Rules of Pursuit (MXM)

The car stopped with a shriek that sliced through the midnight air, rubber biting into asphalt, the smell of burnt tires lingering like gunpowder after a duel. Its body gleamed obsidian beneath the streetlights, polished so sharply that even the neon buzz of the club’s sign seemed humbled against its sheen. The doors swung open in synchrony, and men in pressed suits stepped out with the precision of soldiers, shoulders squared, faces carved into masks of focus.

The nightclub’s bass throbbed through the pavement, a steady boom that rattled bones and shook loose teeth in cheap glasses. When the men crossed the threshold, the bouncer didn’t so much as twitch. No ID checks, no questions, not even a nod. Their presence was routine, the sort of unwelcome ritual the staff had long stopped protesting. Inside, smoke curled through flashing lights, and the music grew loud enough to blur thought.

One of the suited men bent, whispered something into the ear of a secondary bouncer. A finger lifted, pointing toward a corner door. The suited men moved in formation, a tide parting the crowd, until they reached the room.

And there he was.

Kian Vaughn, twenty-nine, lounging in a sprawl of velvet cushions as if he owned not only the room but the city block. His black shirt was unbuttoned too far, collarbones catching the dim light, the silk fabric pooling like spilled ink across his frame. A trench coat draped around him as though he’d carelessly shrugged into it hours ago, but still managed to look like it was tailored by gods with expensive taste. His dark hair fell in waves, every strand a rebellion yet somehow orchestrated, the kind of look one could never buy off the rack no matter the price tag.

He was surrounded by half the night—men and women pressed in close, glasses overturned, bottles half-finished, a battlefield of laughter and perfume. The table was an ocean of liquor and mess, but Kian still looked immaculate, a man both part of the chaos and above it.

The guards didn’t waste time. They strode forward, grabbed his arms, and hauled him upright.

“Gentlemen, really?” Kian’s voice cut through the music, dry and amused. “You could have at least sent me a calendar invite. I’m not that hard to schedule.”

The group began dragging him out, his shoes sliding against the sticky floor as people stumbled aside.

“I mean honestly,” Kian went on, twisting his head toward them as if they were merely colleagues on a coffee run, “this happens so often I’ve started considering it cardio. And yet, no one ever thinks to say, ‘Hey Mr. Vaughn, care to step outside?’ No, it’s always the grand parade. You people have the subtlety of a marching band.”

“Please, Mr. Vaughn,” one of the guards said under his breath, “let’s not make this a scene.”

Kian widened his eyes, feigning innocence. “A scene? My dear friend, we’ve already hit act two. If brains were lightbulbs, yours would be unplugged in a storage closet.”

They bundled him out the door, past the unbothered bouncer, and into the waiting car. The door shut with a heavy thud, muffling the world outside.

The vehicle leapt forward, speed pressing Kian back into the leather seats. He barely blinked. He slipped a hand into his pocket, pulled out his phone, and began scrolling with the detached grace of someone who had sat through this exact performance too many times to count. Every tap of his finger seemed to say: Monday. Or Wednesday. Always on schedule.

Thirty minutes of fast roads later, the car curved up a drive and slowed before a towering estate, its windows glowing like a crown in the darkness. The guards stepped out, opened his door, and spoke with rehearsed politeness.

“Mr. Vaughn. If you would.”

Kian slid out of the car, lifting his gaze toward the mansion. A smirk tugged at his mouth, equal parts arrogance and boredom, as though this too was nothing more than an item on his weekly to-do list.

The house manager moved with the quiet glide of someone who had worked in service too long to make unnecessary noise. He led Kian across polished marble floors that clicked beneath his shoes, down a hall lined with oil portraits of Vaughn ancestors who all seemed to glare with the same severity. The path ended at a glass corridor. Light pooled differently here—green and alive, spilling through tall panes where plants climbed and leaned as if eavesdropping.

His mother’s space had never been just an office. It was a conservatory bent into submission, half-jungle and half-executive boardroom. Fiddle-leaf figs stood taller than men, their broad leaves fanning above sleek black chairs. Ferns and orchids sprawled across shelves, and glass walls caught the moonlight in fractured reflections. Behind a wide desk sat Erica Vaughn, the matriarch of empires, her silver rings tapping a slow rhythm on the surface.

The moment Kian entered, she closed her eyes and inhaled sharply, as though the very act of breathing might steel her patience. She exhaled, steady and heavy. Did it again. And then her hand cracked against the desk, a sound that made even the plants seem to flinch. She rose, deliberate and slow, every inch of her height carrying the weight of command.

“Happy birthday, Kian.”

Her voice was velvet over steel.

Kian’s mouth curved into a smile that was equal parts charm and mockery. “Thanks, Mom. Though, if I may—sending your private army to haul me out of a nightclub feels a touch extravagant for a birthday surprise.”

“I apologize for cutting your festivities short,” she replied smoothly, folding her hands atop the desk, “but I have the impression that all your days are festivities.”

Kian tilted his head, his grin brightening. “Well, isn’t that the purpose of life? To enjoy the times?”

Erica arched an eyebrow, the faintest twitch of disapproval. “Sit down, Kian. We need to talk.”

He sauntered to the chair opposite her, lowering himself with a careless slouch that suggested he was settling in for entertainment rather than judgment. “What’s this, then? You’re finally buying me that car you teased me with?”

“No.”

Kian chuckled, shaking his head. “Ah, then it’s the house in Turks and Caicos”

Her lips softened into a smile, but it was a blade disguised as silk. “No.”

He cleared his throat, buying time for a more extravagant guess. “Well… I can’t quite think of any gift that would outdo those. What do you have in mind?”

“The company.”

There was a pause, brief but thick. Kian burst into laughter, tipping his head back. “Mom, you’re too much. Come on, really? You want me to take the company? You’re generous, but no. Absolutely not.”

The humor evaporated from her expression, replaced by a sternness that made the orchids look meek. She leaned forward, her tone cutting. “Kian, I am so fucking sick of you.”

His laughter faltered, hanging like smoke in the air.

“I have endured enough of this circus. Do you understand what my family built? For generations, we were a dynasty of women. We held the reins of business like a crown, and we carried it with pride. Then came you boys. My beloved sons, every one of you spoiled because I loved too much. Your brothers are already deep in the business, thriving. You are the youngest, and the most coddled. For your thirtieth birthday, I am giving you more than a car, more than a house. You will take over the tech solutions subsidiary.”

Kian blinked, slow and heavy, like his lashes might shield him from the words. “Take on the company?”

“Yes. It is time. I am at an age where relaxation is not indulgence but right. In my day, we worked ourselves raw until we had earned a moment’s peace. You, on the other hand, have made peace your full-time occupation. Now you will work. You will learn what it means to earn a living.”

“Mom,” he muttered, his tone slipping from jest to plea, “you know I don’t know how to do that.”

Her voice sharpened. “And why do you think I spent hundreds of thousands on your education? You think those degrees were trophies to hang on your wall? You will put them to use. That starts the day after tomorrow.”

“The day after—” Kian sputtered, running a hand through his hair. “This is ridiculous.”

Erica’s palm struck the desk again, a thunderclap in the greenhouse. “Do you know what’s ridiculous? You are. I am not negotiating, Kian. I am giving you orders.”

Silence stretched, broken only by the faint hiss of an irrigation system watering the orchids. Kian sat back, his smile returning in slow, measured increments. But behind the grin was a flicker of unease, as though for once he realized the game might not be on his terms.

Kian leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers drumming together as though plotting an escape route on invisible blueprints. He wore the grin of a man trying to charm a shark into vegetarianism.

“Look, Mom, I appreciate the gesture, truly. But wouldn’t it be wiser to hand this thing to, say, one of my brothers? They’re already waist-deep in spreadsheets and quarterly reviews. I’d only get in the way. Think about it: me showing up at a board meeting is like tossing a cat into a dog show. Everyone’s confused, someone gets scratched, and nothing gets accomplished.”

Erica’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t flinch, didn’t twitch.

Kian cleared his throat, plowing on. “Besides, you don’t want the staff revolting, do you? Employee morale is fragile. They see me coming in with my… unconventional leadership style, and poof—retention goes down faster than champagne at one of my parties. I’m doing you a favor, really, by not stepping in.”

“You will step in.”

Her reply was clipped, her patience threaded tight.

Kian gave her a wounded look, pressing a hand over his chest. “Mother, have a heart. My talents lie elsewhere. I’m a brand ambassador for fun, a connoisseur of leisure, a man who can turn a dull evening into a historic memory. If you put me in charge of a tech company, I’ll have to start Googling what a server is. Is it a machine, or the guy who brings me appetizers? Clarify this for me.”

Erica exhaled slowly, the sound measured, dangerous. “It is both, Kian. And you’ll be managing plenty of each.”

Kian blinked, pausing. “That almost sounded like a joke. Are you… joking?”

“No.”

He let out a dramatic groan, flopping back in the chair, arms dangling like a marionette with cut strings. “This is cruel. It’s—dare I say—abuse. What will the tabloids say when they learn the great Erica Vaughn enslaved her youngest son into corporate labor? I see the headlines already: Party Prince Shackled to Office Chair. Think of the scandal!”

“Better headlines than the ones I’ve been reading about you.” She leaned closer, voice lowered. “You think I don’t hear? The bars, the women, the excess. All of Calderra knows the Vaughn boy who cannot be tamed. Well, I am taming you, Kian. You will take the company. You will learn. And you will either rise to the challenge, or drown in it.”

Kian sat upright, narrowing his eyes, lips twitching between defiance and reluctant amusement. “You really don’t make it easy to love you sometimes, Mom.”

Her expression didn’t soften. “Good. I am not here to be easy.”

The silence was broken again by the faint hiss of misting nozzles among the plants, droplets glistening like sweat on leaves. Kian looked around, as though hoping one of the ferns might intervene on his behalf. When none volunteered, he sighed, crossing his arms like a sulking schoolboy.

“So, the day after tomorrow? Can I at least have tomorrow for recovery?”

“You may. But do not waste it. When you walk into that office, you will walk in as Kian Vaughn, manager. Not as some spoiled brat stumbling out of a nightclub.”

Kian muttered, almost inaudible, “Well, technically I’ll be both.”

Erica’s hand twitched toward the desk again. He raised both palms quickly, smirking, though his eyes betrayed the truth: she had cornered him, and there was no wriggling out.

-Kian

Morning hit me like a tax audit—loud, merciless, and deeply personal. My skull throbbed as if a marching band had rented space behind my eyes. I groaned into the pillow, the scent of last night’s perfume and spilled whiskey woven into the sheets like a crime scene report.

After leaving my mother’s house, I had decided the only way to cope with the impending tragedy of employment was to stage a private festival in my apartment. I drank. I called a friend. We celebrated my freedom, my impending doom, and my very existence with equal vigor. We had a good time in the bed, outside the bed, against the counter, on the floor—I think the fridge was involved at one point, though I can’t quite confirm. At some point, they left, and I collapsed, victorious but unsatisfied, into unconsciousness.

Now, here I was, sprawled across my king-sized mattress, half-naked, with a headache so sharp it felt like my brain had grown teeth. I reached for my phone, squinted at the screen, and muttered a prayer of thanks to the gods of auto-brightness. No messages from my mother yet. That was either mercy or a trap.

Dragging myself upright, I staggered toward the living room. The place looked like Bacchus himself had hosted a pop-up. Glasses everywhere, cushions displaced, my shirt dangling from a lamp. I ignored it. Survival required focus. I fetched my laptop, set it on the dining table, and opened it with the solemnity of a man defusing a bomb.

“Alright,” I whispered, voice hoarse, “time to find out what the hell a tech solutions company actually does.”

The screen glowed to life, and I typed into the search bar like a schoolboy cheating on homework. What is a tech solutions company?

The results populated instantly. Rows of jargon. Articles with phrases like strategic optimization, scalable infrastructures, digital transformation. Each one felt like a personal attack.

I scrolled further, rubbing my temple with one hand, sipping water with the other. “Tech solutions… tech solutions… why does every explanation sound like a riddle told by a drunk accountant?”

I clicked the first link. The page loaded with cheerful stock images of people in suits shaking hands, all teeth and blinding smiles. The header read: Empowering Enterprises with End-to-End Technology Solutions.

“Fantastic,” I muttered. “So it’s just words. You people are selling words.”

I skimmed. Cloud services, cybersecurity, enterprise resource planning. Each term stabbed at me like unfamiliar relatives at a family reunion. I could almost hear my mother’s voice sneering: Put that master’s degree to use, Kian.

I leaned back in the chair, groaning, letting the laptop’s glow highlight my hangover’s finest features. “Cloud services,” I said aloud, “I don’t even know how to use half the apps on my phone. Cybersecurity? My password is literally password.”

Scrolling again, I stopped at a phrase that read Employee Retention Strategies. I barked out a laugh, the sound too loud for my aching head. “Retention? Please. They’ll be running for the exits once they see me waltz in.”

I closed the laptop halfway, rested my forehead on it, and sighed. “Happy birthday to me. King of hangovers. Prince of chaos. Future CEO of… whatever the hell this circus is.”

The plants on my balcony swayed in the breeze, mocking me with their effortless photosynthesis. I pushed the laptop open again, typed in another query, and muttered, “Fine. Step one: figure out what scalable infrastructure means. Step two: pray it doesn’t involve heavy lifting.”

I promised myself I’d focus. Just a solid thirty minutes of research. But thirty minutes later, I had learned nothing about tech solutions and everything about how easily the internet could lure me down a rabbit hole.

It started innocently enough. I typed scalable infrastructure examples. The first result showed a diagram with arrows and servers stacked like Lego blocks. My brain tapped out after two sentences. I clicked over to what is cloud migration and found myself staring at the phrase legacy systems. Which naturally made me think about my family, which made me think about therapy, which made me think about whether therapy counted as a tax write-off.

One tab became five. Five became twelve. Before I knew it, I had articles open on the mating habits of penguins, a video tutorial on how to saber champagne with a kitchen knife, and a thread debating whether expensive mattresses actually change your life. I was learning, yes—just not about the right subject.

Then came the turning point. A sidebar headline caught my bleary eye: Things You Didn’t Know About the Male Body. I clicked. Of course I clicked. Curiosity is my toxic trait.

Ten minutes later, I was halfway through an article boldly titled: Can Men Ejaculate From Just Anal Stimulation?

I sat there, one hand still holding my water glass, the other frozen on the trackpad, staring at the screen like it had just confessed state secrets.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered to myself. “This is not scalable infrastructure.”

The article was thorough. Diagrams, quotes from dubious experts, personal testimonies that ranged from clinical to disturbingly poetic. I read every word. Twice. Then I sat back in the chair, muttering, “Mom told me to put my degree to use, and here I am, getting a masterclass in prostate geography.”

Somewhere in the haze, I remembered the tech company. I clicked back to my original tab. The cheerful stock photo people were still shaking hands, grinning like they’d never once questioned their anatomy. I groaned.

Focus. I needed focus.

I forced myself to type: how to run a tech solutions company for dummies. Google helpfully suggested: how to fake confidence in a job you don’t understand.

I leaned back, laughing so hard it made my headache pulse sharper. “Finally, something useful.”

By the time I closed the “anal-only ejaculation” article, I realized my hangover wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was my career. What I needed wasn’t more research—it was armor. Corporate armor.

I pulled my phone closer, scrolled through my contacts, and tapped on Jazz. Jasmine, technically, but she hated when I called her that. The line rang twice before her voice, husky from cigarettes and amusement, spilled through.

“Kian Vaughn. Don’t tell me you’re in jail already.”

“Not yet,” I croaked. “But it’s worse. I start work tomorrow.”

There was a pause. Then laughter, loud and unrestrained, the kind that could peel paint off the walls. “Work? You? Doing what, drinking the company’s liquor cabinet dry?”

“Very funny. No, really—my mother’s forcing me to run the tech solutions subsidiary.”

“Tech solutions?” she repeated. “Do you even know what that means?”

“Yes,” I lied, rubbing my temple. “Obviously. Solutions involving tech. But the issue at hand, Jazz, is fashion. I need you to help me pick an outfit. Corporate chic, but not… corporate bleak.”

She groaned dramatically. “Kian, it’s not Milan Fashion Week. Wear a suit. That’s it. End of story.”

“No, no, no. It’s never that simple. You know me—I can’t just wear a suit. I have to arrive like a comet crashing through the atmosphere, dazzling, unforgettable. This is my debut in the kingdom of capitalism, Jazz. I need the right costume.”

Another pause. I pictured her lighting another cigarette, rolling her eyes. “Alright, fine. What’s in your closet?”

“Chaos,” I admitted, pulling open the doors. The hangers were a kaleidoscope of indulgence: sequined jackets, velvet blazers, shirts with collars so sharp they could cut diamonds. I pushed aside a fur coat I didn’t remember buying. “See, the problem is my wardrobe screams nightclub, not corporate nightmare.”

She snorted. “Corporate nightmare is accurate.”

“Jazz,” I whined, “don’t abandon me now. Should I go classic black suit, crisp white shirt? Or maybe something with a pattern, subtle stripes? Do they make pinstripes in glitter?”

“For the love of God, no glitter.”

I tugged out a navy suit, held it up against myself in the mirror. My hair was still a wreck from last night, and I had a suspicious bruise on my collarbone. The reflection screamed scandal waiting to happen.

“Okay,” she said, voice firm, the way she got when she took pity on me. “Listen carefully. Simple suit, no more than two colors. Shirt tucked, shoes polished, hair tamed. You’re not seducing investors; you’re trying to look like you can read an email without breaking into hives.”

I sighed, flopping the suit onto the bed. “So boring. But fine. Will you come over tomorrow morning to supervise? I don’t trust myself.”

“You’ll owe me dinner.”

“Done. I’ll even let you pick the wine, though you always choose something tragic.”

She laughed again, softer this time. “I’ll be there. Eight sharp. Don’t be drunk.”

“Sharp is my middle name.”

“No, it’s Trouble.” And then she hung up.

I tossed the phone aside, stared at the navy suit on my bed, and muttered, “Tomorrow, I become a corporate man. God help us all.”