Chapter 1: The Black widow
On my third day on the run from a faceless enemy I decided to take my chances in a different block of the city, notorious with the Iron serpents and my first stop was the newly opened club scorpion. I was planning to grab a drink with little money I had left and book a room for the night then plan on skipping town. Somehow I couldn’t leave the city, it was as if an invisible force was holding me back. The rumor on the streets had placed me as the key suspect in the brutal murder of Damon that was according to criminal underworld as for the police it was a drug deal gone bad and another criminal off the streets there was no need to investigate. For that reason even as I walked in the rival streets I remained weary of any man with a bald head and a bunch of ugly looking tattoos or any suspicious casual worker-apart from the peanuts they were paid they also served as surveillance for the organized crime Mafia. I also avoided the cops most of them were on the Mafia’s payroll. Going back to my family or friends was out of question as it would have put them at risk of a random visit by the inexorably violent blood reaper’s Don Axel Reed who I believed was convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that I had something to do with the death of his only brother.
The music was blasting loudly from outside. I stopped at the entrance to show my fake ID to the heavily built bouncer who looked at the picture and back at me.
“I was younger then” I forced as smile trying to recapture the look I possessed back then when having an ID was fun.
He just grunted and handed it back to me letting me in the process and I took that as an okay to put my hoodie back on. At the entrance a mixture of alcohol, perfume and sweat hit my nostrils in a successive wave, the ground was shaking from the upbeat music and the rotating disco light from the ceiling added a party feeling. My eyes roved across the tightly packed crowd looking for a sign of the bar. Luckily for me one of the staffs spread out all over saw me looking lost and led me upstairs which was much cooler with soft music playing in the background. As much as I would have loved to dance away my sorrows my life was at point where nothing was worth celebrating. There I was on the run because the man who turned my life topsy turvy died in my motel room and he left me an ugly looking silver chain with a cross on it! It still didn’t make sense to me.
“Hi” the bartender snapped her fingers in my face, apparently I was so lost in my thoughts. Mostly due to exhaustion and sleeping with one eye open.
“Sorry. Can I have a bloody Mary please”
“New in town?” She showed off her mastery preparing the drink with her gaze fixed on me.
“Yeah. You have accommodation right?”
“Yes. Enjoy”
Of course I was going to enjoy numbing my pain and fear by drinking myself to sleep. As I sipped away on my drink I took out the chain, looked at it again as if this time something was supposed to happen. I still didn’t understand what it was supposed to do. Was it a clue or a key to some safety deposit box? Was it just a parting gift? It couldn’t have been a gift when he asked me not to trust it with anyone. It must have been a clue on why he was killed but why couldn’t he trust it with his own brother instead? After all he was in a better position to avenge him than I was.
I took another sip of my drink and when I raised my gaze a handsome guy in a black leather jacket and a matching pull neck was seated beside me, his gloved arms intertwined. Wearing a beautiful smile, you know, the ones that say nice to meet you. His eyes were calm but his presence sent shivers down my spine, the fur on my skin went erect and the pit of my stomach was very cold. I quickly hid away the chain.
“That must cost a fortune. I know a pawn shop a few minutes walk from here if you’re looking to make some money”
I didn’t intend to respond. Hopefully he was going to realize I wasn’t buying whatever he was selling and walk away. Well, I might have misjudged his resilience.
“I have seen my fair share of train wrecks but you must be a different one,” he started his monologue playing with a glass of whiskey, “5,5” maybe 5,6” if am not wrong, your eyes look dull with fatigue probably from lack of sleep but I think when you’re happy they are sparkling blue and full of life. Your slender frame and toned skin just makes you more sexier. And your hair…”
“I’m not interested” I kind of broke my word giving in to his torment.
“Your hair looks lustrous, fading blonde falling in waves behind your back” he ignored my harsh gaze and continued, “the scar on your left hand…”
He might have been annoying but extremely observant, I pocketed making him smile broadly before taking another sip.
“It’s the physical embodiment of pain you have bottled up in your chest. Give her another drink on me” he drank the remaining whiskey in one flash and fished out what looked like a hundred dollar bill, “And keep change”
He winked at the bartender and left as quick as he had appeared. Annoying but kind, who’d have thought of that? Perhaps my sixth sense was wrong about him. He didn’t mean any harm it was just me being a hammer and seeing everyone like a nail. Halfway through my free drink I started feeling funny. I looked inside the glass with microscopic precision, there was nothing strange. But my body was saying otherwise and I trusted it.
“Rest rooms?”
“Downstairs on your left”
I left the drink and quickly dashed downstairs. The grinning face of the strange man kept flashing in my eyes as I washed my face in the ladies room and when I looked in the mirror he was standing right behind me. Not smiling this time. At first I thought he was just a fraction of my imagination but his crocodile-like grip on my neck kicked me back to reality I had been drugged. My sixth sense was right.
“No hard feelings sweetheart. It’s just business. There’s a very huge bounty on your head and I intend to collect the money”
Good lord. They had found me. The bastard wasn’t complementing my physical attributes he was reading the fuckin bounty poster to me.