《EDITING - MANY CHAPTERS, BUT THEY ARE SHORT》
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A Story of two independent businesses. Getting their fates tied by their fathers to make a stronger alliance.
But it was never meant ...
...to be like this
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An activity that one engages in for amusement or fun.
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The old Pink Cats Club. The rundown stripper club, downtown, as the town became deserted after the Vipers' Gang violence started - This is Vipers' territory.
Broken glass with slats of wood barricading the windows and doors. Graffiti is all over the buildings and a few homeless people. They stood in the alleyway around a drum as the smell of burning tires filled the air.
Fuck, this place gives me the Heebie-jeebies.
Walking to the back door to see a man waiting for me. "You came alone?" He questioned me. Knowing I was hiding my holster underneath my blazer. "Yes," I spoke, walking up to him.
He began to pat me down, knowing that my blazer has extra patting. When patting me he would feel nothing.
Nodding his head, he opened the door allowing me in. My eyes adjusted as walked into the darkness of the club. You could see as little as the moonlight shined through the barricaded windows. "Nephew!! I am glad you made it here alive."
"Why? Was someone supposed to kill me?" The smell of alcohol and drugs filled my lungs. "Old habits never die. Do they Uncle?" I walked around trying to depict his voice as I walked deeper into the clubs.
A shadow walked towards me from the depths of the club. His arms were wide open for a hug. "Harrison Barone. The Devil himself. How is the Business going?" He steps in the moonlight, his brown eyes dilated – Knowing by the smell, he has been sniffing his own stock.
Putting out my hand, I stopped him from hugging me. "There is no need for that shit, Uncle. Why did you want me here?" He froze and stepped away from me, placing his hands in his pockets. "Wow, Harrison. No more hugges. You used to love to hug your uncle."
"The child is gone, Fernando. You haven't seen me for 13 years. So, what do you want?" I raised my voice.
Fernando stepped aside with his arm out, showing me the way to our seats. All the tables were neatly stacked up by the walls as two chairs and a round table sat in the middle of the room.
Getting trigger fingers - I need to kill him, but I need to answer my questions first. Questions about our family before I can send him to the afterlife. The deeper we walk into the club. The colder and darker it got as the smell of death heightened my senses – He just killed someone? - I don't like this.
Sitting in the chair. Within a quick movement, two men coming out of the shadows strapped my arms with leather restraints to the arms of the chair.
"Fernando. I am unarmed this isn't a -" Interrupted by Fernando grabbing the back of my chair, leaning it back. As he held me at an angle, with a knife to my throat.
Knowing what he was capable of, I didn't show any emotions. Fernando turned his head to the side, giving me a psychotic look, inching closer to me. "35 years. 35 FUCKING years. I have wanted to rule the Barone Business" He grinned his teeth at me, staring me down.
He let go of my chair as I fell back forward. Fernando is 57. My father was the youngest at 55. Their father, my Grandfather died 2 years back. Instead of my uncle, who is the oldest, he felt obligated to have it to himself. But my father took over the business when he was 20.
He walked around the table in the depths of the club. Disappearing into the shadow, knowing this man was getting angry.
"Fernando!! Why did you kill your own family!! Why did you burn your own children and -" The lights turned on as I saw a woman strapped to a chair, scared? With a red cloth in her mouth.
My eyes widen as I realised who the woman was. "Mary!!" I tried to shake my arms loose from the restraints. As the men behind me held me still in place. She was crying and mumbling something in the cloth.
Fernando grabbed her hair, pulling it back, pushing a knife against her throat.
"Fernando! Let her go!!"
Out of his four wives, he had. The only one who escaped the fire was Mary. She said she loved him and stayed with him. That is not love, that is love in fear.
With the other wives, he had killed them. Killing two of my cousins, his own daughters, in that warehouse fire. To my knowledge. Mary didn't have kids, so why is she here? What did she do?
Her eyes were puffy from her tears, mumbling something until Fernando slit her throat open. I couldn't even scream. I just sat there in utter remorse and shock as her blood gusted everywhere.
Her clothes absorbed her blood and dripped onto the floor. Trying to breathe in oxygen, yet she just huffed for life. Falling forward, strapped to her chair.
"No one cares for me, Harrison. If you don't have people in your life. There is no problem." He walked towards me with his head to the side, staring at me psychotically.
"She loved YOU. She escaped the fire and then came running BACK to YOU!!" -The dead body didn't faze me, but her unconditional love for him did. Because love drives people nuts – wanting someone to love me as she did to him.
But I would never harm Aideen. Never.
"Let's play a little game. Do you like games? You loved games when you were younger?" Fernando sprinted towards me, stomping his feet on the ground. As I flinch by the icy blade full of Mary's blood against my throat.
"No. I don't like games!" Holding my emotions back, trying not to show any signs of fear – Don't show fear Harrison – for Aideen's sake.
"Aww, come on, Harrison!!" He stepped back and spun around in a circle, complaining like a toddler.
If I am going to get out of here alive. I need to play his game.
