ARAWN – ELEVEN YEARS AGO
“Your face tells me that you still didn’t grow your balls back to go get her.”
I take a sip of my beer as Jensen slumps into the couch next to me.
“Did you at least tell your father?” He asks, and I click my tongue.
“How did the talk with your father go, by the way? Did he believe that you didn’t steal the stuff?”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “Nah. He beat me to a pulp as soon as I tried to make excuses.”
Leaning in, he adds in a whisper, “He is kind of touchy when it comes to his drugs.”
“I told you. You should have just admitted it and gotten over with it.”
Raising his shirt, he shows me his beat-up sides, now covered in black and blue bruises. “Dude, he was about to kill me. If he knew it for sure, he certainly would have.”
I shrug, taking another sip.
“It’s not that you wouldn’t have deserved it.”
“You are unbelievable. Our good and righteous, Arawn.” He lights his cigarette, propping himself on his knees. “But don’t change the subject. Don’t you want to see her?”
I ignore him, and he chuckles. “How many times did you watch that video?”
“Just once,” I say, and he laughs sickeningly.
“Just once? Dude, aren’t you totally obsessed with her? How can you just have watched it once?” He slaps my back, having me nearly spill my beer. “That tape should already be skipping at how many times you wanked off at her.”
I scrunch up my nose, but he doesn’t seem to care. “Really, you should ask your father to make you and her the protagonists of the next video. You know, make her yours as long as she is… fresh.”
Glaring at him has at least a little effect as he cackles.
“Haven’t you got other places to be?”
He puffs on his cigarette, his grin growing. “Like driving you to a certain whore house?”
I grunt, looking up into the void, as I catch a movement of his hands. As I turn my head to look at him, I see that he is holding a folded piece of paper between his middle finger and his index.
“What’s this?” I ask, squinting my eyes as if I could scan through the paper.
“I found her. This is her address.” His obnoxious grin is as annoying as his attitude to feed my obsession for that girl.
“Where?” I ask, clenching my jaw.
He tilts his head back as he shakes his hand back and forth. “Hunts point.” He whispers, making me groan.
Taking another sip from my beer, I tear my eyes away from the piece of paper. “What a bad place to put a girl from the countryside.”
Jensen cracks up, his leather jacket creaking as he leans back. “Who the fuck cares? Take it. Go take her!”
He throws the folded paper onto the table and leans in to say lowly, “Make her look at you with those big green eyes you are constantly dreaming about!”
***
ARAWN – PRESENT
The door opens, and Jensen walks into the suite like he owns the place.
But that’s nothing new.
He was always this way.
“Where is everyone?” He shouts while walking towards the poker table with open arms.
I let go of the little chips in my hand, having them fall onto a pile with consecutive clicking sounds. “They are not coming.”
“Cowards.” He grins stupidly, slapping Dario on the chest with the back of his hand. “Hey, old boy.”
He takes his place with a groan, and I call a man over, who is standing in the corner. He normally manages one of the bars on the floor, but tonight I will use him as a dealer.
“If you please, Henry.”
Henry nods slightly, stands next to the table, and starts to shuffle the deck.
The drinks get served and the cigars lit, and while I’m still sitting there gloomily, Jensen is having the time of his life.
“So, where is the girl you were going to get me?” I ask, making him chuckle.
“Oh, you will love her. I found the perfect replacement. She has red hair and green eyes. Just the way you like them.”
He is grinning at me, his cigar between his teeth as he leans back into his seat.
“Have you tried her too?” I ask calmly, making him laugh.
“Of course, how could I make sure of the quality otherwise? Also, this way, you would not get attached to that one.”
I smirk at him as he takes a sip of his glass. “Always thinking two steps ahead.”
“There is a reason why you made me your right hand, isn’t there?”
Doing some sort of cheering, he puts the glass back down. As I fold, throwing a chip on the table, I get him to move his hand forward. He is collecting the chips on the table, as Dario stands next to him, distracting him just long enough to have me pull my knife.
His scream of pain disrupts the air, followed by loud panting as he clenches the table with the hand that is not tied to the table.
Passing my hand on it, I re-order my chips which fell over. “Tell me about the girls you get. Using my territory as your playground.”
“Come on, bro.” He whimpers, distorting his face in pain.
I scoff, gesturing to one of the waitresses to fill our drinks. “Bro. Is that what I get? As a bro?”
“The fuck…” He shakes his head, his voice failing him.
The rage boiling in me is only fueled by the petite thing trying to fill my glass with shaking hands, without spilling anything.
“Betraying my trust. Play on my sentiment towards you as a brother to bullshitting me to use my territory to act as you please. Satisfying every one of your appetites, not caring what consequences it would have for me. And to thank me… You try to get the only woman I was ever interested in?” I ask him, wanting to twist the knife stuck in his hand.
He pushes out a breathy laugh, throwing his head back. “I told you! She is a whore. And she was one before. You should have gone to her when she was in Hunts Point. Taken her the way I had told you! Get her out of your fucking system. So, she wouldn’t be able to fuck you up big time now.” He curses through clenched teeth, finally grabbing the knife, and pulling it out.
“You fucking bastard!” He groans, slumping in his seat to lean against the table while holding his hand.
“Give him a tissue, Dario.” I chuckle, making him click his tongue as he tears it out of Dario’s hand.
Passing the few cards on the green mat, I free them from the blood before I throw them back to Henry, who immediately starts shuffling them.
As the blood-smeared cards are dealt out, I push my cigar against the ashtray lightly, freeing it from the accumulated ash.
“Everybody out!”
It doesn’t take long for the intimidated waitresses and Henry to vacate the room. Only Dario waits for another of my nods, before he walks out, closing the door behind him with a thud.
“You recognized her?” My eyes are still concentrated on the ash forming on the tip of my cigar as I clench and unclench my jaw.
Laughing painfully, he takes the cards before him. “I knew the moment I saw her eyes! No way I was going to forget the way you talked about her 10 years ago. You never talked about any woman like that ever again. Also, you were avoiding girls with green eyes like the devil would holy water ever since.”
Scoffing, I lean back into my chair. “So?”
“So, what, Arawn?” He looks at me with a duh face, tilting his head. “I checked with her family.”
“Her family?” I squint my eyes at him, watching him shift in his seat.
“Yeah, I had to check if it’s really her, didn’t I?”
His cocky grin makes me want to beat him to a pulp. “I need to look after my boss, don’t I?!”
“And what did you find?” I ignore his mocking expression, puffing on my cigar.
He groans, folding his tissue the other way on his bleeding hand. “That it is indeed her they were looking for all this time. Can’t you believe this? She disappeared without telling anyone. They have been worried sick. So, I offered them absolution. After all this time.”
“Did you tell them where they can find her, then?” I grin at him, mirroring his stupid expression.
“Not yet, we were still discussing the modalities.”
Getting up, I move to the sideboard with my crystal glass to refill my scotch. “Good. Always sort the payment out first.”
“Yeah!” He laughs, grinning at me. “I’m glad you got back to reason. You must always watch out who you let in on our territory.”
I snicker, stepping up to him as I take a sip. “Our territory, yeah.”
Leaning against the table next to him, I cross my ankles, my hands clenching the glass in my lap. “I had a hard time figuring out why my father took in your family. What actually got me to see you as my brother was easy though. We were practically the same, even if you were poor, and I was not. We still were and are both scum.”
“Don’t be so hard on us, Arawn. We had our good moments.” He smirks, taking a sip of his drink.
“See, this is exactly it.” I look up pensively, as my smile vanishes. “There were no good moments. But we went through so much that I thought you would be the last person to disappoint me.”
Turning my face to him, I finally see a bit of the fear I was waiting to catch up with him.
“But I should have known better, not to trust scum.” I push myself from the table and position myself next to him.
He watches me petrified as I take out a thin wire, his brain seemingly not able to grasp the situation. His movements are too slow as he finally reckons that he should move, as I’m already wrapping my weapon around his neck. “I should have known as I wouldn’t trust myself either. A simple, sadistic, psychopathic bastard.”
I move back slightly to get away from his hands trying to grab me as the wire keeps cutting further into his skin. I’m suddenly intrigued about what will go first.
His air.
Or his head.
“You should know how I react when someone touches what belongs to me.” I growl, increasing the pull.
As his movements get weaker, I lean in, getting his eyes to snap to me.
“But I’m equally to blame, Brother. As I lied to you as well.” His breaths are fast and short as I smirk at him.
“You see… The tape did actually begin to skip at some point.”