CHAPTER 5

As Jay made his way over to the construction site on the outskirts of town, he thought through how to make the workers remember him. He could be cruel, that was easy enough. Those day laborers might respect a firm hand. He may be young, but he was still a rich second-generation heir of his family. He figured he could win favor by belittling the foremen in front of his men if he was not being strict on-site safety…Jay paused in his line of thinking and decided “eh, let's just check and see how things are going and go from there”. He had never been one for grand plans.

Jay rounded the corner in his model S5 sports car. While this was not a super luxury car it still cost over $70,000 of the kingdom gold. Most people in this district were lucky to afford a bicycle, let alone a car. As he approached the gate to the site, he noticed there were not the usual EISEN GROUP logos on the fence that was customary for a family construction site. The company never missed an opportunity to advertise… Was cousin Emily really so incompetent that she would not even remember to install the company branding? No wonder his father had wanted him to stop by!

Pulling into the gate, he also saw that the site was totally deserted! What the hell was going on?! Where were all the workers?

Off to the side near what should be the foreman’s onsite office, was a sleek black bike.

“Foreman! Get your ass out here now!” barked Jay at the top of his lungs.

If the foreman could afford a bike like that, yet sent the workers home early, he was likely skimming money by saving on labor cost! Jay now understood why his father had set him to investigate cousin Emily’s business practices. If he could expose this embezzlement, he would be elevated by his grandfather!

Jay kept looking around the site trying to find anyone who worked there so he could toss his weight around. Finally, he noticed someone scaling the I-beams several stories up.

“Hey! What are you doing here? Where is the foreman?” jay hollered, wondering why anyone would do something so unsafe.

Andrew frowned… of course he could hear the annoying boy even from up here, he just simply did not care.

‘Do you think he is dumb, or just has not gotten the memo from daddy that this is no longer his site?’ asked Raya.

‘Likely just behind on news, Jackson should have done everything on the up and up. The contract and deed work came through first thing this morning. They moved the work crew to a new site… maybe he just came to the wrong site by mistake.’ Thought Andrew.

To Jay's astonishment, the man who was climbing on the I-beams, 4 stories up, decided to slide down rapidly and leaped off the structure while still over two stories up! He landed in a tight roll with little effort and casually strode toward him.

“Where is your foreman?” jay asked again.

“Sorry, there is no foreman here.”

“What do you mean there is no foreman? Of course, there is a foreman, these sites always have a foreman, take me to yours at once!” shouted Jay

“I am sorry, I am not sure which site you are looking for but there is no foreman here,” said Andrew a bit perplexed.

“Do you have any idea who I am? I will have you fired this instant! You and all your workers are nothing but a bunch of lazy day laborers who are all slacking off again! This site should have been finished a month ago!” Jay steamed at Andrew.

‘Dam rich kids, think they can boss anyone around. And the sad thing is the less money they really have the more they try to toss it around.’ Thought Andrew.

Clearly, this guy thought this was some construction site that his company manages…. Had Andrew forgotten to remove a sign?

Andrew began to see what was going on and tried to explain.

“I am sorry sir. No, I don’t know who you are but, if you are here from Eisen company, this site no longer belongs to them.”

“Don’t know me hu? Well, I will tell you! I am Jay Eisen, heir of Eisen Group! You think I don’t know my own sites! I was here last month! If you don’t get your foreman out here right now, you are fired!” screamed Jay Eisen.

“Kid, I am going to give you some advice, and you need to listen really well,” said Andrew beginning to lose his patients. “This site now belongs to the Fire Dragon Corp. Not EISEN group inc. So, before you keep yelling, you might want to think about what you are getting into,” said Andrew.

Andrew had no desire to be the face of anything, so he had asked Jackson to for a business group that would be the face of anything he did. Jackson had people who could run the day-to-day things, with nudges from him when he needed or wanted something done. So long as Andrew was working in Placida, he would do most of his business under Fire Dragon Corp, and let Anika be the main face of such a corporation.

Fire Dragon Corp? Jay paused for a minute… had he heard of that corps before? Something flashed in his mind about a powerful new corporation that was working the area and had large amounts of cash to accomplish anything they wanted. But how could such a corporation have taken over their site without him knowing?

“Are you just trying to muscle your way onto our site? Thinking you can just take over by force?” jay bellowed.

‘what is with this kid? Does he have brain damage?’ thought Andrew.

“Kid, you better check your facts before you go getting hot and bothered. Now I am going back to training. Hope you figure your shit out.” And with that Andrew turned to go back to his training.

Jay tried to stop Andrew from turning his back on him “I said I want to see your foremen not talk with you, you ungrateful pissant! If you ever want work again you will do what I say!”

“Kid, I don’t work here, I live here, I train here. Now piss off,” said Andrew over his shoulder.

Jay Eisen spluttered “You don’t even work here?! What are you some vagrant squatter? You will leave now!” with that threat, Jay tried to pull out a handgun. Unfortunately, Jay was not one skilled in the use of such a tool, and the magazine dropped to the ground. Well, he still had one round, right? Jay pulled the trigger.

CLICK.

When you try to use a gun, the loudest noise in the world is a CLICK with no bang.

Jay’s eyes got big and he scrambled for the magazine, scooping it up and jamming it into the gun.

Raya commented ‘I thought guns were uncommon….’

Andrew replied ‘o they are. Some of the rich families still have a few, and if they served, they may have an old service piece. This moron clearly stole this one from daddy.’

‘do we need to be nervous about him having it….’

‘No, I think he would be lucky to shoot it at all and even luckier to not shoot his own foot in the process.’ Said Andrew, keeping a sharp eye on jay.

Jay stuck the gun out again and CLICK.

Andrew chuckled and walked over to jay.

“Here let me show you.”

Jay just kept his arm pointed but was simply too confused to realize Andrew had grabbed the gun from him.

“Look here, you have to tab here.”

‘CLICK’,

“and pull here” the slide made a ‘shlick’ sound as it slid into place.

“Check that you actually loaded one, and make sure to click this lever here. Here you go.” With that Andrew placed the gun back in the startled Jay Eisen’s outstretched hand.

“Now aim over there.” Said Andrew and he fixed the gun position and pointed a finger at the manager's trailer.

BANG. With the sudden recoil and loud discharge, a startled jay dropped the gun.

“well don’t drop it!,” said Andrew in mock alarm. “At least you got it to fire…. I think you missed the whole building though…” said Andrew bemused. “These things take practice. Here let me take that before you get hurt.” And with that, Andrew swiped the gun back from jay’s hand and disassembled it.

“I… I… you need to get out of here! I will have the police toss you out!” jay said as he wiped out his phone and began dialing.

“Hello, Emergency dispatch? Yes, I am at the Eisen construction site and there is a squatter here I need to be thrown out!”

Andrew just stared at him dumbfounded. Was this guy really this stupid?

Jay hung up with a smug look and turned back to Andrew.

“you bastard, thinking you can take advantage of our workers not being present and just move into our site. You will have a roof over your head tonight! Let you think about it in JAIL!” said jay in triumph. He would make his father proud and get back their site from this street thug.

Andrew was just speechless. Was this kid really that dumb? Raya just chuckled in the background of his mind. “guess we will see what comes of that…” said Andrew to Raya.

As jay waited for the police, he thought the thug’s mannerism was odd. Was he talking to himself just now?

Soon there were sirens heard heading toward the site.

Two police units pulled into the site. They spotted Jay in his business suit and walked over. “Mr. did you call us?”

“Yes! I am Mr. Jay Eisen of Eisen company! This is our site! This vagrant is squatting on our site! Remove him immediately!” screamed Jay Eisen.

The officers were a bit indignant at the attitude, but they were used to big men of all favors and saw that the man Jay pointed to was clearly covered in dust and sweat. He must be some sort of day laborer.

They approached him with their batons out.

“Sir, Mr. Eisen informs us that you are trespassing on Eisen company land, you will need to leave at this time,” said the first officer.

Raya just kept laughing in the backdrop of Andrew's mind. ‘so how are you going to deal with these men? It's not like you can keep ignoring the world, apparently. Trouble has a way of finding you. So, will it be smashing your way out or will we see your silver tongue finally?’ said Raya.

“Just shut it for now ok?” said Andrew as he turned to the two officers. Whoops. Did he say that part out loud? Oh well.

The officers were taken aback, not expecting a laborer to talk back to them.

“Officer, it would be best in your line of work, to check who is who before you make demands. You will find that Mr. Jay Eisen has no right to this property. He is in fact the one trespassing” Said Andrew firmly but still respectfully.

“Now see here, this is Eisen Company land, you need to leave peacefully, or we will have to force you off!” said the second officer.

Andrew frowned. This was not at all how he wanted to start life in Durres. He was trying to retire from the battlefield and had little tolerance for politics now that he was out of the chain of command.

“Gentlemen, if you will please join me in the office over there I can show you the paperwork that clearly shows that EISEN Group did indeed transfer this to the Fire Dragon Corp. thus this is no longer an Eisen company site,” said Andrew.

The officers both looked at each other, clearly unsure of the situation. Could this day laborer possibly have documentation? What was going on?

In the distance, jay shouted “What is taking so long? Toss his ass out! I have things to do!”

Andrew began to walk to the small mobile office building on-site that would normally be the foreman’s office. The two officers decided it would be best to follow.

As they approached, they each noted the very expensive-looking motorbike parked out front. While they may not know which big shot it belonged to, they both knew that a bike like that was worth a huge fortune. Only someone that was mega-wealthy could own something like that. Perhaps there was a bigshot inside the office!

As Andrew reached for the door, they heard Jay shout again “hey he is not allowed in there! That is our private office space!”

Andrew simply took out a key and unlocked the door in front of the officers.

“if I am not allowed, why do I have a key?”

Everyone was open-mouthed.

As the officers walked up to the door, one noticed a hole near the top of the door.

“What is this?!” the officer said.

Andrew looked at the whole and exclaimed, “Hu, I guess it he did manage to hit the building. I will have the charge him with the repair bill.”

“What are you talking about, sir?” said the first officer.

“What? You didn’t see the gun in his hands? He shot it and clearly missed me, but I originally thought he missed the whole building too. Guess he managed to hit there” said Andrew.

“Gun?! He has a gun and shot at you?”

“I believe I already said he had a gun and the bullet whole clearly shows what he hit. Hard to classify that as shot 'at' me when he can’t aim to save his own life.”

Andrew strolled into the office space and over to the desk where he had the plans for his training site and shuffled through for the contract. After located the needed documents, he handed them to the officers. He then shot a quick text to Jackson.

(officers at my site. FIX IT.)

As the officers read over the documents, they quickly began to realize that the man in front of them was right. This was not an EISEN Group site anymore. Clearly signed were Emily EISEN and a Mr. Liam of the Dreadnought Investment group on behalf of the Fire Dragon CORP parent company.

Shit, Dreadnought Investment …. That was the largest real estate company in the whole area! It was worth billions! And they were listed as a subsidiary of this Fire Dragon Corp? as officers they knew OF various large companies that they provided security for and knew who the big players were but not much else. Dreadnought Investment was one NO ONE messed with, for ANY reason. They each began to feel a cold sweat on their backs, and they realized just what kind of force owned the property they were not harassing.

Just then the ranking officer's phone rang.

“hello-…. yes, …. yes, sir right away sir.”

Andrew who was standing just a few feet away smiled wryly. While it was true, he had better hearing than most, he did not need it to overhear the racket coming from the other end of the line.

“You worthless piece of shit! Do you know who you are harassing? The Dreadnought Investment group? Really?! If you piss off any of their staff, you are done! You will be forced to never show your face in this town again! Do you know who paid for all our new equipment? DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT! Do you know who makes sure our department is funded? DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT! Give that idiot who called you there a good slap for good measure!” Click and the line went dead.

Both officers looked at each other as their faces drained of color. Who had they just provoked? Even if this was a simple day laborer, if he belonged to DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT, they were dead. And apparently, someone at DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT had called the headquarters to complain or they would not have heard from the captain just then.

Stepping out of the office, the second officer said. “sir, what is this about calling in a false report? Eisen company has no claim to this land. Why are you harassing the staff here? And why the HELL are you discharging a firearm! Where did someone like you even get one? You clearly never served!”

“hu? What are you talking about? Of course, this is Eisen property!”

“No sir, your company clearly transferred ownership to DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT, and their representative here is now being harassed by you. now please stop wasting our time,” said the first officer.

“officers, I also have work to complete, if you would, I would ask you to see Mr. Jay Eisen off my land, please. And you might want to do something about the firearm before he hurts himself, or someone else,” said Andrew. He was done with Jay, and already had a very sour impression of him.

“Right away! Have a good day sir!” with that the officers approached jay who was still looking confused and flustered.

“No! Just… No! This is our company land! You cannot toss me off our own land! I will have each of your jobs! Do you have any idea how important I am in this town?!” spluttered jay Eisen.

Frankly, while both officers had seen signs for Eisen construction around town, neither had really heard much of the family so no, they could not possibly know how unimportant this self-righteous jay was and at this point didn’t care. DREADNOUGHT INVESTMENT was a force to scare the life out of them, not some third-rate family.

As they began to lead jay back to his car he tried to turn and shout one last time at Andrew.

“you lazy bastard, I will not let you get away with this! You will not get to stay here!”

In the process of this, jay accidentally elbowed the first officer in the face.

“ok, that is it! Assaulting an officer after trespassing and discharging a firearm in an unsafe and threatening manner? Really? Let's go!”

The officers quickly wiped Jay around and cuffed him, pushing him into their car.

“you, you can't arrest me! I am Jay Eisen! This is our land! Do you know who I...” as the door slammed cutting off the end of his sentence.

The officers turned to Andrew who had a huge grin on his face.

“We will take care of this and have a tow truck remove the car shortly,” said the second officer.

“Thank you, sir, you both have a fine rest of your days.” Replied Andrew before returning to work on his training grounds.