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of liked the pain.
    “You get one thing straight,” Jake glared at her, teeth clenched.  “I call the fucking shots here.  You might be a little better at coming up with the ideas, but I’m the one out there risking my ass to execute them.  Without me, you’re nothing.  You just remember that,” he sneered at her, releasing her arm.
    Ava sat back in her chair and lit another cigarette, nodding slowly.  “I’ll remember,” she said.
    “Good…you do that,” Jake nodded.  “Now I want a new plan, a bigger plan when I get back later.  You got it?”
    Ava sucked at her teeth and then took a deep drag of her cigarette and exhaled.  “Yeah…I got it,” she said.  “But these things don’t just materialize out of thin air.  There’s a lot of work involved.  It’s not as easy as you think, and it takes time.”
    “Then I suggest you get started,” Jake said as he turned and walked away.
    Ava already had a plan; far more of a plan than Jake would ever know, but like a huge dam holding back a lake of information, she wasn’t about to open the floodgates.  Rather, she would release a more steady flow a little bit at a time, using it to generate the power necessary to secure her position within their expanding organization.  If she told Jake everything now, he wouldn’t need her.  And with Jake, if you weren’t necessary, you were expendable.  Without information, Ava’s position was tenuous at best, and while she knew that Jake still loved her sex, sex was easily replaceable, especially here in Atlanta.    
    While Ava sat there, quietly finishing her cigarette, Jake made a circuit around the room, rousing each of his lounging men often with a smack to the head or a boot to the gut.  Then he stormed out of the room.
    Meanwhile, his men moaned, groaned, burped, and farted their way into various states of semi-awareness.  Some lit cigarettes, some fished cans of beans from crates scattered around the room to eat for breakfast, while others rummaged through cereal boxes, fishing out handfuls of cereal for their morning meals.  A couple washed down their food with swigs of whiskey or tequila.
    Disgusted by the sights, smells, and sounds, Ava departed the room.  “I’m going for a walk,” she said quietly. 
    No one seemed to care or even take notice as she left.
    She walked downstairs to the massive steel door that acted as the only way into or out of the pump station.  One of Jake’s men sat slumped, sleeping in a folding chair.  His assault rifle lay across his lap.  He was supposed to be watching the monitor and guarding the entrance.  Ava knew the job was boring as shit, but it was necessary nonetheless.  She awakened him with a swift kick to the shin.
    “ Ah…fuck! ” he cried, jolting awake.  “Why’d you do that?” he asked, rubbing his shin sorely.
    “Why do you think, dumbshit?” Ava frowned at him.  “Just be thankful it was me and not Jake who found you asleep on the job.”
    The henchman frowned, shrinking back from Ava, knowing that he was in the wrong.  A little cowering might just help keep Ava quiet to Jake about what she’d seen.  The man sat, staring at her.
    “Well?” Ava said, waiting a moment as the henchman stared at her, oblivious.  “ Open the goddamn door! ” she said, frustrated at his incompetence.  She shook her head as she stood waiting for him to unlatch and then swing the heavy steel door open for her.  These guys might be tough and good at fighting, but they sure as hell weren’t worth much otherwise.
    She stepped outside, blinking and squinting from the sun’s rays as she gave her eyes a moment to adjust from the pump station’s dark, dank interior to the blazing Georgia sunlight.  She walked the short distance to the chain-link fence that surrounded the perimeter of their compound, unlocked the chained gate, stepped through, and relocked it behind her.  She looked up at the pump station’s third floor tower.  She could see