Leon sighed, kicking his chair back from the table, enjoying the sound of the wheels on the floor, and the motion of his moving. It had been a week since his run-in with the drunkard and his knife, after offering him some money. A week since that girl had stepped in and rather expertly put the drunk in his place. She must have had training or something. Anyway, Leon remembered how aloof and how dismissive he had been of her. It had been a long day, he had failed to negotiate a big merger between Leviathan Technologies and Seraph Incorporated, and had not been in the best of moods. Besides, there were already many people in the company who thought he was not cut out for CEO. Some of them simply looked at the fact he was 26. Some of them hated that he had gotten the position and they hadn't.

Pushing himself back to the desk, he lifted up a bunch of papers, a rework on the merger of the companies, well, less of a merger and more of a large scale buy-out. He had been trying to figure out a way to make sure both companies were looked after, even if Leviathan technologies was essentially taking them over. He sighed and dropped the papers elsewhere on the desk. A letter slid out from between them, landing on the floor. With a raised eye-brow, Leon lent down and picked it up. It said 'FOR L' on the front. Rather nonchalantly, he opened it up and looked at the letter inside.



His blood ran cold as he lent forward and pressed the intercom.
"Kat, please send in security and the mail-man to my office, ASAP."
"Is...is everything okay, Mr. Umbran?
"In all honesty no...I just received my first death threat."
He heard her go silent, then immediately call for security.

After a briefing on the situation, and the mail man being taken into police custody for questioning, Leon sat in his office with Kat, two armed guards standing outside the room. Kat looked at him with her worried eyes. The 31 year old secretary had served the company for ten years, and knew Leon well. She brushed her brown bangs behind her ears.
"Leon, I want you to have personnel on you at all times."
Leon shook his head, responding
"We can't have that. It could be someone in the company."
Kat shook her head and sighed.
"Who would want to do you harm."
Leon laughed.
"There are plenty of people in this multi-billion dollar company that would rather not have me be CEO, there is Seraph Industries which we are trying to assimilate, not to mention all the staff cuts my father made last year before he stepped down. You don;t have a billion dollar company without stepping on some people unfortunately. I think that is why dad put me up as CEO. He did the dirty work to get us here, and now needs someone more personable to lead it. I don't condone what he did, but the past is the past."
Kat held up a finger as she pulled out her phone. Leon looked at her incredulously.
"What are you..."
She just shook her head.
"I'm calling in outside back-up. I know this great Body Guard company. I'm calling them now. No ifs ands or buts."
Leon just sat there and sighed.

THE NEXT DAY

Leon sat in his office again, hair stylised into spikes, with a white shirt, black tie and black suit. He looked at his watch. 8:58. At 9:00 he was due to meet his new supposed body guard. He wondered what she would be like.

Allie climbed out of her car, a beat up old thing she'd gotten for cheap from an old guy in the neighborhood. To be honest, it was a miracle she even had a car with her family being so cheap and so large. She took a look at the entrance to the building and sighed. What the was she doing here anyway? Her dad had told her next to nothing about the guy she'd be following around all day. And from the looks of things already, she probably wouldn't like him.

With a deep sigh to ready herself, she pulled at the sides of her jacket and walked in the sliding glass doors towards the receptionist. "Alexander Parish to see Mr. Umbran." She spoke, her voice high for someone who looked so boyish. The woman nodded and politely pointed her towards the elevator.

"7th floor. I'll tell him you're coming." She explained and went to the phone to do just that. Allie raised a brow and shrugged before walking towards the elevator and pressing the up key. While waiting, she turned to look around her. Everything was lavishly decorated, well.. in her mind anyway. Gold walls and red brown furniture. A man walked up behind her and gave her a stink eye, as if to say she didn't belong here. She chuckled and grinned at him and waved as the door dinged and opened for her.

With a cocky smirk, she motioned for him to go first. "I'll be going to the 7th floor." She told him as she followed suit behind him. He'd scoffed at her but otherwise ignored her and pressed the 6th floor. Allie shrugged and pressed the 7th before leaning back against the wall.

It was a silent and awkward ride and as the man left for his floor, Allie decided to speak up, "See you later! Oh, and get that stick out of your ass. You shouldn't judge people by appearances you know." She gave him a wink as the doors closed, the last thing she saw was the incredulous look on his face.

She chuckled and rode the rest of the way with a bright smile on her face. When the doors opened, she was greeted by an older looking woman who smiled brightly at her and asked, "Ms. Parish?"

"Uhh... Yeah. I'm Alex..." she responded, giving the woman a surprised look. Since when did people call her Ms. Parish? It felt weird and made her skin crawl.

"Right this way." She continued on without missing a beat. Allie simply followed, taking in the sights of the well windowed floor. It seemed like every wall was a window. How fragile must this building be? Jesus...

They approached a set of wooden doors with small windows revealing the inside, some sort of office. The woman opened the door as ushered Alex in, pushing her slightly.

"Mr. Umbran, Ms. Parish is here now." She announced as a man turned around in his chair. Allie's eyes went wide.

"KNIFE GUY!" She yelled, pointing at Leon.

Of all the people that could have been standing in the door of his office, the last person he expected was the very woman who had saved him a week ago. And he had much less expected the reaction he had received. Did she understand that she was in the office of one of the largest electronics companies in the world, in front of the CEO, someone who was worth at least high eight figures a year by the age of 25? He knew that his face would be a mask of startled shock and an open jawed awe of the situation. He tried to quickly compose himself. He was a professional businessman. If he got shaken and startled by something as aloof as one womans aloofness, then he wasn't going to make it very far.
"Sorry for the silence. i had not expected to see you again so soon."
Leon looked past the woman briefly to Kat.
"Thank-you Kat, I can take it from here. She is incidentally the person who helped me a week ago from the attempted stabbing. Please tell any urgent phone calls I will call them back at my soonest discretion. That is all."
He smiled at her warmly as Kat nodded and headed to ehr office and work station. With a sigh, he turned back to his savior.
"So...Ms. Parish was it? please take a seat"
He gestured to the high-backed chair with a red cushion on it before his desk.
"Firstly, it is good to see you again. Secondly, thank-you for saving me the other week. Thirdly, please do not call me Knife-guy. It will be Mr. Umbra or Sir, or Leon if we are alone, if you please."
Leon continued on before she could hope to get a word in.

"Now I am sure you know why I am here. I have recieved a death threat, no doubt my first of many. However, i wish to take it seriously. Since I have only just taken over for my father, this company is still in a bit of an uproar. People are clamoring in the power vacuum he has left behind with his...legacy...shall we say. I for one, cannot discredit that the threat may have been made from an inside party. Mrs Kat Pennant, my secretary, insisted that I let her call the security company you work for to send someone out to shadow me. Suffice to say, I feel last week speaks for itself regarding question of experience and ability. Following everything so far?"

Leon finished his torrent of words and just looked at Mrs. Parish. He had deliberatly inundated her with a stream of consciousness and information, to see how she processed on the fly and how she reacted to different situations. In all honesty, he was glad that she had been the one to walk through the door, but he didn't know why. Maybe it had to do with the element of trust he felt he already had with her from the events just a week prior?
"Also, forgive me, but I have not heard your first name.

Alex chuckled at Leon's reaction, her own shock melting into mild amusement.

"Sorry for the silence. i had not expected to see you again so soon."

Alex mocked a solute and bowed jokingly before taking a seat in a nearby chair, not bothering to wait for permission.

"Thank-you Kat, I can take it from here. She is incidentally the person who helped me a week ago from the attempted stabbing. Please tell any urgent phone calls I will call them back at my soonest discretion. That is all."

As he said this, Alex did another mock solute, but this time towards the secretary, giving her a playful wink. She chuckled again as the woman completely ignored her and walked on.

Seems about right. She mused, grinning at Leon. He seemed to have a lot to say so while he spoke, Alex kept silent, wanting to let him finish before she made him angry, as she usually did to everyone around her.

"Alex will do just fine, sir." She told him, producing a small smile. "Firstly, it's not good to see you again. Secondly, you're welcome. Thirdly, I'll call you Leon as I please, or you can fire me. I'll call you sir should I feel compelled to show you respect, otherwise I like to keep a familiar tone with my clients. It helps keep them from keeping secrets from me. I'll have you know secrets can be the death of you, Mr. Umbra." she continued, grinning at him pleasantly. She did not fear being fired in the least and it showed in her actions.

Bored of her current position, Alex hopped up from the chair and began lightly touching the many objects in the room, inspecting them both for any wires and any dust. "And yes, I have been following everything thus far. Your father left you a most lovely present and now I need to protect you from it while you figure out what you plan to do with it." She responded, trying to summarize everything her employer had told her.

"In order to show that I won't be the only one being upfront about everything, I'll tell you a small bit about myself." She began, hoping that the show of trust in him would cause him to return the favor. If she was to help him, she needed his full trust in everything, something people don't even give their spouses.

"I'm Alexandra Elizabeth Parish. My brothers call me Allie and everyone else calls me Alex. Please, call me Alex. However, if you feel that we are becoming close, I suppose I'll let you call me Allie. Just uhh... don't push it. I have 4 older brothers and no sister. My mother left our family when I was 5. I like cars, motorcycles, video games, and hand to hand combat although I have a pretty decent aim with a firearm should you like me armed. I have a dog named Banner, and yes he's named after Hulk." She rambled, trying to remember all the things she used to tell old clients. "Anything else you want to know about me?" She asked, looking up a Leon.