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Ben’s jet had arrived in Stilwater late in the afternoon. The first thing he did was checking into the Hapton Hotel by the airport, where he had made a reservation prior to his departure. The penthouse suite he had rented gave him a marvellous view of Stilwater’s skyline to the north,
and the majestic Mt. Clavlin to the west. And while this familiar sight made him feel nostalgic, it also filled him with sorrow.
This is where he had once risen to the top, and where everything had come crumbling down. His eyes wandered towards the east,
where a whole new skyline had emerged from what used to be the Row.
Seeing what the district his late friend had used to call home during his final years had become, made him sick. He had heard of Ultor’s plans to ‘retake’ the city from crime, but seeing what they were turning Stilwater into in person made him realize just how bad things had gotten.
His gaze wandered back towards the west, to the projects and, naturally, Sunnyvale. His old stomping grounds had not changed much over the years, but he knew that the Ultor Innitiative didn’t end at Saint’s Row. They would sooner or later turn the projects into a glass and steel utopia as well, and that dreadful thought didn’t sit right with him.
Part of him wished that he still ran the Vice KIngs so that he could defend his home from that evil corporation, but he quickly shook the thought from his head. Since retiring as a crime lord, King had vowed never to turn back to that life and resort to violence. There were other routes to take in order to achieve one’s goals. The successful businessman had always known how to play ball with corporations and politicians, it’s what had elevated his former gang to the top of the criminal underworld of this rotten city in the first place.
King decided that he was done watching, and that it was time to act. Maybe running for mayor during the upcoming election was the way to go.
He had been toying with the idea of getting into politics for a while. In the past, he’d been on good terms with the leaders of the city.
During the mayoral race, he had been in Winslow’s good graces. A fellow brother in the office would have been good for business.
Richard, however, had vastly different goals, ones that stood in direct conflict with the status quo that Ben had been hoping to preserve.
And despite the Alderman’s death, his widow, and Stilwater’s current mayor, Monica Hughes, unfortunately seemed to blindly back Ultor and their exorbitant plans, allowing them to do as they pleased. Not that it surprised him. Her late husband had been preaching the same things during his campaign.
He turned away from the window, this wasn’t what he had come back for. Benjamin sat down on the edge of the soft bed, then reached into his suit’s breast pocket to retrieve a piece of paper. It was a polaroid photo of him and Julius in front of the Saint’s Row church back in ‘74.
He had kept it on his person ever since. Seeing their big smiles in the picture brought one to his face as well.
“Good times,” he reminisced, “at least they were before I fucked everything up.”