The Taste of Seduction
Chapter 1 - Atlas

It's just a normal city. With normal people, living lives.

But beneath the normal, lies the abnormal. Crime goes on in the cut-throat streets. People get robed, raped or killed. If you were too weak, you were consumed.

It's an animal eat animal world out here, and if you weren't a big animal, you would be smart enough to avoid getting involved in its activities.

He used to be weak. After witnessing the death of his parents, he realized the weak, had no place in these streets. He was a tiger in these parts of the city.

Not just any tiger, he was one who was patrolling these grounds not only to hunt but track his prey for the sole purpose of revenge. There is a story about a tiger who was injured by a man.

The tiger tracked the hunter for 6 months and after replaceing him killed him. Until he found his target, he was patient.

He was patient. Unlike the tiger who had only one target, he had many.

Even now he had found a new prey.

The prey's face was swollen due to the beatings he had received.

"Where are the others?" he asked coldly.

The prey looked into the hunter's cold gaze and lost all motivation to grasp his will.

"Please don't kill me," what more could the prey do but to beg?

He didn't even know this man.

Just a few hours ago the prey was in a club partying with his friends. Everything was smooth and fine until someone spiked his drink.

He was kidnapped, brought here and beaten. Every ten minutes, the man who seemed to be the leader of this pack, would walk in ask him "where are the others?"

If he didn't answer or pleaded for his life or promised money or even admit the fact that he didn't know who the hunter was or what he was talking about, his finger would be smashed with a hammer.

It's been 90 minutes the prey was down to his last finger.

"Don't worry about your fingers," the hunter says, "you still have ten toes."

"Why? Why?" the prey began to ask amidst tears, "Why are you doing this?!"

The room was dark and the only source of light was focused directly on the prey's face, so he hadn't been able to figure out the face of the hunter.

As you sow a melon, so you shall reap one, as you sow a bean, so you shall reap one," the hunter stepped into the light.

The prey froze in shock and slowly said, "It's you"

"I don't have time to break more fingers," said the hunter and turning to one of his men he ordered, "Put him out of his misery."

"Wait please forgive"

The sound of the gunshot echoed and reverbed across the room.

"You really should at least hear them out," Xavier complained as he walked towards the hunter and watching the floor to make sure he didn't step on any brain matter, "This is the 5th one already."

The latter sighed, his friend was right, "I need to avenge the accident of my brother and the death of his wife, and I, will not stop until all of them are dead."

Atlas had given up on being weak and dependent ever since the night his parents were murdered leaving him with his twin brother.

Using his connections acquired from inheriting his father's business, he was able to track down 5 persons involved in his brother's accident leading to the death of his wife with their unborn son.

His brother was so in love with the woman and he has no idea how he was going to tell him she is dead when he wakes up.

His brother was the heartless, cruel monster with twisted thoughts of the underworld and he was the ruthless, fierce devil in the business world. The Martini's brothers were a force to be reckoned with when they combined forces.

The only problem was only a few people knew the real identity of his brother and had seen his real face.

In order to protect him because they look alike his brother always covered his face whenever he carried out an operation.

That's why he goes by the name Maschera in the underworld meaning Mask in Italian. Because of this Atlas believes his brother's attacker must be someone closer to him who knew him enough to know how he looked like and the difference between them. But who?

"Atlas, Atlas? Xavier tried to grab his attention. Atlas had the tendency to drift of in thought.

"What is it?" Atlas turned.

"Your boys want to dispose of that," he gestured towards the body, "And I need to get going. The wife is always antsy when I return home so late."

Although Atlas, seemed to trust no one Xavier was one of the few persons he did trust. Xavier was his cousin. Although Atlas had inherited his parent's business, Xavier built his corporation from scratch straying away from his parents' original source of income.

Xavier may seem like a calm gentleman but Atlas knew how dangerous he could get. Atlas was grateful to the fact that Xavier didn't decide to compete with his brother for the leadership of the mafia; God knows that his brother would be outmatched.

Atlas sighed. He couldn't wait to catch the person responsible for his sleepless nights. Oh how he would make them pay. Excitement glinted in his eyes as various torturing mechanisms flashed across his eyes.. He was truly cruel and twisted.