Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 125(@200wpm)___ 100(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Chapter 3
I woke early the next day, way too early to be up and about even for me. A glance at the clock showed that I had at least another hour before I needed to move. I rested back against my pillow and called to mind the first time I’d met my wife. I’d been dragged off to some benefit dinner or other. Ten thousand dollars a plate and if it was anything like the ones I’d been to before, I knew the fare would be cardboard chicken and rubbery vegetables or something equally distasteful. If it had been up to me I would’ve preferred to cut a check for double the amount if it would mean foregoing the unwanted outing; but my Admin had grumped about my anti-social behavior and insisted that as one of the city’s leading businessmen, I needed to be seen at such things. Since I held genuine affection for the old tyrant, I’d given in much to her pleasure and had accepted the invite. It was true that I no longer needed to wine and dine the city’s elite. I had my feet planted solidly in the business world as the CEO of my own brokerage firm. I was in high demand from most of the moneyed families of the country and even some European houses as well. But I guess there was no harm in keeping my hands in. I’d started out small with just a handful of clients, but one of those clients had been an old pal from M.I.T. Who happened to be one of the hottest new commodities in the entertainment world. It was believed that everything he touched was golden and when word got around that I was his money handler, everyone wanted in. I’d had to make some changes to my five-year plan as I knocked that shit out the box in the first two years. Pretty soon I was fielding calls from some of the biggest names in the industry. People were leaving some of the leading houses that had been in business for over a century to hop on board. That hadn’t gained me any friends among the other players in my field of expertise, but I wasn’t looking to make friends. I’d had to hire more people than I’d ever thought I would need when I first started out but I oversaw everything. The name Gabe Stryker was on every one’s lips. I was known as the man to get things done. Coming from humble beginnings, I took all that shit in stride. I knew how easy it was to be toppled from that pedestal. A scholarship to M.I.T. had gotten me out of the Bronx where I was headed for one of two things: a life of crime or the army. But I hated the idea of prison and I was too hungry for the army. I wanted out of poverty the fastest way I knew how so I applied myself at school. It only took one teacher in the fifth grade to praise my prowess with numbers and it stuck. By the time I was thirteen, I was following the NYSE and I never looked back. I set my sights on the goal and I didn’t let anything stand in my way. I never even went back home on breaks, choosing instead to find work as an intern on break the first year while bunking with some guys off campus until school started back again. By the following year I was hired part time at a brokerage house that had heard about what I could do. It was all part of my learning experience but I had no plans on working for someone else. I’d be fucked if I were going to let someone else get rich off my back, no fucking way. I never once thought I couldn’t do it. I’d fought off gang members from the age of fourteen, men who wanted me to work as a runner to peddle their shit to school-kids on the playgrounds. I’d suffered beatings and threats until I’d signed up at the Y for some self defense classes and trained to be a mean-as- fuck little bastard. At least that’s what they whispered about me behind my back in the old neighborhood. I’d taken it a little farther and at sixteen when I got my first little job at a fast food joint, I’d put most of it into Krav Maga lessons.
Now at thirty-two I’m a killing machine, no one was going to get the drop on me.
I fought my way out of that neighborhood with brains and brawn until I became a force to be reckoned with in the financial arena. But unlike many who had come before me, I was hungry but I wasn’t greedy. I had no need for flashy cars and the high life; that will all come later. The first thing I did was to buy my mother a nice little starter home in Long Island and pay it off in full. She never had to worry about dodging bullets every time she walked out the door. She kept her job as a teller at the bank in Manhattan where she’d worked for the last fifteen years. She had her eyes on her benefits and her pension: smart woman. I stayed in my little apartment in Brooklyn for the meantime. I knew my day would come. The only luxury I accorded myself was my Harley and a membership to the local crew. I still had some street in me after all and I had to release some of that pent up energy somehow. Riding my chopper with the guys on the weekends was a great stress reliever. I knew the stigma that came with being part of the crew, but that didn’t matter to me. It was my only escape. It did garner me a lot of pussy though. For some reason women love the bad boy tattooed bike rider image. With me they got the best of both worlds. I’d made myself a force to be reckoned with in both arenas. The high profile business tycoon and the biker. The papers had had a field day with that shit. Five years after I opened my doors I was a millionaire ten times over. I could do what I want when the fuck I wanted but still I was satisfied with what I had. I had no wife and kids at twenty-nine so I didn’t see the need for more. That would all change a year later when I would meet the most beautiful woman in the world who stole my heart with a smile.