demérs could push that kind of weight was a bit of a gut-shot to Daniel’s self-esteem, knowing that without his procedure he would have never dreamed of being able to bench-press more than two-hundred pounds let alone three. Not that three-hundred was anywhere near record weight, he just hadn’t expected it.

  What Daniel could have done no longer mattered though. What mattered was what he could do now, and now he could rep three-hundred pounds without breaking a sweat.

  He opened his neural pathways and began pumping himself up as he walked over to grab more weight.

  “What are you doing?” Jordan asked in confusion as Daniel started throwing more weight onto the bar.

  “Trying to get a good workout in,” Daniel replied in an overly obnoxious tone.

  Daniel didn’t often bother with the bench press as Robby’s high-intensity workouts often included a variety of push-ups and other dynamic exercises that worked his upper-body out just as well, but when he did find his way to the press Daniel normally kept the weight under two-fifty as there was little reason for him to push himself any further. He preferred to stay within his natural abilities whenever he could.

  Today however, Daniel felt like showing off. When he began his journey at Elite one of his primary objectives had been to become a better man than Gordon Demérs, and now was his chance to prove that he had.

  “And that’s five-hundred pounds,” he stated with satisfaction when he finished placing more weight on the bar. He knew that he could do more, but figured there was no need to go all out and risk heart failure simply for the sake of showing off to an ex-girlfriend.

  Besides, he had to keep it somewhat believable so as not to make Jordan suspicious.

  Jordan didn’t say a word. She merely kept her eyes on Daniel, waiting to see if the man could actually accomplish the task he had set before himself.

  Daniel laid down on the bench, sliding his head underneath the bar. He reached up to grip the bar with his hands about shoulder-width apart. He had considered going at it with one hand and really being a showoff, but quickly thought better of it when he realize that much tension on his wrist might cause some serious damage that even he could not prevent.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, expanding his lungs to absorb as much air as possible. He told his body to create high amounts of testosterone and adrenaline, and sent it surging through his body with freshly oxygenated blood to his muscle tissue. He opened his eyes and lifted the bar up off the rack, then brought it slowly down to his chest, commanding each one of his muscles to contract as necessary. He then began to push the bar up and bring it back down again.

  The burning in his arms and chest were intense, but the act of pushing the bar up and bringing it back down again was rather easy. He had taken control of his body enough times by now that it was second nature. He quickly ran off ten reps before placing the bar back on the rack.

  He hopped up off the bench and looked over at Jordan, shaking his arms out as he smiled at her.

  She looked stunned. While Daniel was in excellent physical condition, like Demérs he did not appear bulky enough to be able to lift such extreme amounts of weight.

  If she only knew how much I could really lift, Daniel thought to himself.

  Jordan’s demeanor quickly changed however, as she chalked Daniel’s feat up to having little idea as to how much weight was truly incredible for a strong man to lift. She knew that she could come nowhere near to lifting that much weight, but she was a woman who was more concerned with toning than building muscle.

  What she did know for sure was that Daniel was stronger than Gordon, and for that she was truly impressed.

  Daniel then made his way over to the pull-up bar which hung in the front-right corner of the room. He jumped up onto it and began to pull his entire body up onto it until his arms were fully extended and his thighs were pressed up against the bar. He then began to bend at the waist and bring his knees up to his chest.

  This was something he had never actually attempted to do before, but it made for a fun challenge. He had to be absolutely precise with his muscle movements, feeling each one as it became engaged and telling them to extend or contract as necessary.

  Once he had his upper body inverted and his legs in front of him, he began to push his legs outward, forming an L-shape with his body.

  “I get it, you’re strong,” he heard Jordan say sardonically from over on the treadmill.

  As he began to lift his legs higher in an attempt to do a handstand, he suddenly felt his heels make contact with the ceiling which was far too low for him to extend completely.

  He heard an exasperated laugh come from Jordan and this caused him to lose focus. Suddenly he lost control and his entire body came swinging downward. His forward momentum carried him until his lower body crashed into the wall in front of him, causing Daniel to lose his grip on the bar and fall flat on his ass.

  Daniel let out an “Owww!” as he felt the impact on his tailbone.

  Jordan was now in a full belly laugh but continued her current pace on the treadmill as Daniel slowly picked himself up off the floor, laughing rather heartily himself.

  “Serves you right,” Jordan told him, now extremely short on breath from the combination of jogging and laughing.

  Daniel smiled and climbed up onto a second treadmill placed next to Jordan’s. Jordan’s skin glistened with sweat as she was now deep into her workout. She grabbed her towel that was draped over the front of her treadmill and Daniel watched as she wiped the sweat away from her face. There was something strangely attractive to him about a girl in the gym.

  He looked down at the controls for the treadmill. Whatever model it was, Daniel imagined it was high-end because it had a lot of different functions, half of which Daniel had no idea what they did.

  He reached forward and pressed the “Quick Start” button and immediately began pressing the up-arrow to increase his speed. Before long he found himself at a dead sprint.

  Jordan looked over and rolled her eyes at him.

  “You realize you’re being a total tool right now,” she pointed out to him.

  Daniel laughed and reached back down to the speed controls and pushed the “down-arrow.” She was exactly right. If he had seen someone acting the way he was at the gym he would have shaken his head and called them a douche.

  Before Norma, Daniel had dreamed of the day when he would be able to show off his new body and talents to Jordan—to prove to her that she had made a mistake choosing Demérs over him. Although he no longer needed Jordan to see him as Superman, deep down there was still a part of him that wanted to impress her.

  After another minute or so, Jordan reached the end of her treadmill’s workout program, and the belt under her feet slowed to a halt.

  “Come on,” she said to Daniel, wiping the sweat from her brow. “Go get ready.”

  “Where are we going?” Daniel asked, pushing the “Stop” button on his machine.

  “It’s Saturday,” Jordan responded as if Daniel should have already known. “We’re going shopping.”

  Daniel mocked Jordan with the expression on his face and said, “Well duh,” as he threw his hands up in a feminine fashion.

  As

  Daniel slid his pistol into his black shoulder harness it reminded him that he was on duty. It would be easy to fall into the trap of getting too comfortable while out on the town with Jordan, but he had to remember to stay focused and keep his eyes out for any suspicious behavior. It was unlikely that Jordan would be in any real danger—spending the day with her was merely a way for Demérs to get his money’s worth while he took care of some business he didn’t want Daniel knowing about—but if Benze was as
bad as Demérs made him out to be, an attack on Jordan was not out of the realm of possibility.

  It was for this reason Daniel was glad that he had been assigned to Jordan, and not just because it would be nice to catch up with an old friend. He trusted himself to protect her better than just about anyone.

  He threw a button-up sweater on over his holster and buttoned it in the front, concealing his weapon. It was a cold and blustery winter afternoon in Chicago with snow flurries in the forecast, therefore he decided to skip the suit and dress more casual for the occasion. He wore jeans along with his black button up sweater over a white T-shirt. Over that he threw on a black wool coat and slid a pair of leather gloves over his hands and a black winter hat onto his head.

  He made his way down the stairs to find Jordan making the finishing adjustments to her own wardrobe. She was wearing a tan, draped linen sweater that wrapped in the front, blue jeans, and a pair of brown heeled boots that ran all the way up to the bottom of her knee. Daniel never understood why women insisted on wearing such uncomfortable footwear.

  Daniel stood back and watched as she put on a tan knit cap that fit loosely around the back of her head. She looked very grown up—very classy—A long way from the college farm girl next door that he had fallen for several years ago.

  “I like that coat,” she said, noticing him standing on the other side of the living room.

  Daniel held his arms up and looked down at his black wool coat.

  “It’s the same one I had last year,” he said.

  “Is it?” Jordan asked, clearly not remembering.

  Daniel took a breath and decided not to bother with any unnecessary response. “Are we ready?”

  “Just about,” Jordan replied, picking up her off-white coat that sat draped over the back of the sofa.

  “Gordon’s money’s got you looking classy these days,” Daniel remarked with a grin, feeling the comment was relevant since they were about to go shopping with her wealthy fiancé’s credit card.

  Jordan smiled as she threw her coat on over her shoulders.

  “I wish I could say that I only spend my money on clothes, but I think we’d both know that was a lie,” she responded.

  With that she grabbed her designer handbag and the two made their way to the door.

  The air was bitter and the wind only made it worse, but for most Chicagoans it was a typical December afternoon. Scattered snow flakes blew across the air and every time a gust of wind blew in their direction Daniel and Jordan did their best to hide their faces in their jackets. Neither one of them were big fans of the cold, but both grew up in the northern regions of the country and therefore accepted the wintery weather for what it was.

  “I know I have a problem,” Jordan commented unprovoked, as the two made their way down the Magnificent Mile.

  “What do you mean?” Daniel asked her, sincerely having no clue what she was talking about.

  “Shopping,” Jordan replied. “I’m addicted to it. I don’t want to be one of those women who goes out and spends all of her hubby’s money, but I just love it so much, and Gordon’s got plenty of it.”

  Daniel chuckled. Only Jordan could find guilt in dropping a few grand out of her millionaire fiancé’s bank account.

  “Speaking as a male,” Daniel began, “the best part of making the kind of money that Gordon does would be having a beautiful woman to spend it.”

  Jordan looked up and gave Daniel a sideways smirk, appreciative of his effort to make her feel better but not entirely convinced.

  “And like you said,” Daniel continued, “he’s got plenty of it.”

  “I suppose,” Jordan responded, turning her focus to the doors of the department store they were approaching.

  Usually Daniel loathed shopping with women—or rather standing around bored while women rifled through rack after rack of clothing, ninety-nine percent of which they had zero intention of buying—but shopping around with Jordan didn’t seem so bad.

  Part of the reason may have been because he was able to occupy himself, constantly surveying their surroundings for potential threats. He did his best to stay close to Jordan without looking like a duckling following its mother, but he always made sure to keep tabs on where she was at all times as well as the location of everyone else in their vicinity. He was always at least as close as the next closest person to her. To any outside observer he would have looked more like a boyfriend she was dragging around rather than her bodyguard.

  It also helped that they had plenty to talk about having not spoken to one another in several months. Daniel told Jordan all about his training at Elite and the obstacle course and how he had beaten Titan to become the top-ranked agent, and Jordan spoke of her summer and how her relationship with Demérs had progressed so quickly since the last time they had seen each other.

  Surprisingly, Daniel felt no ill will toward Jordan or Demérs in regards to their engagement. It almost seemed to Daniel that it wasn’t real or at all relevant. When his assignment was finished Daniel would go back to Elite and Jordan would continue her life with Demérs, though he supposed it was likely now that he would be receiving an invitation to the wedding. He couldn’t decide on how he might feel seeing the two of them reciting their vows at the alter. He decided not to give the subject any further thought.

  After a couple hours of shopping the pair decided to have lunch at a café just a couple blocks from Michigan Avenue before making a stop at a high-end jewelry store on the way back to the apartment. With Christmas nearing, Jordan still hadn’t gotten Demérs a present and apparently there was a white gold bracelet that he wanted from this particular store.

  Daniel didn’t much see the appeal in a bracelet for a man, but then again, Daniel lived in a completely different societal realm than Gordon Demérs did.

  Like all of the other stores in the city, the jewelry store was packed full of Christmas shoppers, though not as many as some of the more affordable stores nearby. While Jordan and Daniel waited to be helped by someone behind the counter, the shiny glimmer of the watches off to his right caught Daniel’s attention. He walked over and started admiring a few of the models through the glass.

  Jordan noticed his interest and stepped over to admire the watches with him.

  “What do you think about that one?” He asked her, pointing at a watch with a white face, silver hands, diamond studs where the numbers would be, and a silver clasp band.

  “That’s beautiful,” she affirmed.

  Just then a blonde, middle-aged sales clerk wearing a dark purple pants suit came over to offer her assistance.

  “Can I help you folks with anything?” She asked with a smile, hoping the young couple in front of her weren’t just there to dream about one day being able to afford the shiny objects in her fine establishment.

  Jordan opened her mouth to request to see the bracelet for her fiancé, but Daniel cut her off before she could speak. “Can I see that watch please?”

  “Of course,” she said, happily reaching down and unlocking the glass case to pull the watch out.

  Daniel held out his hand as the clerk gently slid it onto his wrist. The band was too large to fit tightly onto his wrist in its current state. He would need to have it sized.

  “Oh, and she needs to see a bracelet,” Daniel remembered, lazily pointing at Jordan as he continued to admire the exquisite timepiece that currently sat upon his wrist.

  In the background he could hear Jordan describing to the clerk the men’s bracelet while he calculated his current financial status in his head. He eventually looked up to find the clerk staring at him from across the counter. She was not about to leave him unattended with such valuable merchandise.

  “What do you think?” He asked Jordan, holding up his wrist for her to get a better view of its splendor.

  “I think that’s a thirty-five hundred dollar watch,” she countered.

  “Yeah…” Daniel said, his eyes lit up by the sight of such fine craftsmanship resting on his lower arm. He g
enerally had absolutely no interest in jewelry or accessorizing of any kind, but for some reason he had always had a weakness for watches.

  After a few more moments he finally looked back up at the sales clerk with a smile and said, “I’ll take it.”

  “Wonderful,” the sales clerk responded with an even bigger smile of her own. “I’ll wrap that up for you.”

  She began to slide the watch off of Daniel’s wrist and turned to Jordan. “And we’ll look at that bracelet for your fiancé,” she told her.

  “I guess this new job pays as well as you said it would,” Jordan commented, mildly impressed as they followed the clerk to the other end of the counter.

  Daniel smiled. “You’re fiancé is certainly paying me a nice chunk of change to protect his rich, white ass,” he responded playfully, thinking of the five-figure payday he would soon be receiving upon completion of his assignment.

  Daniel stood close to Jordan as she held the bracelet in her hand and listened to the saleswoman’s sales pitch. Daniel decided to take the opportunity to survey his surroundings. Like so many other times that afternoon, he had almost forgotten why he was actually there.

  As he gauged the feel of the room, everything seemed to be business as usual. All of the sales clerks on staff were busy helping men and women pick out the perfect Christmas gifts for their friends, family, or significant others.

  Just as he was about to turn his attention back to Jordan and the saleslady, Daniel noticed a trio of men slowly make their way through the front door that sent his heart crashing through the floor.

  Each of the men wore a scarf pulled up over their noses and a black baseball cap pulled down past their eyebrows. They also wore large wool coats that hung loosely over their shoulders and down to their ankles.

  It was cold outside, but three men walking into a jewelry store dressed the same way was no coincidence.

  The final indicator was when one of the men looked into Daniel’s eyes after stepping through the doorway. His eyes were a dark yellow. He was undoubtedly wearing contacts to disguise them from identification.