Nic Santoro (natoarrogante) wrote in at_the_gates, @ 2012-02-26 19:00:00 |
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Entry tags: | !plot: london burning, nicolas santoro |
Who: Nic Santoro, Marion-the-Ifrit and later, Julia Rayne.
What: The downfall of a Merchant; what rises up in its place.
When: Day Two.
Where: Nic's apartment, Merchant headquarters.
Whilst Nicolas Santoro had slept, his world had burned.
He woke irritable and difficult, the due outcome of a night spent tossing and turning and finally collapsing into the hard and awful dreamless sleep of the truly exhausted. His last thoughts prior to turning out the light the final time were of a deal to be brokered the following day, the negotiations and machinations as delicate as handcrafted clockwork -- it took a Merchant who knew the intricacies of human nature as if it were foreign concept to be studied, to achieve this. It would be his finest hour, it would be proof once again that he were the best possible hand on the tiller of London’s Market, it would be due compensation for the previous month’s outcome. He had dismissed Marion (her heels were staccato across bare floorboards; she had glanced back only the once, let herself out, the door had closed with a quiet ‘snick’ signalling forthcoming privacy for the nightly battle with insomnia), he had turned off the numerous communication devices, sleek and slick and professional all of them, he had walked the length and breadth of his home as if it were cage to contain him and then finally -- he had slept.
Waking, there was no cup of bitter-black and perfectly brewed coffee awaiting him. There was no clean rejection of the daylight hours; the screens at the window had been replaced by swagged curtains, half-drawn. Light spilled across the bedspread (he hated the things; sheets and quilts and layers to bind him like a straitjacket in his sleep) and the far side of the bed was dented where another had so-recently been. Nic woke, angry and startled, the way of men shocked out of sleep rather than the slow awakening others are better used to -- and began procedure. Switching on devices, picking up paperwork, roaming from the bedroom to his office without the slightest self-consciousness due nakedness.
And all at once, the chorus of electronic beeps and whistles, the shrill assessment of calamity and disaster, heralded the morning as tragedy. Nic stared at myriad communications; stock collapse of his personal finances, the corruption of a supply line, the vote of no confidence taken apparently circa three o’clock in the morning, the divestment of his power and control and subsequent hand-over to a Merchant ‘who can lead us out of this disaster’, the crisp functionalism of the memo stated. Circulation had been to everyone associated with London Market, as well as him. He had been ‘fired’, publicly. Memories, then -- fleeting and unformed, the gauzy gossamer of dreams greedily gushing in to fill the faults in the nightmare, make it more grossly real than it ought be. Failures; deals fallen through, signatures forgotten on important legislation. A marriage -- a marriage -- designed to ‘save him’ from himself.
There was a brief, musical hum coming from the kitchen, the sound of drawers, opening and closing. ‘Caro?’ -- inquisitive, melodic. He could picture her now; dark hair that fell in soft silk line against her back. She slept nude. Her eyes were warm; she wanted children. Nic’s stomach lurched with the sickening drop reserved for suicide dives from building tops; for one brief and horrifying moment, he contemplated the height of the apartment, the distance required for swift and merciful death.
Marion. The image of his secretary, his discovery, that which was Santoro and bound inexorably to he-as-man rather than Market head, cool and incalculable and calm even in the face of so much disaster. She who was unmerciful as trussed tiger; she would know what to do, where it had gone wrong, how it had gone wrong.
A brief interchange of Italian from beyond the door; his wife bidding goodbye (his wife), going shopping -- Nic grimaced, fanned fingers to temple. He could recall now, the likely affair, the whispers, the woman who had clipped his wings as much as she had become lone-standing reason for his good-standing in the Market. Nic stood in the midst of his room that was not his room, and stated Marion’s name, hard-edged and certain.
It was the first time he had summoned her thus.