So there you have it. Only six years on the throne and I was already diversifying.
It took barely eighteen months to clean up the island and build my mansion. I remember my first visit to the island…
I’d taken a charter plane there, and decided in that moment that helicopters and boats, or ferries, would be the preferred method of coming and going moving forward. It was one of the first things I told my architect, who thankfully, was a lot less loco en la cabeza than the one who designed the prison.
But I didn’t care about that.I wouldn’t be living in there…
Iwould be living in my own alabaster palace, officially dubbedThe Ivory Mansion.
Unfortunately, it couldn’tactuallybe made out of ivory. I checked.
They said there aren’t enough elephants in the world, and even if there were, the idea of slaughtering a whole mess of elephants for some bullshit made me sad.
We went with white marble instead. Just as cool looking.
Not to mention almost unbelievably expensive when you need, like, two hundred metric tons of the stuff.
Great detail and precision went into every inch of my new home. I designed it to be my castle, because it was.Fit for an evil king…
Yet still big enough that I could share it with several people and never even have to see them.
Alabaster Isle was unlike any place I’d ever seen before, or could have ever imagined, and that made the decision to own it an easy one.
When my castle was complete, and I took my first step inside, I looked around at the lavish monstrosity, my grandiose palace of bone and brass.
Clacking through the foyer, I tipped my chin upward, to a ceiling in the sky. Pulled in a deep breath, and grinned.
The King had arrived.
Then…
Building an empire is a marathon, not a sprint.
It is no day-cruise, but rather a voyage of the goddamn seven seas. One that rarely follows the predetermined course.
Case in point, this newfacetof my business.
Operating a prison wasn’t something I ever expected I’d add to my resume. And I sure as shit never saw myself as aWarden…
When I think of Wardens, I think of rumpled old grumps—or the guy from The Shawshank Redemption.
Actually, I could probably take some pointers from that one…
Nevertheless, I’m impatient to get the ball rolling on this place. I want to see what Alabaster Penitentiary can become. But, as it tends to, the red tape is holding me up. More specifically, Human Resources.My least favorite thing.
Peoplearea resource. I get that. Empires can’t run without them, and I’m skilled in using up every drop of what they can do for me. But I’m also used to dealing with an infrastructure that’s already been established.
While I brought my ownflareto my organization, I didn’t invent the cartel, nor did I design how it operates. Organizedcrime has a way of doing things that you don’t fuck with, because it works.
But when it comes to thisprison…I’mexpected to come up with an entire body of staff, and I’m not afraid to admit, it’s proving slightly challenging.
After weeks of living and breathing Alabaster Isle, I’ve just touched down in Manhattan. It’s my first time leaving my new home since I moved in, and I can’t believe how much I miss it already. Still, I had to come into the city to do other work.
Hopefully straighten some things—and some people—out.
From the helipad, I go directly to the uptown office where I’m meeting with one of my lawyers, Fabian, to talk logistics.
“Equino is good,” he says while literally flipping through a binder chock full of files on cartel men who could potentially be repurposed as correctional officers. “Smart. Shrewd head about him.”
