Chaos filled the room as several large men came swinging by with steel baseball bats. Glass doors were shattered by the swinging force of the bats, tables and chairs were knocked across the room, and heavy footsteps were treading on the now broken glass.

Huddled in a dark room down the corridor, Ethan aggressively forced away the strong hand that was covering his mouth with a frustrated look.

Hiding behind his desk, Ethan rolled his eyes at the smug bodyguard crouched besides him. "Maybe everyone's right..."

Thomas smirked as he peeked past Ethan's desk to scout the intruders. Nobody was in sight, but Thomas could still hear them all destroying the office.

"So... Am I hired now?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

* Less than 2 weeks ago

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan Shelton was pretending to scribble down important information on the notepad in front of him. Thinking about anything that didn't involve the meeting taking place right now, Ethan accidentally let everybody know because he could be heard quietly whistling to himself.

"Is there anything you like to add, Ethan?" Lewis' voice was filled with annoyance, and his defensive stature showed that he wasn't interested in any more of Ethan's distracting behaviour.

Ethan's chuckle boomed through the room as he nonchalantly threw his pen down on the notepad. Leaning all the way on the back of his chair, Ethan wickedly grinned at Lewis. "That's Mr Shelton to you..."

The slightly older gentleman rolled his eyes as Lewis then readjusted the glasses on his face. "Piss off?"

Ethan laughed harder as he began to talk condescendingly to the Operations Manager. "That's no way to talk to your boss-"

"And that boss is the most useless person in the building!" Lewis yelled with frustrated passion. "You think I should listen to anything you say?"

"You're fire-"

The woman in the CEO chair slammed her hands on the desk - hard. The sound of the collision was quick and sharp, with everybody's eyes turning to Kristen.

"The meeting's over, everybody out."

All of the employees at Shelton nodded their heads as they quickly gathered their belongings. They all left one after the other, with Kristen closing the door before Ethan could leave.

Kristen was stern as she warned Ethan, "You can't keep threatening to fire Lewis after your playground fights, Ethan."

"But isn't it funny to see the guy all worked up like that?" Ethan suggested, "It's the best part of coming into work!"

Kristin's eyes grew heavy as she gave Ethan an unimpressed look. She crossed her arms as she shook her head with annoyance, "You need to be a lot nicer to people, Ethan. Karma is going to come round the corner soon enough, and knock some manners into you..."

Ethan nodded once as he questioned, "You mean Mom or Dad?"

"Take your pick."

Walking out the conference room side by side, several employees approached the brother and sister with papers to sign, charts to look at, and contracts that needed reading.

Kristen carefully read over everything she was about to sign, as she took pride in her work, and had to make sure everything seemed legit.

Ethan on the other hand signed anything that was given in front of him, one messy signature at a time, as he quickly shooed everyone away.

Eyeing the clock with the corner of his eyes, Ethan's vision was sharp as he watched the clock hit 5 o'clock on the dot.

Ethan immediately clocked out as he signed out of the building with the lanyard around his neck. One swipe to the machine attached to the wall, and Ethan excitedly sped towards the elevator.

The elevator was packed with many familiar faces that Ethan usually hangs around with in the office. It wasn't a proud realisation when all of the people in the elevator were the lazy ones in the office. They were all the type of people that swiftly slipped through life, and they would use minimum effort for the required tasks at hand.

None the less Ethan connected with them the most, as the people besides him were a lot friendlier than the people at the higher end of the office hierarchy.

A younger man in the elevator got Ethan's attention by speaking over the small chatter in the confined space. "You still on for tonight, boss?"

Ethan's mind went blank as he still couldn't remember this guy's name. The new guy has been in the office for weeks now, and Ethan was always terrible with learning new people's names.

"Sure thing, buddy."

~~~~~~~~~~~

It was very late into the night and Ethan was stumbling his way out of the club with his co-workers. They were all ahead of him in a small and budding group, with Ethan only a few steps behind them.

Taking a drink from his bottle, Ethan missed how they took a different turn on the fork in the road. Ethan's path under the midnight sky became darker as he walked under a bridge, with Ethan too drunk to think about the immediate danger nearby.

Ethan was confused when he heard a faint cry for help across the road. He was even more lost when he heard the same cry again.

Ethan turned the corner slightly and peeked his head to see what was happening. A young man was struggling for freedom as he tried his best to run. But with three other guys forcing him into a car, the unfortunate guy stood no chance.

Flipping the bottle in his hand upside down, the alcohol poured out as Ethan courageously ran towards the group.

Ethan was quick as the bottle shattered over one of the guy's head. With everyone reacting to Ethan's interrupting behaviour, the captive man tried harder to free himself from his kidnappers.

The guy Ethan attacked had a red, bushy beard. The bearded guy had blood starting to drip from his head, and he only briefly flinched before spinning on the spot to tackle Ethan.

Ethan was flat on his back as he felt the cold gravel digging into his body. He hit his head off the floor as the bearded guy was now dropping his own weight onto Ethan's torso.

Ethan absorbed the blow to his face as the bearded man punched him. This sobered Ethan up slightly as he tried to shake the guy off him.

The palm of Ethan's hand shot up and uppercutted the bearded guy's nose. His momentary flinch allowed Ethan to roll himself away from his attacker.

Ethan then went to help the guy that was originally being attacked. The poor guy had several bruises forming on his face, and his lip was also cut slightly. "Get off him!"

"Mind your own fucking business!" One of the kidnappers screamed angrily.

Ethan pushed one of the kidnappers out of the way so that the victim could escape their grasp. In doing so, Ethan was attacked with a headbutt to the side of his face. But he didn't have time to process the pain, because Ethan was too focussed on helping the guy in trouble.

Ethan's interference and help had stalled everyone, bringing enough time for a passerby to scream that she called the police. Reinforced with sirens being heard from very far away, the kidnappers gathered their bearings and began to flee the scene of the crime.

The only people left now were Ethan and the almost kidnapped guy. Both of them were trying to catch their breath as they had just fought of the kidnappers together.

"You okay?" Ethan asked as he checked over the stranger. "I'm Ethan."

"Felix." The sounds of the sirens became louder, and Ethan noticed that it seemed to scare Felix for some reason. "Thanks for saving me."

Ethan nodded his head as he accepted Felix's gratitude. "What did they wa-"

Felix just kept shaking his head as he ran way from the sounds of the police. "I'm really sorry, but thank you for everything Ethan."

"Felix, wait-"

Felix didn't stop as he ran towards the opposite direction of the police. Ethan was extremely confused on why he was now left alone, but Ethan stopped caring once he saw Felix was too far away from him.

With one last sad sigh, Ethan began to pinch his nose to stop the blood pouring out. And he continued waiting on the side of the road until the police pulled up to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ethan did his best to accurately describe the assailants, but he was slightly drunk, and it was very dark outside. Plus he was distracted from looking at their faces since he was being assaulted too.

After being given a ride home from the police, Ethan used his set of keys to open his home of several years.

Dropping the keys by the table besides the door, Ethan went to remove everything out of his pockets. He was startled when he couldn't find his wallet anywhere on him.

"Must have dropped it somewhere..." Ethan mumbled to himself.

He chose to sort out the issue the next morning because he was extremely tired and dirty. Ethan walked up the stairs of his own house, and travelled down the hallway to his bathroom.

Quickly taking a shower, Ethan cleaned himself of all the dirt, blood, and grime that was stuck to him. After finishing his nightly routine, Ethan went straight to his bedroom and tucked himself into the double spread bed.

Once Ethan closed his eyes, his body shut down as he soon fell asleep in his own bed.

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Author's Note: I'm so, so, so sorry that this story was delayed for so long. My break wasn't meant to be this long, and I have genuinely been planning this story for a while.

On the bright side I have a BUNCH of chapters all planned and set up, so I just need a kick up my own ass to write this story. 

Now that this chapter is published, I'm positive that this will push me to continue writing this story. The next chapter will be long, and introduces the other main character in this story.

Thank you to all of my old, and new readers checking out this story. I'm really excited about this story, and I hope you all like it too.

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