Out on the northern side of Los Angeles was the famous town of Bel Air. This rich neighborhood was like the opposite of the main city; spacious and quiet instead of crowded and busy. Inside the rich neighborhood of mansions was one which had a different air to it. The modern architecture was in sharp contrast to the back half of the large property. That part was given over to an area filled with natural foliage echoing the nearby Rocky Mountains. Along with that was a small separate house and a helicopter landing pad a short distance away from the mansion.

Something which most people didn’t know was that this mansion was actually the secret headquarters for an American crime syndicate which held a lot of power. People such as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and members of international governments could be manipulated, bribed, blackmailed, or even assassinated for the purpose of carrying out the desires of The Centre.

On the other side; The Centre tended to be more righteous than other crime syndicates. If requested in the right way, they would do national and international spying for American government bodies such as the FBI and JAG. Because of this and some mercenary support provided to the military, federal law enforcement turned a blind eye to the actions of The Centre and quietly ordered the lesser law enforcement to ignore them as well.

In the yellow glow of early sunset, a helicopter flew over the mansion to land on the helipad. Two young adult women dressed in business suits got out and began to walk towards the tall modern mansion. The woman wearing a navy blue suit was carrying a briefcase along with a small handbag hung over her shoulder. Her brown hair was displayed in a buoyant cloud-like style, and there was a large gold brooch pinned on her left collar lapel. A sense of jovialness went along with her appearance. That was in sharp contrast to the young adult woman who was wearing a gray suit. There was a serious air about her, which was accentuated by the long brown hair which was pushed back behind her shoulders.

As the women exited the helipad and the helicopter lifted off, an older man with a tall build and graying dark brown hair approached them from a nearby building. Hugh Chandler was a member of the founding family of The Centre. He could be called the ambassador to the outside world who knew how to answer questions the right way to avoid any more being brought up. Something which helped him fill his objectives was the relaxed air of confidence about him.

When Hugh reached the two women, he greeted them in a gravelly voice with a kind tone to it. “Hello there, ladies. How did your day go?”

The blue-suited woman gave him a wry look before answering, “Objective accomplished.”

That response had Hugh chuckle and shake his head. “There you go, Krista, being too flamboyant to say something more precise like ‘mission completed’. Are you trying to exaggerate and become more James Bond-ish again?”

Krista Watterson, who was an attorney along with being an agent of The Centre, responded, “And there you go, playing the kind boss who cares about his underlings. Don’t become too relaxed or things might twist around.” Turning to offer a smile to the other woman, Krista lightly encouraged, “Come on, Charlotte, the case is over now and that badass judge is convicted, so drop the act and relax.”

As Hugh looked over at Charlotte, who had hazel green eyes like he did, a sense of pride came to him. Charlotte was his daughter, and was an important part of The Center.

When Charlotte was nine years old, Charlotte’s mother had eloped. That had Hugh focus more on being a good father to support Charlotte. Doing so had been looked down upon by many people, up to the point that some had threatened to forcibly make Hugh retire. However, Hugh had pulled a few tricks and called in some favors which had left things where no one would question him bringing up his daughter.

Perhaps because of this caring combined with the pain of being betrayed by her mother, Charlotte had become seriously focused on training to be an agent. After pursuing acting and physical training, she had become skilled enough to receive her first assignment for minor espionage when she was fourteen. That had gone well enough that more missions started coming her way. After proving herself many times, things eventually led to her gaining a spot as one of the top agents of The Centre. There was a downside to all of this as well, though.

Instead of following the other two in relaxing, a serious air remained around Charlotte and she gave Krista a flat look. “You haven’t completed the mission until you have filed a report,” she replied.

Because of dedicating her life to being an agent, Charlotte very rarely relaxed. Sometimes she went so far in pursuing the objectives of her missions that Hugh almost regretted encouraging her to take this path. The latest mission had been sudden and extreme. For the past week, Charlotte had been filling in for the witness that had been kidnapped to stop her from testifying against a California Supreme Court judge. Part of the case was the judge had been having an affair with the woman and then had paid someone to boobytrap the victim’s car. Because of this, filling in for the kidnapped witness had involved things such as having latex applied to her face and lower arms to emulate scarring from burns. This went along with Charlotte listening to hours of recordings of the woman’s voice so that she could mimic the witness.

Krista sighed exaggeratedly. “And there you go again, ruining the moment with your stern composure.”

“She has a point, Charlotte,” Hugh gently addressed his daughter. “If you don’t relax enough, that will affect your health and potentially your missions.”

Being focused on by both of them along with the stress of the past week had Charlotte reluctantly agree. “Go on ahead and I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”

As Krista left, Hugh stepped over to Charlotte to quietly tell her, “Please, try to get it in your head; you need to think of yourself as well instead of putting yourself down below your work.” Getting a sense of defiance from Charlotte in response had Hugh silently admit defeat and turn to follow Krista, leaving Charlotte standing alone in the open space.

After waiting about a minute to let Krista and Hugh get some distance away, Charlotte slowly walked towards a side path which led to the back of the mansion. Behind a large bricked area for outdoor functions, there was a large green lawn with a simple wooden pagoda in the center. After walking over to the edge of the lawn, Charlotte stopped to turn around and look back at the tall trees which were a short distance away.

These trees had some deep meaning to Charlotte. Some of them were about as old as Charlotte was, and had been planted by her mother, Elenor. She was an environmental scientist who specialized in studying natural foliage. Or… she had been.

A repeated double clicking sound coming from behind broke off the nostalgia and had Charlotte quickly turn to look in that direction. What she saw was so unexpected that she wondered if she might be hallucinating.

Looking totally out of character for this rich neighborhood, a tall man was strolling towards her from the house end of the side path which she had used. He appeared to be in his thirties, which was close to Charlotte’s age. Distinctions of his appearance were his wavy shoulder length medium blonde hair and a deep tan tone to his skin. These features along with his attire helped him look like a beach goer. He was wearing a bright pink teeshirt with some large flowery design on the front along with long white shorts and thick pink flip flops. 

Pretending to not notice her shocked reaction, the man casually strolled over to stand a short distance away from Charlotte. After looking her over with his light brown eyes, the man gave her a large, casual smile as he crossed his muscular arms over his broad chest.

“Hm, it looks like I’ve found someone who needs to learn how to relax,” the strange man loudly mused to himself in a very lyrical voice before addressing her directly. “I don’t suppose that you’ve taken any vacation time in the past five years?”

Hearing this question which happened to be true broke Charlotte out of her state of confusion. Silently cursing herself for letting her guard down, she tensed and turned around to face him while defensively reaching for one of the small handguns that she had holstered in the back of her belt. Being unarmed in court had left her feeling naked, so she had reattached her concealed handguns after they had left downtown Los Angeles and she could drop her cover.

“Who are you?” Charlotte coldly asked the man.

“I was just checking to see if you were alright. That’s partly because of how Hugh was showing concern for you.”

This statement confused Charlotte even more, which raised her stress level as well. Acting on instinct, she pulled out one of her light handguns and warningly aimed it at this strange man. “Who are you?” she demanded again.

“I guess I’ve been working freelance on my own for too long.” Relaxing as if he wasn’t having a gun pointed at him, the man glanced at her gun. “Oh, a Ruger LCP II? How ladylike.” He looked back at her with an arrogant grin which creeped her out. "Anyway; I’m Ben. We have been at briefings together, but never directly interacted before, which goes along with me being gone for the past three years on various missions.”

As Ben casually watched her, Charlotte tried to figure out what he had said. This implied that he was an agent for The Centre just like herself, but she couldn’t quite-

This thought was broken by a sudden wave of dizziness. The likely cause was she hadn’t eaten or drunk anything after putting on her witness disguise early in the morning. Maybe she should have done as Krista had suggested and had something for lunch instead of focusing on waiting to be summoned to testify. Eating and could have interfered with her disguise, though, which was why she hadn’t. Trying to keep her guard up and not show any signs of what had just happened, she glared back at Ben. ”And what do you-” The dizziness hit her again, hard enough that she staggered and almost dropped her handgun.

“Hey!” Ben exclaimed, reaching out towards her. “You need to relax now before something happens.”

It was too late for that. The small Ruger fell from Charlotte’s hand as she lost consciousness and collapsed.

Some muffled sounds filtered into Charlotte’s clouded mind. Things were so indistinct that she couldn’t tell if she was dreaming or faintly hearing something. As she focused on clearing her mind, she could pick out the voices of people arguing.

“Come on,” Hugh exclaimed with frustration. “This is the first time since Charlotte started running missions thirteen years ago that any problem like this has happened.”

A stern, authoritative female voice with a British accent to it spoke in return. “This is her fault, and yours as well. Charlotte should have requested having break time herself. Having her not do that for herself shows how incapable she is of truly evaluating all factors which would affect her performance and success. You are the person who gives her missions, so you have done worse to her than she has to herself.”

Ben broke in, speaking in a hard tone of voice which seemed out of character of the casual personality shown before. “Quit trying to shift the blame, Tracy. You should look back at your past and how you progressed through the years. It’s impossible for there to be no one who hasn’t made a mistake at some point in their time as an agent. Heck; look at what you caused about two decades ago.”

Hearing that blatant backtalk against Tracy, who was the head of the United Kingdom branch of The Center, gave Charlotte a huge impression that Ben was higher-ranked or more powerful than she had guessed from his earlier behavior. This helped give enough reason for her to slowly open her eyes to find that she was resting on the large leather sofa in her father’s study, which was opulently furnished in a Victorian style.

As if sensing that she had awoken, Ben turned around and walked over to crouch down to be at eye level with her. The sense of sternness about him disappeared. It was replaced by a trace of kindness mixed with the relaxed sense of arrogant confidence that he had offered before. “Hey there,” he softly greeted her. “Don’t try to move, or you’ll probably knock yourself out again.”

Usually when dealing with unfamiliar people, Charlotte would have had her guard up. However, this time she was feeling so tired and unfocused that she couldn’t respond. Uncertain about what she should do, Charlotte glanced over at her father.

Seeing her look at him had Hugh turn back to give Tracy a dark look and flick his hand towards the door. “Get out of here.”

Without giving any response, Tracy left the room.

“Why don’t I take Charlotte back home to relax?” Ben lavishly offered.

The dark look on Hugh’s face intensified. “Don’t even think about doing that,” he admonished Ben. “Get. Out. Now.”

Ben wryly smiled as he shrugged his shoulders and stood up. “Alright, grumpy old man. At least you can’t say I was like Tracy and didn’t offer to help.” Nonchalauntly, Ben stood up and ambled his way past Hugh while ignoring the glare directed towards him. After Ben was out of the room, Hugh walked over and roughly shut the door with a bang before he turned to look back at Charlotte.

“Let me guess; you haven't eaten or drunk anything since early this morning,” he assumed. After Charlotte nodded in response, he went over to the small bar mounted in a back corner of the office and opened up the built-in fridge. When he came back, he was carrying a plate with half of a sandwich along with a bottle of water.

“This makes it a good thing that I happened to not feel as hungry today,” he shared as he put the plate and bottle down on the small table beside the sofa. That table also held her two Rugers.

When Charlotte started to push herself up from the sofa, Hugh reached over to gently help her sit up. “I hate agreeing with those two, but we should listen to this wakeup call,” he told her as he reached over to pick up the plate and hand it to her. “Especially over the past few years, you have been putting too much effort into your work.” Some reminiscing came to his voice. “This reminds me of my father’s mantra which he emphasized went with this career; ‘do not fully trust anyone, not even yourself.’ Today you have been the perfect example of that by overworking and basically hurting yourself.”

“But how about you?” Charlotte brought up. “As the head of The Centre, you are working all the time as well.”

“Yes, but in a more sedentary position,” he pointed out. “Along with that is you going on missions all the time because you don’t like to relax. Now; focus on eating this and try thinking about what you should do for yourself instead of for me.” Hugh reached out to gently squeeze her shoulder and offer a caring smile before he walked to go sit at his lavish antique wooden desk and turn his attention to his computer monitor.

While she quietly ate, Charlotte considered what her father had said. Partly because of dedicating her life to this active career, she couldn’t imagine herself doing anything else. Sure, there had been a few times where she had been on cruises and other vacations, but those had been covers for missions. Even when she hadn’t been assigned a mission, she was focused on preparing herself to be called up in the next moment instead of relaxing.

That last thought had her look towards her father. “Who is Ben?”

Even though he had been expecting this question, Hugh sighed to himself as he stopped focusing on his computer and looked towards Charlotte. “He’s a freelancer.”

Hearing all of this had Charlotte’s eyes widen in disbelief. Freelancers were similar to mercenaries. They were almost never used by The Centre because of them being considered a higher risk of a security breach. Instead of staying connected to a regional headquarters like this private mansion, they could go out and live how they pleased between missions. After analyzing this for a few moments, Charlotte looked back at her father. “If he is freelance, why is he back here?”

“To get a briefing on some top secret mission.”

That guess made things seem even stranger. Charlotte had known that the most sensitive missions were given in person to prevent any leaks from happening, but it seemed wrong to give one of those missions to that arrogant freelancer. “What is his security rank?”

“Rank I.”

The latest fact had Charlotte catch her breath. Having Ben at Rank I put him up there with her father. Until now, Rank I had only been given to the few people such as Tracy who were head of international branches of The Centre. A freelancer being at Rank I level…

“It is unbelievable,” Hugh agreed as if he had heard her thoughts. Making that admission had him look down at the old framed photo of his father on his desk. Just like Charlotte, Hugh had been raised inside The Centre. With how things had changed, though, he was beginning to wish that he had left The Centre to live a normal life like Elenor had left him and Charlotte. 

The sound of Charlotte opening the plastic water bottle to take a drink had Hugh leave those thoughts behind. “You should go back to your house and rest,” he advised her. “I’m supposing that you want to be left alone to relax, so I can have dinner sent out to you. Also, don’t bother writing a report tonight. Krista won’t bother to file hers until the last minute tomorrow, so you have plenty of time to write your own.”

“Alright,” Charlotte reluctantly agreed. “This shouldn’t be allowed to happen again, though.”

“Stop setting yourself up to feel worse,” Hugh sternly told her.thi “Like I told Tracy; this is the first time in years that you have crashed in any way, which confirms that you need to take a break and rest” Standing up from his desk, Hugh walked over to offer his hand to Charlotte. “Want me to walk you back to your space?”

“No, thanks,” Charlotte returned as Hugh helped her stand. When he let go of her hand, she gave him a soft look before reaching out to give him a one-armed embrace, which he returned.

“Look after yourself,” Hugh gently ordered as he let go of his daughter.

Some amusement crept onto Charlotte’s face. “Yes, Papa.” They shared a chuckle at that reference to the past before the serious air came to Charlotte again as she reached down to retrieve her handguns. After returning them to the holsters on her back, she turned to walk towards the door. Hugh watched as she left before turning to look out of his window at the sky which was beginning to turn orange from the approaching sunset.

Even though nothing showed upon his face, a trace of sadness came into Hugh’s mind. These precious family moments with Charlotte were so rare… It seriously seemed like she took being an agent as more important than allowing herself to have thoughts and emotions for herself. Perhaps she had become this way because of how he had buried himself in his work to hide from the pain of Elenor disappearing.

When Charlotte left the large mansion, she walked down the path leading towards a small house which had been built for her. Hugh had done that so that Charlotte could have some space to focus on herself and find quiet instead of being surrounded by the complex undergoings of The Centre all the time.

“Well, look who’s walking along on her own after crashing out earlier.”

Charlotte tensed yet continued walking as Ben ambled down one of the other paths with his hands in his pockets. Not this guy again, she thought to herself.

“Would you like some help getting back to your place?” he offered as he walked over to join her. “I already know how to catch you so you don’t knock your head on the ground.”

“Go away,” she tersely replied without looking at him.

“Oh my,” Ben exclaimed to himself as he sauntered along beside her. “I must have done something wrong. I stopped this girl from hurting herself and carried her up to her father, but she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me.”

That last comment broke the restraint that Charlotte was holding herself under. Moving fast enough to surprise Ben, Charlotte stopped and spun around to strike his diaphragm hard with her right elbow. As Ben started to double over, she hit him under the jaw with her left fist. Those combined momentums had his head snap back. While Ben tried to regain focus from the unexpected attack, Charlotte shoved him with both of her hands to have him fall down to land on his back with a loud thump.

Ben looked up to see Charlotte glaring down at him. When she quietly spoke, there was a sense of warning to her voice mixed with restrained anger.

“Leave me alone.” Without waiting for any response, Charlotte turned and strode away down the path as fast as the narrow high heels and tight long skirt she was wearing would allow her to.

As Ben watched her leave, a sinister smile came to his face. This was looking like a tough nut to crack. After having it easy for so long, this would be a real treat.

When Charlotte got to her house, she used a key along with an eye scanner to unlock the door. Entering and turning the room’s light on revealed a long single room. The open living room was furnished sparsely. Some small cupboards with entertainment devices were underneath a large flat TV mounted on the side wall. In the corner of the back wall opposite the doorway was a breakfast bar enclosing a small kitchen, and the other corner had an open computer desk facing the front door along with one chair behind it. 

After locking and bolting the door behind herself, Charlotte wrenched off the high heel shoes and dropped them on the floor by the door. She then went over to the kitchen to get herself a glass of purified water from the extra tap at the sink. Having that turd of a man thrown at her after a stressful week was helping her feel exhausted, which wasn’t safe. She didn’t like to think about or admit it, but maybe she should take a break from doing missions like Tracy and her father had brought up. Looking at it from outside, it was stupid to see how she had been overworking herself so regularly.

What would she have to do without being on missions, though? This question was part of the reason why she kept herself active. When she wasn’t on some mission, all that she could think of doing was keeping fit and prepared to be called up at a moment’s notice.

Deciding to try and get that annoying question out of her mind, Charlotte went back to the living room to turn on the TV. After changing it to a local news station, she headed back toward the front door. As she stopped to pick up the annoying high heel shoes that she’d been forced to wear for the impersonation, a name being mentioned on the news broadcast caught her attention.

“This afternoon, Tasha Sanders testified in the court case against former Judge Jenkins. There had been some wondering if the woman would be strong enough to do so in front of the powerful man who she claimed sexually abused her twelve years ago. However, Ms. Sanders said that having some other women come out with claims against him as well helped her stay strong enough to be before him in court today.”

Along with this commentary were video clips of Charlotte impersonating Tracy while sitting in the witness box in court, and then struggling to make her way through the paparazzi outside the courtroom along with Krista shielding her.

The image switched to the news host, who continued, “The jury has begun deliberations in this case. This case along with more women lining up to potentially sue Jenkins has it seeming likely that he will be convicted at some point.”

Glad that there might be some good outcome to the stressful week, Charlotte turned to go upstairs and remove her disguise.

A while later, Charlotte was in her PJs dozing on her sofa with some calm music playing quietly on her surround sound system. 

This relaxed environment was interrupted by a loud knock on the door which woke her up. Guessing it was the dinner that her father had promised to have cooked for her, Charlotte got up and went over to unlock and open her door. When she did, she stared in surprise.

Ben had a big smile on his face while standing holding a plastic bag with something inside it. “Hello there.”

“What in blazes are you doing here?” she demanded as she glared at him.

“I don’t suppose that you are waiting for this?” He raised his arm to teasingly dangle the bag of food in the air. “I could help you relax as well,” he added suggestively while he looked her over.

Even though she was wearing full length PJs, the fact that he was seeing her like this was embarrassing. She seriously needed to eat, but almost wished she could slam the door in his face instead. He had her at a disadvantage, though.

“Why are you being nasty like this?” she questioned.

“What are you talking about?” Ben exclaimed. “I bring you dinner, and yet you don't want me to help you relax?” He gave her a teasing look. “I guess you don’t remember how I helped you out earlier when I took you in after you collapsed. It would seem that you at least owe me some thanks for doing that.”

“... Thank you,” Charlotte reluctantly said.

Ben leaned towards her and cupped his left hand behind his ear. “What was that? I couldn't clearly make out what you just said.”

Gritting her teeth, Charlotte took a breath and then said louder, “Thank you for helping me.” She broke off and looked away in embarrassment as her stomach grumbled quietly.

Ben meanly chuckled as he lowered his arm and let Charlotte grab the bag, but didn't let go of it and jerked her towards him. “We are even for earlier, but you owe me again for helping you out now.” He then let go of the bag and watched as she marched back into her apartment and slammed the door loudly behind herself.

“I look forward to seeing you tomorrow,” Ben called out before turning to walk back towards the mansion.

Overwhelmed by what had happened, Charlotte dropped the bag of food, then leaned back against her front door and slowly sank down to sitting on the floor. This was insane. What was going on with this arrogant excuse for an agent? Having all of this junk happen with Ben along with the stress of the past week had left her feeling mentally exhausted along with weakened physically. This honestly was the most stressful time which she had ever had, even worse than some of the high risk international missions she had carried out. It was also so wrong how he felt powerful enough to be doing all of this junk.