Greg woke from a sharp sound. The body itself jumped from the bed, and in a second he realized that he was already standing in the middle of the room in the fighting stance. Military training was not in vain, and the combative instincts did not just disappear so quickly. But he could not understand what has alerted him. The apartment was quiet, and he didn't feel anyone presence. But a strange feeling haunted me. It was as if he had to run somewhere right now as if someone was calling him. But he did not hear anything and could not understand the reason for this feeling.
He searched the whole apartment, checking the locks and windows. Although who could get in? He lived on the 19th floor of a building with an advanced type of security systems.
Finally, taking a glass of water, he went to his office. Sleepiness was long gone, and even if he isn't able to rest today, at least he could do some work.
Many believed that being the CEO of a large corporation, is just sitting in the main office, going to meetings and being a pretty face of the company. Greg never supported this opinion. Moreover, such companies usually went down very quickly. Also, all those things were better suited for Tony, so he gratefully gave up this part of the work to him.
In his youth, he was not particularly interested in machinery or cars. He was an athlete and saw his future only in this direction. The decision to enroll in the engineering program in college was made mostly to please his parents. His father worked all his life at a decaying metallurgical plant as a mechanic of equipment. He often brought his son to his garage and showed with pride the neverending shelves, breaking under the weight of equipment parts and wires. They usually started up some new projects together, most of which did not work out. And Greg always sensed a strange feeling of melancholy, which now and then appeared in his father's eyes, when he thought that no one was looking at him.
His old man was an old-school type of person, probably because of this for his experiments he chose his son, even though he had three older daughters. And as fate likes to play evil jokes on people, his middle sister Marina became a big name in mechanical engineering instead, although Greg learned a few things in the army he was never as good as his older sister, who literally was living in her laboratory. But after going to the military a year after that ill-fated day, he acquired some excellent managerial skills and fell in love with bossing people around. As a result, everything began to form like a puzzle, only a little bit of courage and support from friends and relatives was enough to make it this far.
Greg sighed opening his laptop and began to look at the seemingly endless stream of planned cases. It was worth checking and signing the latest reports of the department heads, going through the budget plan for the next year, reviewing proposals for new projects and so on and so forth. If someone told him a couple of years ago that being a great boss requires so much effort, he would rather open a bar or become a psychiatrist. Bullying people and alcohol were two of his main hobbies after all.
But he couldn't concentrate at all. He once again caught himself not reading the next report but just staring at the text, his thoughts were wandering somewhere far away.
It was hard to admit to oneself myself, but the thoughts kept coming back to Lana. He tried to understand everything, to analyze their meeting, and relations 13 years ago. It did not feel like a whole picture at all.
Like the pieces that seemed so bright and clear, didn't match each other at all. The image of Lana did not fit in with the image of a perfect girl of the football team's captain, greedy for money or fame. What money he had back then? What fame? Now all this seemed so stupid. But then he was a teenager everything seemed so important and significant. She was a kid back then too, so who knows what was spinning in her head. She did not explain why she left him in the end. His injury and the inability to continue sports career seemed the most logical conclusion. And he chose anger and hatred instead of trying to understand.
Greg shook his head. Thoughts began to slide somewhere in a wrong direction. He had a bad habit of justifying people who managed to get closer to him, even when they did not need excuses. Perhaps that is why his closest friends were a bunch of assholes, with whom no one else could maintain normal relations. He closed the laptop with a sigh and decided to go and wake Frank or Tony. What else could be more uplifting then irritating his buddies early in the morning?!