Chapter 1 : The return of the Maestro

Tapping his feet on the floor, a lone dark-haired man stood in Reville Airport as his phone rang in his pocket, he pulled it out and fixed it to his ear.

“So, did you find her?”

“Yes boss we did, I have compiled a full report of our investigation for you and will be sending it to your device.”

The dark-haired man removed the phone from his ear and looked at the screen, the phone buzzed as his device received a new file.

He opened it and began to read.

As he read through the file, the grip on his phone tightened.

Indeed, they had found her. Mia Hamilton was the girl who saved his life all those years ago.

Unfortunately, on her way back from the hospital that he was admitted, she was hit by a drunk driver moving at several miles an hour. Although she survived the accident, she was paralyzed from the waist down.

Upon reading this, the man's expression darkened. He couldn't believe she had suffered such a cruel fate.

This man was Dean Bradson.

15 years ago, Dean would witness his mother's death at the hands of an assassin.

As the sole witness to this awful event, Dean attempted to escape and ran out of the house but was captured by the assassin and taken to a back alley.

There he was stabbed three times and left for dead.

Dean didn't remember how long he lay in that back alley, bloodied and loosing consciousness but he remembered hearing her voice as she screamed for help.

Mia Hamilton had saved his life on that fateful day. She carried him to the hospital and stayed with him until she was sure he was properly taken care of.

He never got to see her face clearly, but he never forgot her voice.

Dean spent the next 6 months in the hospital and with his mother dead, he knew he could no longer return home as he couldn't swear he wasn't still being targeted.

Dean would leave Reville and head for Parlsbury, where he would start working odd jobs while sleeping under a bridge.

He had gone from riches to literal rags, but he was determined not to remain there. He would return to riches using his own two hands.

Dean began taking on more legally ambiguous jobs and as he got older, he slowly began rising the ranks of the criminal underworld.

Fifteen years later and Dean had built an underground criminal empire like no other while managing to remain a complete mystery.

He was involved in all sorts of illegal ventures, like Arms dealership, High scale hacking, Espionage, Infiltrations, Drug deals and so much more.

His clients were Everyone from store clerks to kings and queens.

His alter ego had become a feared and respected entity throughout the criminal under world and even amongst world governments.

He was the Maestro, the undisputed king of the criminal underworld.

His organization, Comet, was one of the largest and most powerful of its kind after he was successfully able to devour many of his rivals like a starving dragon.

But few knew the man behind the Maestro, no one but a few had ever even seen the real him.

After achieving such great heights with his criminal organization Comet, Dean decided that the time was finally right to return to Reville and set in motion a plan he had been brewing for fifteen long years.

He was going to find Mia and repay her for saving his life, and then he was going to find the truth behind his mother's death, as he was sure there had been more to that fateful night than he knew.

Dean continued to read the file to learn more about Mia.

She had just recently turned 25 years old.

She was only 10 years old when she saved him, a remarkable feat for one so young.

Her family, the Hamilton's were an upper middle-class family in Reville.

Fifteen years ago, Mia was only a child in primary school.

She was a rebellious child, and had snuck out of her home to go see her childhood friend Anna Josephus that Friday.

As she was returning from her friend's house later that evening, she decided to take a shortcut through a back alley.

There she saw Dean, lying stabbed and bloodied on the floor, gasping for breath and slowly loosing consciousness.

She began frantically screaming for help, hoping someone would come and help Dean.

But when no one came, she decided to carry Dean herself out of the alley.

Fortunately for both of them, she was very athletically gifted and managed to carry Dean far enough to see an ambulance, that carried them both to the hospital.

She didn't leave his side until the doctors assured her he was going to be fine.

Unfortunately for Mia, as she was returning home from the hospital Dean was, she got hit by a drunk driver.

While she survived the accident, it would fracture her spinal cord, leaving her paralyzed from the waist down.

Since then, Mia became a recluse. She felt that she could no longer function in society.

She had to be taken out of her current school and sent to one for children with disabilities.

Most of her friends stopped contacting her, and she was forced to abandon all the athletic and sporting activities which she enjoyed.

No one wanted to interact with her. They all began treating her as less than human, and no one was there for her in such a difficult time.

Dean couldn't help but blame himself for her predicament. While he knew he wasn't the one that crippled her, he couldn't help but think her life would have been so much better if she had never saved him back then, and had actually left him to die.

Deep down, he hoped she didn't feel that way, but even if she did, he was determined to make sure he changed her mind.

“Thank you so much Mia, you saved my life and it has cost you yours, I will do everything in my power to make it up to you, to ensure that this life of mine you protected won't be a curse, but a blessing to both of us” said Dean Clenching his fists.

“The people who killed my mother will get the exact opposite of what I will give to you, instead of life, they shall receive death”

Soon a black limousine began to approach him, its trafficator blinking distinctly.

Dean entered this vehicle and sat comfortably.

“How was your flight boss?” Asked a brown skinned man wearing a black suit and dark sunglasses.

“Tedious Carlos, I don't think I'll ever get used to flying” Replied Dean as he stared up at the car ceiling.

“So where to now boss?” Asked Carlos.

“Mia” replied Dean “I want to see her, take me to the Hamilton residence”

Carlos was silent for a few seconds.

“That might pose a bit of a problem, boss”

“And why is that?” Asked Dean.

“The Hamilton's are throwing an Engagement banquet for Mia this evening, the venue is rather unfavorable for a one-on-one conversation”

“SHE'S GETTING ENGAGED?” Asked Dean doubtfully.

“Not necessarily boss, depends on how the night goes,” replied Carlos.

“Her family intents to pick a suitor for her tonight".

"unfortunately for her, after she lost her ability to walk, the Hamilton family began to see her as a liability and stain on the family name, and have been trying to get rid of her for years”

Dean sighed, saddened by what he was hearing.

“Despite the fact that her suitors are few, the family hopes they can find ones that are relatively well-to-do as the Hamilton family are an upper middle-class family, so they still intend to use her marriage to expand their wealth and business”

Dean's sigh became even heavier, the thought that Mia was practically being sold off because of him deeply saddened and angered him.

“Well then Carlos, it seems like we'll be going to an engagement party” said Dean.

Carlos smiled, he knew his boss wasn't one to step away from a challenge.

He drove the limousine to the Hamilton residence, without any further questions or objections.

As they got there, Dean could see that the place was not as buzzing as he thought an occasion like this would traditionally be.

While practically all the important and high-ranking members of the Hamilton family were there, as Mia's grandfather, Harry was still the head of the family.

The occasion had little in the way of non-familial guests, as the family was sure to invite only the most necessary people to the event.

They probably believed the fewer people saw Mia the better.

Standing in the hall room of the Hamilton residence, Harry Hamilton looked at the array of suitors in front of him.

None of them were men of any kind of prestige, none of them stood out in terms of wealth and classin fact, some of them were basically no — name individuals from out of Reville.

However, one of them in particular stood out heavily in terms of physical appearance and stature, so much so that the others couldn't compare

Sophia Hamilton, Mia's mother, looked at the list of suitors with disgust, she couldn't believe her daughter had fallen to such a state that these were the best she could get.

Mia on the other hand, sat quietly in her wheelchair behind the crowd, trying her best to pretend the occasion wasn't happening.

Soon after looking through the men in front of him, the old man pointed his finger at the man at the farthest corner of the line.

"I choose you, Timothy Clarkson"