Page 1 of A Man of Power

Prologue

Sebastian

10 Years Earlier…

“I’m so fucking wasted!”Conner yells as he nearly collides with a tree, overcorrects, and begins to stumble into a bush before Aiden yanks him back up.

“Shit, Aid. Been working out?” I ask as I laugh and spill some of the liquor from my flask. “Fuck.”

I lick the clear liquid that is running down my hand.

“It’s fucking creepy back here,” Aiden states as he looks around.

We’ve decided to take the Rock Creek Park trail from the frat house back to our apartment. It’s the beginning of our junior year at one of the country’s most prestigious universities. We spent last semester living in the frat house but decided we wanted our own place. Of course, when you have rich mommies and daddies, you can get a pretty nice fucking apartment. So, we live farther from campus in a penthouse. The chicks fucking dig it. It’s a pussy magnet.

I laugh at Aiden’s unease. He’s the brilliant one of our tripod. Conner is the muscle who keeps us safe. And I’m the cruise director. Together, we are unstoppable. We’ve been that way since the very beginning of our friendship freshman year.

“What? It is. Did you hear about all those girls that have gone missing lately back on the park trails?” he asks.

I shrug. I have. My female friends are leery of coming back here alone. I can’t blame them.

I hear a branch crack and I look around, sobering up at the sound. Some birds squawk and fly overhead. The moonlight is dimmed by a cloud, but I can see their dark figures in the sky. Crows. The air suddenly feels heavy.

“Did you hear that?” Aiden asks. Conner is about five steps ahead of us pretending to dance as he walks.

“I don’t hear shit,” he says before spinning around and continuing to salsa.

I hear another twig snap and then a groan. “What the fuck?” I murmur.

“It’s probably just people having sex like last time,” Conner whispers, only he’s fucking drunk and his whisper is more like a yell.

I take two steps forward and glare at him. He rolls his eyes and continues swaying. I don’t even want to know how much alcohol he’s had to make his giant frame that inebriated.

I hear another moan, but not a moan of pleasure. Aiden stops and looks at me. I nod at him, telling him that I, too, hear it. He turns on a small flashlight key chain he has because his grandmother thinks he went to school in some crime-infested city; she’s not totally wrong.

We look around as the light slowly follows the sound. And then we see it, a body part.

Slowly, we start stepping forward. The body is revealed an inch at a time. A foot. A calf. A knee. A hip. A belly. A breast. A neck.

It’s a young woman who looks to be our age. She’s naked and moaning. I look around trying to find an injury, but I don’t see one.

Want-to-be doctor Aiden falls to his knees. “Are you OK?” he asks the girl.

Her eyes are dilated and she’s looking around and whimpers when she tries to focus on us.

“Fuck, call nine-one-one,” he says to me.

I pull out my phone and make the call. The girl struggles to speak but it’s like she’s paralyzed or something.

She’s awake but not responding as she should.

Conner comes up behind us. “Oh, fuck,” he manages. He starts removing his flannel shirt because Conner wanted to look like a lumberjack tonight. Literally, that fuckface said he wanted to look like a lumberjack so the ladies would climb his wood. Asshat. But faced with a damsel in distress, he suddenly remembers his good manners. His shirt is quickly placed over the woman.

I can hear sirens in the background.

I hold the woman’s hand. “If you can hear me, you’re going to be OK. The police are on the way.”

Aiden is meanwhile taking hold of her wrist and looking at his watch. “Her pulse is fast, but she’s breathing. She must have either taken something or been drugged.”

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