Trust and An Empty Agreement

Dressed in a Alexander Amosu-designed black suit, Choppard 201 gold-edition watch curled around his left wrist, pompadour-style hair neatly combed back, David walked sternly into the front door of the luxurious building which is the main office of the Stockholm Corporation.

Unlike office buildings in general that are very dense and boring, the Stockholm Corp. building prioritizes the comfort of all workers. Modern and relaxed design that really follows the flow of the modernization. Even employees are only required to dress formally on Monday, the rest are free.

And because today is Monday, all employees look so neat and formal.

All pairs of eyes look at the beauty package that is currently walking past them. Not a few employees who have a fairly high position in the company threw a good morning greeting to David with a very polite manner, although he didn't replied to any of that.

Everyone was used to David's cold attitude. How come? If you want to compare, the salary of a cleaning service for one month can be compared to the salary of a permanent employee in another company for three months. You can imagine how crazy the salary of every employee David has.

The usual attitude shown by David was very different from the girl walking beside him. Angeline, the girl who always looked down, stepped into the private elevator of the CEO. In other words, an elevator that only David can use.

After placing his palm on the fingerprint scanner, David pressed the number thirteen at the right of the door.

The building that seems luxurious and magnificent only has thirteen floors if calculated with the ground floor. David doesn't like offices that are too tall. Not because of fear of heights, but he thought that office buildings that have more than fifty floors are very tacky.

After all, why have dozens of floors if only thirteen floors can make millions of dollars in net income every hour into his account?

Even so, Angeline's eyes were on the fourteenth button, the button with the letter X under the letter G. Angeline knew that G was supposed to be the ground floor. If X is under the letter G, it means the floor is underground. While Angeline remembers that David once said that he also did not like underground parking, that is why there is a special building that is a parking lot for employees.

No one knew what was on the X-floored floor, not even company officials. Only David, the only one owner of the Stockholm Corporation, knew that on that floor there were hundreds of rare firearms, his precious collection.

Starting from weapons during the second world war that are no longer produced, to high-tech weapons such as sniper-rifle type which have heat sensors and any other things.

That's not all.

Even David also has war weapons made specifically for reconnaissance teams such as electronic bombs--jammers--which if detonated can turn off electricity and damage all electronic devices within a five kilometer radius.

Maybe it was enough to discuss the unique collection that David had, because now Angel was in a spacious meeting room filled with company executives.

Angel sat in a circle of important people who according to her opinion had a very different class from high school graduates like her.

"Alright, for the project that we just won, it could be said to have quite a small profit. However, trust from the community and the government could be a long-term benefit." said someone who was standing next to the projector that was displaying statistical data that Angel could not understand at all.

The girl just kept quiet. Occasionally she glanced at David who sat next to her. The calm expression and focused look that david showed really illustrates the professional attitude of a large company owner.

Although Angel did not know, that what was in David's mind was the visual of Angel's naked body. He really imagined if he could be on top of Angel's beautiful body, slowly satisfying his desires to the point where they were both lay breathless on the same bed, smiling at each other while embracing affectionately.

"What do you think, Mr. David?"

Angel turned back to David who was right next to her. His name was called several times but David was still silent with his sharp gaze right at the projector screen.

"Sir?"

Angeline saw David and the person who called him to ask for that opinion several times, until out of nowhere she was inspired to do something that could waking David up, Angel stepped on David's shoes with her heels, making David moan in pain.

David glared angrily at Angeline, but the girl made an eye gesture that said that his name kept being called.

"What's the matter, Mr. David? Is there anything that makes you dissatisfied?"

"Oh, yeah ... Ekhem ..." said David abstractly who had just woken up from his dirty mind about Angeline's lusting body. "Emm ... It seems quite interesting. There is no problem for me. Maybe in the future you can talk more about this with Lucy, my secretary."

Everyone nodded while smiling proudly. They think that David has put great trust and hope on their shoulders. Even though they didn't know, David just felt lazy in that boring room.

David stood up, puffed out his chest and made his face as firm as possible. "Do whatever you think is good for this company."

Everyone also stood up and bowed respectfully, while David walked out of the room, loosening his tie slightly. He walked back into the private elevator, followed by Angeline who was seen trying to hold back her laughter.

"There is something funny?" asked David, who only got a quiet shake from Angel.

David smiled too, "I think I know what the fuck you are thinking."

Angeline turned her head. "What's that?"

"I know, they are all just a bunch of worthless dumbass who happen to be able to wear fancy clothes on their bodies."

Angeline let go of her laughter which she could not held anymore. "I don't understand how people like them can run a big company until this success."

David also removed the top two buttons of his shirt. "*sigh* ... Lemme tell you a secret. A big damn secret. The secret of how I build this whole company by myself."

"Are you sure you wanna tell me something big like that?"

"Actually, this is the most basic of all simple things. First thing first, what do you know about a 'market'?"

"A place where buyers and sellers meet." Angeline answered quickly.

"What are they do? The buyers and the seller."

"Of course do the process of buying and selling, exchanging an item or service with a legitimate medium of exchange, money."

The corner of David's lips began to lift slightly, almost half a smile. "Now, imagine that you are in the seller's position. What would you do to get the stock you want to sell?"

"Buy it with money?" asked Angeline back who began to be confused with the direction of their conversation.

"What if you don't have any money to get the stock?"

Angeline frowned. "Mmm ... owing it, maybe?"

David smiled broadly, making Angeline even more confused.

"Are you sure that is the only way?"

"Oh yes, there is another way." interrupted Angeline spontaneously. "Doing deals with other sellers?"

"What can you offer if you don't have anything to make an agreement for? In this case, money."

Now Angeline was silent. Her innocent face who was thinking hard looked very adorable to David. Somewhat, that cute-look made David wants to kiss her forehead.

"Maybe I'll just change the question if it's too difficult for you. What do you think is most important about an agreement?"

"Emm ... What benefits will you get from the agreement."

"If that's the case, then you are no different from those bunch of livestock in the meeting room." answered David, who made Angeline pursing her lips, because she was annoyed by being compared to cattle.

"Let me tell you this, the most important thing about an agreement is trust. When I first started this business, I didn't have anything to offer. My late father had died and all my friends had also gone on their own paths. All I had was a single trust."

"Trust?" Angeline asked, making the smile on David's face even wider.

"First, I convinced a small businessman, a private contractor untill he wanted to work with me. At that time, the agreement was that I won the project auction and he did the project. After winning it, I went to another private contractor, making him believe in the results of my last work, the first one. Then it continued until I finally had hundreds of private contractors working with me. All I did is just winning auction for government's project as building project, highway project and something like that, and then they did the rest. Don't ask me how can I win the auction."

The reason David actually didn't wanna tell Angeline yet is because it is something related to his life as mafia.

Angeline frowned again, "Hundreds? Then how can you take care of it?"

"There are things you must know in the economic world. The government spends its annual funds every year, and the funds are being contested by several unions. In my case, at that time there were only two unions, one is mine and the other one is a company that has long been in that field. And since my union gets more funds from the annual budget, the opposing union will automatically not get profit. In other words, it will suffer losses."

Angel looked at the ceiling for a moment, trying to undestanding David's little-too much complicated explanation.

David sighed heavily. "When compared to playing seesaw, I am on one side, while my rival is on the other side. And if I'm at the top, surely my rival--"

"Is at the bottom!" cut Angel enthusiastically. "Then what do you do after that?"

"I went to my rival and made an agreement with him. I would give up all the people who had worked with me to be under his union. And for the benefits of someone's work, I got ten percent. Just imagine, if there were two hundred forty-three people who made a deal with me before getting a net profit of ten thousand dollars, I'll get a thousand dollars from each person. A total of two hundred and forty-three thousand dollars that I will get. "

"Wait a minute. With that much money, then what work do you do?"

"Didn't I say that before? I threw out all the people who had worked with me, but I still got a lot of money despite not doing anything. That is called an Empty Agreement. And that can only be done if mutual trust has formed between the two. In other words, all I did from the very beginning is just offering them a bullshit, write it down on a shitty paper to make it legal even just for the formality, and then they became my money-maker."

Angeline opened her eyes widely, as wide as she can.

David Stockholm. Besides handsome and athletic, he was also the most delicate person Angeline had ever met in her life.