I am Risen

I am risen on the backs of inferior men.

It had been three days since Cato Bishop, Finance Chief of the criminal family Whitlocke had taken over as figurehead. The fluorescent light bulbs above his head flickered as he stared wearily into the elevator floor as if to burn a hole into the bottom. Three days, the rollercoaster had risen and fallen while Cato Bishop seemed to seamlessly intertwine himself into the role he found himself playing. Three days since the loyalty of Cato Bishop would be a question on everyone's lips, but it was also those same three days that Cato secretly proved that loyalty to those that mattered. As the elevator thrummed its slow ascent to the top of the golden palace that was Whitlocke headquarters, a quaint skyscraper in midtown Seattle, Cato relished in the silence and thought back to the blur of previous months and most especially… the last three days.

Six months ago, Quinn Garmond, a Whitlocke enforcer, approached the financier with a concern. It wasn't a concern directly related to his field of management in the syndicate, but everyone knew Cato wore multiple hats. Jillian Michaels, a well-earning prostitute under Quinn's instruction, was discovered skimming wages right under the nose of her pimp. Naughty little minx. No one stole from Whitlocke.

Consequences were established and while Jillian had been handled expertly, there was a more pressing concern that Cato couldn't quite brush away. Upon investigation of the report, there was more left unsaid than simply missing money. There were missing girls. Just because Cato worked in the sex trade didn't mean he commended sex trafficking, there was a respectful art in this field and trafficking had no place there. So he dug further.

Cato bartered and investigated, he used his reputation and earned loyalty to press the various prostitutes, pimps, enforcers, and a variety of other Whitlocke employees, until a name was produced. A name that Cato had not recognized. Richard Belle.

Richard Belle, of course, was already dead by current events. Quinn had been dispatched to deal with Mr. Belle. She had been a master at pulling more information from Richard while Cato had rested idly by and listened to the sickening pops. He could still taste that cherry red lollipop he'd wrapped his tongue languidly around. What they had discovered surprised him. It wasn't just skimming money, that little rebel of a whore was using her body to en masse a group of traitors. Traitors bent on accumulating enough wealth from within the syndicate to overthrow it. They had played their hand a little too forcefully and Cato Bishop intercepted, two could play that game.

Cato took the group of names and tasked his own enforcers to ferret them out, and handle it. They set traps in existing brothels by placing madams that were new and easy targets. They established moles in the form of free girls released from their contracts and ripe for picking. All they had to do was wait. It was not long until their trap had been sprung, and a large chunk of the group was collected and... dealt with.

All Matthew Whitlocke had to do, was wait. Cato had uncovered a coup, set a trap, and Matthew had to wait for the fallout and take all of the credit for protecting his family.

So three days ago, when he walked into Matthew Whitlocke's penthouse home to reveal the good news. He had marched into Matthew's suite with such a confident swagger, typical of the financier, and beelined for the blackout curtains. Matthew must have a migraine, he was prone to migraines, but he was also prone to forgetting to open his curtains and simply sleep away the day.

“Lazy bones, sleeping in the sun, how are you supposed to get your day's work done?” Cato sang to the room. He peeked the curtains open, in case the migraine wasn't entirely gone, just enough to see the room by, and turned around. His smile quickly faded and his jaw dropped.

The room was a mess.

Papers, money, and keepsakes, all thrown to the wayside in uncoordinated patterns. It just littered the floor. A quick scan told him that Matthew was not in that room. Immediately, Cato pulled his phone from his pocket and began dialing, he was forming the emergency tree call list to bring all of the chiefs together in his head, he had to call Matthew's father, he had to start cleaning up, he had to start searching for the missing heir. Cato paused. He darkened his phone and put it back in his pocket.

Matthew had been unhappy recently. Secretive even. Had someone done something to him? Or had he run away? By all indications, something had happened to Matthew, but what if the room had been tossed while Matthew wasn't there? Someone looking for something?

As Cato walked around the room, he took notice there were several things missing that no one would care about other than Matthew. Items that Matthew would have explicitly taken with him. A wedding ring that always rest on the desk that Cato never asked about. Pictures of Matthew smiling with a loved one that always faced away from anyone not seated in the hot seat. Papers of will and testament, stocks, bonds--all accounts belonging to Matthew--not the family. Accounts the financial chief had not set up for him, secret accounts Matthew thought Cato knew nothing about. All of those were gone.

It was several more moments of looking around before Cato found the hidden note among the rabble of broken glass and something sticky that had spilled on the desk. With careful fingers, Cato picked up the paper and turned his head to the side and read it.

To Whomever finds this,

I'm gone. Don't come searching for me. Sydney and I are going to live happily where no one else can touch us. Do not try to find us, you won't succeed. Your corruption knows no bounds and I'm done. Please tell my father I was never meant for this life, he knows it, he just doesn't want to admit it. I offer you no other explanation. Should we ever return, maybe we can discuss it then.

Matthew

Cato put the letter down away from the sticky part of the desk. It would be a matter of minutes, maybe hours, before someone else came looking for the heir apparent. He had to act quickly, the family could easily be taken advantage of by other crime syndicates in the absence of Matthew. Cato couldn't have that. The Whitelocke family wouldn't survive it. Sure a prostitute was a prostitute, but they still had to eat and many had families to support. An uprising in the Whitlocke family was not something they needed.

He pulled his phone back out of his pocket and sent a few quick text messages. Every enforcer he knew, every prostitute he had on his bankroll, every pimp, every whale of a John. Every resource and favor he could remember. Because instead of Matthew disappearing, Cato was going to make it look like he made Matthew disappear. Cato would take over as the heir apparent, he would stage his own coup.

The financier froze every asset belonging to anyone who was not on Cato's good side, including Matthew's accounts that Cato knew the runaway wouldn't need or use. For looks. Cato would much rather besmirch his own name and label himself a betrayer while protecting the Whitlocke family assets, than have Matthew have ruined everything. Cato could still work with the higher family, and maintain those contracts that Matthew of which Matthew was in charge.

Cato could repair any damage to his own name over time. As commander of a faction of an infamous crime syndicate, his reputation would quickly rebound. He wasn't so sure Matthew's would survive if he ever returned from whatever romantic tryst he'd decided to abandon his entire life over.

For three days, Cato had spread rumors about Matthew's betrayal. It had been an epic battle, in which both parties were injured and in need of healing. Matthew was rushed away to private hospitals and used as ransom against the rest of the Whitlocke family in an effort to assuage retaliation before Cato could plead his case to Hammond Whitlocke, Matthew's father.

Rumors had a tendency to spread and change in any close-knit community, but if you've ever asked a whore about the Whitlocke scandal, there were fifteen stories about that day and not a single one of them was right. The sex trade faction of the Whitlocke syndicate was elite at creating bullshit rumors. The battle gave reason on why Matthew's private suite was a mess, and why his belongings were gone, and as rumor spread some of the stories would make Cato the hero and others would make Matthew the wronged victim. It didn't matter which to the newly-crowned crime lord.

In reality, Cato had holed up with his assistant, Dallas, and cleaned, scoured, and revealed every last detail of Matthew's room and documents. They began devising plans of repair for everything Matthew had left to catch fire. It was no secret to Matthew's closest advisors, including Cato, that the young lord had been struggling as of late. As a result, contracts and tasks Cato hadn't even known existed in association with Whitlocke had been left to the wayside.

Cato slowly began putting out fires. It made sense that Cato was the responsible one in it all, there could have been better choices, but the opportunity and loyalty of those that followed him were gargantuan in comparison to those other candidates. Besides, none of them knew Matthew's weaknesses in the way Cato had. None of them had control over the financial side of the entire Whitelocke family, a crutch in and of itself.

It took three days to organize everything. Three days to place Cato on the throne of Whitlocke. Three days to 'heal.' Three days to prepare himself for what was coming ahead. There would be retaliation, it was just a question as to who would strike the first blow.