Chapter 60: A Job For Pros

Later that same day, Arias was seated in his living area with a laptop on front of him, browsing what looked to be many profiles of different individuals.

He hadn't left the building that day and not much occurred in the first place. Although he did find the news of Queen Bee rejecting the rumors wholeheartedly amusing.

As he continued to scroll through the profiles, Harley casually let herself into his suite and immediately walked over to see what he was doing.

"Errr, is that your blacklist Mr. L? I gotz one too." She happily revealed as she threw her body onto the sofa and peered at his screen.

Arias was used to her antics and silly nature so he continued to face his laptop while correcting her on what he was actually doing. "It's a list of applications, not a blacklist. I'm trying to hire someone to build a security detail around, for appearance's sake at least. But it's hard finding someone with the experience, skill and loose moral compass who isn't in jail or wanted."

Finding someone with all these characteristics wasn't especially hard, the problem was finding someone like that who was available for hire. Arias wasn't interested in pouring too much energy into the matter since it carried little importance, which is why Harley found it odd Arias spent a good chunk of his day on it.

She hadn't been with him long but she new for certain that time was something he considered precious. This raised a curious itch within her that just had to be scratched. "Uh, but you're rich Mr. L, why not just get someone to do it for you?"

"It's always better for a boss to have good relationships with the people close to him." Said Arias, without showing the slightest shift from his usual expression…so, how could she know what he said was a blatant lie?

Although Harley was getting more and more familiar with him, he wasn't so loose lipped or drunk on love to reveal his plans and goals to her.

In Arias's mind, such things were no longer even a concern revolving around trust, it was nothing more than a vicious poison that could either work for you, or against you.

People who trust wholeheartedly, slowly have their belief in trust chipped at their whole lives. It can break, it can be repaired, or it can never recover. After all, the concept of betrayal couldn't exist otherwise. Do not trust.

You can gain the same benefits from faking to trust that you would trusting genuinely. The only difference is, one can holds a risk of breaking or damaging you, while another doesn't.

Following this mentality, Arias had no problems faking his trust for others whenever the situation called for it.

…his plan was simple.

To gain the trust, obedience and or loyalty, of any given majority. Why? Because conquering and ruling through fear alone would only end in a society destroying itself.

However, if the majority of that society see truth and belief in your ends, then those who oppose you are automatically their enemies. If you order them to be killed then your followers would do so with a smile, feeling no guilt at all, instead they would be happy that they fulfilling what they believe in.

History was built upon such, only ever falling apart when another power equal to or greater in majority opposed you, or you simply allowed the opposition to grow.

As for how he'd do this? The gala was a good place to start.

With no clue to the deeper scheming occurring within Arias's mind, Harley could only agree with his answer. "Hmmm, I guess you're right."

The conversation drifted from there and Arias focused primarily on making arrangements with applicants who showed promise. An interview would be the last step needed to see whether or not they were right for the job.

…

The following day, a few of the applicants had already arrived in Washington for the job interview. However, as Arias went to meet and discuss matters with them, he'd learn they not to his liking.

Some were far too egotistical and made absurd demands whilst others overstated their skills. It was a surprising development but it did make Arias realize something very important.

His chances of finding individuals with loose morals that met his requirements was less than 5%.

They were either already hired or had their own agenda and bowed to no one. Completely surrounding himself with such people at an early stage was dangerous.

Arias knew this even when he first started rising up, hence his actions towards batgirl. His only choice was now to make promising individuals his before they developed too far or were taken by someone else fully. The only disadvantage…they were often naïve and lacked experience.

Sadly none of the applicants in the next two days met his requirements either so had nearly lost all hope for finding people through money alone.

That is until he saw hope in one particular application.

It brought him to a fine restaurant where he was scheduled to meet the potential contractee, an individual who fully met Arias's hard requirements.

Once in the restaurant, a waiter directed Arias to the private booth he had reserved. There he found two individuals, a man and woman who shared a strong likeness, both having long platinum, tone well-built figures that could be seen even through the suits they wore and finally, the feature that stood out most was the fact that they both had an eye patch covering one eye.

The man, his right, and the woman, her left. Once Arias arrived in the booth, both cast their glances in his direction with straight faces and waited for him to speak first. He did so by opening with a greeting, "Is the evening to your liking, Mr. Slade and Miss Rose Wilson?"

After Arias said this, he took a sit opposite to them both. In reply to this, Rose spoke up but she did so with a frown on her face. "Just call me Rose will ya? I don't need people knowing I'm related to him."

She spoke in informal and layback tone with great dissatisfaction towards the man, who was next to speak. Although unlike the girl, he did so with… "class"

He first reached out and lifted a cup of coffee, pinky raised high for all to see and then cleared his throat before speaking. "Do forgive my child's lack of manners Mr. Markovic, she lacks class since she raised mostly by her wench of a mother. Everyday I consider giving her to the French to strengthen the alliance, after all her only saving grace is her resemblance to a creature of beauty like me."

"The alliance?…" Arias wasn't sure how to reply to this, but before he could even ponder on it, an angry Rose fired back.

"Don't blame mom for leaving a sleazeball like you! Also drop that fake prim and proper act, this isn't the middle ages, I can do whatever the fuck I want! I only came for this joint job because the pay looks good and protecting another rich playboy is easy!"

Her words were harsh, but being the gentleman that he was, Slade remained calm and even took a sip from his cup before admitting to his mistake. "I suppose you're right. In end, livestock is livestock, no matter how handsome it is."

"You son of a bit-."

Arias cut their brief altercation short by intervening. "Could we focus on the matter at hand? Also, there's no need to act like you do not me… Mr. Wilson. Being who you are though, why take such a job? It doesn't suit you. If it has to do with recruiting then I'm not interested still."

Slade cracked a grin and his formal tone vanished. "No, I put that idea away some time ago. The recent increase in these heroes has made business hard, so I just thought of laying low until a big job came along. This feels like a big job, after all, what sense is there behind protecting one of North America's best young hitmen?"

Rose furrowed her brows in confusion. "Him? A hitman? You've gotta be kidding, he looks like he'll run at the first sound of gunfire." She replied with great skepticism.

To that, Slade showed a mischievous grin. "His very well known in the business. His Alias was Ghost, because he never showed his face to clients and worked alone, pretty ballzy for a kid. We fought once in Amsterdam, but his target wasn't the client I was protecting, just a friend of theirs, so I didn't have to kill him, instead I offered him to work with me and train, like a protégé."

Although Arias was inferior in skill and experience by some margin, Slade had acknowledged his potential at that time and had even opted to recruit him. That one job was the closest to getting killed Arias had been in his years as a hitman.

Thankfully he was young and Slade instead showed interest in gaining a follower, something he had tried to do with even Robin. As for why he never reached out, Arias could only assume it was because of Rose who was some years younger than him.

When compared to her back when he was just a regular human, he was definitely inferior.

"So what? You wanted to train him instead of me is what you're saying?" Rose felt upset over the information. One could only understand if they experienced Slade's harsh training and never received acknowledgment, just because they were female.

Slade dodged the question by getting back on track. "We already know each other to some extent so I don't think an interview is necessary right? Whatever shady business you're planning, I doubt you'll find anyone better to act as your security head. As for payment, let's just you're on a free one month trial."