Power: Power Series #1

by Victoria Woods

  Power

  The Power Series: Book One

  Victoria Woods

  Published by Victoria Woods, 2020.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places, businesses, and events in this novel are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, actual places, or actual events are purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced in any form without written consent of the author.

  POWER

  First edition. November 18, 2020.

  Copyright© 2020 by Victoria Woods

  ISBN: 978-1736125809

  All Rights Reserved

  For Mr. V,

  My real-life Shyam. Thank you for supporting my dreams and having more confidence in me than I do at times.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  Subject matters like rape that may be dark and disturbing to some readers is included in this book.

  Prologue

  Shyam

  The basement of the warehouse reeked of mold and rusted metal. The stench of blood certainly did not help to quell the foul odor. I kicked the lifeless body splayed out on the discolored concrete floor in front of me. I wanted to make sure the motherfucker was truly dead—as if a bullet to both the head and heart hadn’t been enough. We had already stripped away the prosthetics he’d used to disguise his face from us; he now lay naked on the floor like the trash he was.

  Traitors like Vik were resilient. Like sewer rats, they always found a way to survive. Some would say that they were good at evasion, but I believed they were just pussies hiding from their imminent death.

  A sole set of footsteps echoed from behind me. The sound ceased as another shadow cast over Vik’s body, next to mine. My brother and right-hand man, Jai, had arrived. “Is he dead?”

  “Where the fuck were you? Busy playing World of Warcraft again?” I asked in reply, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Jai was an IT genius, and he used that genius to run one-half of a tech company that bought up-and-coming startups that created data-tracking software. All these startups provided bits of information that we ultimately used to identify the locations of all other distributors, street sellers, and users. Sethi Tech was a front for our real business…the one that took place in dark alleys, night clubs, and rank warehouses. It kept the IRS and FBI off our backs. That was one of the drawbacks of supplying in the U.S., the fucking government, with all their rules and regulations.

  “Fuck you, asshole. I got held up at the office. New acquisition,” Jai shot back.

  “Yeah, he’s dead.”

  Jai took out his phone and took a picture of the corpse in front of us. I raised my eyebrow in question. “For our records,” he said. I knew he had a good reason, so I didn’t protest.

  Vik had deserved to die. He had been sent by our rival as a spy and had disguised himself as an American street seller, using prosthetics to alter his facial structure so no one would recognize him. He’d paid off a few of our men to approve his background check, so that he could be supplied with product by us, and he had also managed to receive some insider information about our contracts with sellers.

  His brother, Tarun, headed our rival organization in India. For years, our organizations had coexisted without any bad blood. It was a convenient situation. I supplied product to most of the United States and Europe, while Tarun’s father had supplied his product to the greater part of Asia. Everything had worked smoothly until Tarun’s father died and left operations to him. The son of a bitch was greedy and had one hell of a Napoleon complex, so it wasn’t long before he broke the rules of peace and sent his bitch of a brother to divert business away from my organization. When my brother heard chatter on the streets about Tarun encroaching on our territory, I started tracking our new salesman using data gathered from various startups we had acquired. We watched his every move for the next month, just to be sure, before taking him out. When Jai analyzed the supply data, he discovered discrepancies. Deep down, I had been holding onto hope it was just rumor and that Tarun was respecting the invisible boundaries both of our organizations had established over the years, because killing Vik would start a war. But Tarun had started this shit, and I would have to end it.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a glint of gold below me. Vik’s family ring, engraved with a tiger. How fucking cute and stereotypical. A Bengal tiger to represent their headquarters in Bengal. Jai and I had a Sethi family ring, too. Every major supplier family had one. We never took it off. It was another confirmation for me that our new salesman was related to Tarun.

  Our ring was made of white gold but had an etched king cobra shaped into an “S,” with black diamonds for the eyes. We were the true kings of the underworld, and it was time Tarun realized it.

  “Cut the ring off and send it to Tarun’s men.” They’d relay the message.

  I. Amelia

  BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEEEP.

  “Dammit!” I overslept again this morning—I had completely missed the first two alarms. If I was late to work, my boss would kill me!

  I turned off the third and final alarm, still rattled from being jolted awake, then threw back the covers and ran to my shoe closet of a bathroom to get ready. I could barely move around inside without my legs grazing the toilet or bathtub by accident. The walls were off-white and in desperate need of some fresh paint. I imagined that it was once a bright shade of white, but over time the color had dulled. The grout between the white tiles on the floor was yellow with age and even missing in some spots. Much like the rest of my studio apartment, it was old and cramped. It was outrageous to me that this was what two thousand dollars a month could get you in Manhattan, but I didn’t really have much of a choice if I wanted to be close to work. The proximity helped whenever I was running late, which seemed to be always lately.

  I inspected myself in the mirror. The edges were cracked, but I could still see my reflection in the middle of it. God, I was a hot mess! I had stayed up way too late working on code again, and my face showed it. My hair was little more than a tangled auburn nest on my head, and the naturally coarse texture made it difficult to work with on a good day. The bags framing my dark-green eyes nearly matched them in color, and my skin was paler than usual. Even the freckles on my cheeks appeared dull. I really needed to stop working until the sun came up.

  Out of time to beat myself up, I quickly brushed my teeth and washed my face. A shower would have to wait until after work. I ran a brush through my hair in an attempt to smooth down some of the frizz, then applied dark brown mascara and nude lip gloss. I threw on a vintage Blondie concert tee over fitted jeans. I took one more look in the mirror, then glanced at the clock and sighed—it would have to do. I stuffed my laptop and headphones into my bag and quickly slipped on my Converse. Then, after locking the door to my tiny apartment, I headed out to face another New York City day.

  ******

  “Amelia! Where were you?!” Just as I’d predicted, my boss was pissed. Jason’s face was fixed in a scowl as he stood in front of me, arms crossed over his chest. He was a short man with a thin build and thick-framed glasses perched on the bridge of nose. He was in his mid-thirties, yet his hairline was already receding.

  “I’m so sorry. I missed my alarms,” I said, apologizing earnestly as I slinked into my chair and unloaded my laptop from my bag. I tried to avoid his frigid stare as I powered up my device, praying that it would turn on faster.

  “That’s the third time this week!” Jason scolded me without any regard for my coworkers overhearing the admonishment. He seemed to be more irritated than usual today, and I sensed it was more than just my tardiness. “I don’t have time for this today,” he said as he hovered over my desk, then he placed his hands on the tabletop and leaned in, too close fo
r my liking. “I have a meeting right now. We’ll discuss this later.” Seething with venom, he lingered inches from my face, and I had to stop myself from gagging on the scent of his cheap cologne.

  “Your ten o’clock is here,” Tammy, his secretary, announced from behind him. Her voice startled Jason, and he snapped up straight and backed away from my desk, but his gaze lingered on me. I exhaled a silent sigh of relief as the space between us grew.

  Behind Jason, I saw two tall men standing outside his office. One was dressed in a dark-gray suit, while the other wore a blazer over a black t-shirt and dark jeans. Their strong features shared a resemblance that indicated they were probably related. Both men had darker complexions and black hair, which made them look exotic. They were both handsome at first glance, but the man in the suit had more of an edge to him. His skin was the color of rich honey and he was taller than the other, though only slightly. His angular jaw had a slight shadow of stubble, which contradicted the rest of his polished appearance. His suit was fitted against his lean and muscular body; it was easy to tell he was in shape from how it clung to his tight body. His full lips were pressed tightly together, as if he were clenching his teeth behind them. However, his hazel eyes were the most noticeable aspect of his appearance. They were bright and piercing. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from their blaze. They stared back at me with an expression so intense, I was almost scared.

  Jason turned around. “Ah, Shyam and Jai Sethi. Thanks for waiting.” He extended handshakes to both men and ushered them into his office. Before stepping inside, the taller man glanced at me once more. I squeezed my thighs together under my desk in reflex. Then the door shut behind them, extinguishing the fire that had burned a path to my core.

  “Oh. My. God. They’re so fucking hot!” Natalie was my desk neighbor and friend who had a keen eye for all things male. “I wonder what they’re here for,” she said as she let out an amorous sigh, leaning back into her desk chair.

  Slowly letting out the breath that I had been holding during that heated exchange, I replied, “It seems like something serious, judging from Jason’s reaction.”

  “I bet they’re the reason Jason lost his shit on the phone the other day. I heard him shout things like ‘takeover’ and ‘layoff’ when I was about to go into his office to get his approval for the new implementation feature,” Nat whispered like we were high-school girls gossiping during class.

  “Takeover?” I questioned. “You don’t think they’re here to buy the company?”

  The startup was relatively small and new. With about twenty-five employees including Jason, IP Innovations wasn’t quite as green as some of the other startups out there, but we were by no means a huge force in the tech world yet. We had made a splash on tech blogs with our facial-recognition software, which could track the locations of people photographed by mobile phones. Facial-recognition software already existed but lacked accuracy for faces of women and people of color. The government had their own version of the software, but ours was the first with a ninety-seven percent accuracy rate. We’d formatted it for social media use, allowing platforms like Facebook and Instagram to recognize faces more inclusively. As a result, it would make “checking-in” easier for users and garner more ratings and reviews for local businesses.

  Jason had even been interviewed for Forbes’s “30 under 30” list as a result. I guess it was expected that a startup could be bought if they produced successful products, but I hadn’t been expecting it to happen to IP Innovations so soon. I had assumed that when the time came, a social media company or even the government would buy our feature and implement it.

  IP Innovations had only been up and running for about six months. I liked the other programmers I worked with—minus Jason and his creepiness toward me—and the work itself. I liked it so much that I spent hours coding at home, sometimes well after midnight.

  I dreaded being acquired by some enormous tech corporation where we would go from being people with names to just employee numbers. Programmers often lost their passion and drive when these mergers happened, since they were no longer a part of a small, close-knit team.

  Nat’s voice pulled me from my train of thought. “Well, whatever happens, I wouldn’t mind working under one of those new bosses…or both!” She licked her lips in the most obscene way, probably playing out some sort of orgy fantasy in her head.

  I rolled my eyes. “You have problems!” I redirected my focus back to my laptop monitor and started typing out code.

  “No, you have problems, missy.” She pointed a finger in my face. “You’re like asexual! You barely even date. When was the last time you even got laid?” Everything was about sex and how she could get some in Nat’s world.

  “Hey! I do date,” I protested. “Last week, I went out with that guy from the advertising company next door, remember?”

  “Did you fuck?” she asked, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

  “Oh my God, Natalie!” I prayed she would lower her voice before anyone else heard what we were talking about. “I’m not telling you anything,” I whispered, hoping she would lower her voice to match mine.

  Ignoring my hint, she continued at her regular volume, “That’s because there’s nothing to tell, or you wouldn’t be so uptight right now!”

  As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. The advertising guy was cute, but I was so bored at the bar with him that night. He kept talking about himself and barely asked me anything about my life. At one point, I gave up trying to participate in the conversation and instead planned out new coding algorithms that I could use at work in my head. I ended the night early and rushed home to code until four o’clock in the morning.

  It wasn’t like I was avoiding sex. I was not exactly a virgin, but my experience was fairly limited. I had given a blowjob or two and had some “okay” sex with past boyfriends. I hooked up with a few guys when I first moved to the city, but nothing ever lasted longer than two weeks. I had never experienced anything like the stories Nat would share about her escapades. She was a freak and was into really wild sex. The most adventurous thing I had done was give my high-school boyfriend a blowjob in the backseat of his car after we left the movies one night. To be honest, my orgasms came easier when I was left to my own devices—devices like my vibrator.

  I found it difficult to find a guy who could understand my personality. I was an introvert, so putting myself out there and dating was not comfortable for me. The guys I did go out with took advantage of my quietness and overtook our conversations. I didn’t think I was socially awkward, but I always doubted myself after dates. Maybe I really was the problem? Maybe I was sabotaging my sexual encounters, and that was why they weren’t exciting? Maybe I wasn’t capable of being adventurous in bed because I too much of a recluse? I wished I could be more like Nat—assertive and carefree.

  Sensing my discomfort, Nat eased up on me. “Come on. Let’s take an early lunch and check out that new taco truck down the street. Jason’s not even going to know we left,” she offered. I was relieved to drop the topic of my sex life—or lack thereof.

  II. Amelia

  Jason’s meeting with the two handsome men had lasted well past when Nat and I returned from our two-hour lunch. After the men left, Jason seemed too preoccupied to resume scolding me, but his bad mood had continued through the day. He’d snapped at Nat for a minor bug in her code, then hovered over the other programmers’ shoulders, nitpicking our work. Tammy, his secretary, bore the brunt of it. He’d had her running around the office, printing out documents and organizing them into manila files.

  After Jason’s outburst yesterday, I made sure to get to work on time today.

  Now, it was a little before lunchtime, and the air in the office was still tense. Jason stepped out of his office and addressed us with his hands clasped in front of his waist. “If I could have everyone’s attention. I have some news. IP Innovations has been acquired by Sethi Tech.”

  Sethi Tech was a giant in the industry. They were notorio
us for buying promising start-ups. Only the brightest programmers were hired to work for them. They usually required years of experience before even considering applicants.

  This meant that the two men who were here yesterday were the Sethis of Sethi Tech. I didn’t realize it when Tammy announced them, but now it started to make more sense. I had always assumed the owners would be a lot older and perhaps not as dreamy. They were probably playboys, since they had more money than God and were incredibly good looking. Women probably threw themselves at them.

  Jason continued, “I was hoping that we could have delayed an acquisition for a little longer, until we polished our software, but the owners were adamant about making this happen as soon as possible. With that said, they want us to complete all code reviews and debugging of the new software by the end of next week.”

  Murmurs spread through the work area. “How are we supposed to work that fast?” one of our testers asked, voicing everyone’s biggest concern.