Kairos - Blood (MxM) | Book 2 | ✅

32.One Wrong Step

Doodles. My pen greedily went over the white paper surface leaving trail after trail of undefined and useless thoughts.

Scribbles. Names spawned out in blotchy twines and curls.

Jack. Mira. Sands. Donnie.

Smack-dab in the middle of the page was the 'J' in 'Jack'.

Mira was a small square connected to 'J' through a curvy line. She had been a runaway teen at the mercy of a distant relative who owned a dinner. While waiting tables, Mira met Jack — a college student who often came there to study. They had become friends.

Sands was a triangle on the other side of the page reaching out for 'J' in dotted lines. Like I'd ever let that son of a bitch touch Jack.

He had been Jack's mentor at around the same time Mira had come into the picture. Yet she had met Sands only twice and both times, though years apart, she had learned nothing much about him. Mira speculated that Sands had helped Jack pay for College and then had made the initial investment in GlovesOff.

Round and round it went — the circle that was Donnie, secluded to the bottom where the snake deserved to be. His reach over Jack was stronger and came from many directions and in many slashes across the paper.

Donnie had become Jack's right hand years after the GlovesOff business had taken off. Mira speculated that Jack had built up the Ghost Casino on his own and that Donnie had brought in 'the family' later on for unknown reasons. Unknown...

Shit. I ripped the page in half. And what the fuck am I to do with this?

Useless.

I was useless to Jack. I didn't know anything even when I found out something.

My feet stomped around the apartment as I held the pen between fingers like a cig. Each step revealed nothing. Each step was a puzzle piece that didn't fit.

The Braccio family was powerful but kept a low profile and didn't have their name splattered in the news — anymore. My quick search online had revealed a sordid history there in the 90's.

Why was Donnie Braccio Jack's man? Why was he working for Jack and not for his own family?

I stormed out of the apartment and got up to the roof where the night reigned supreme.

But night in the city meant neon lights, street lamps and spotlights showering buildings of great importance. Even the park spread between quaint four-story buildings had stains of light here and there.

A tapestry of doodles — the sky was no different than my useless notebook page. The lazy moon lay buried under gray clouds that smudged in reckless brush-strokes over those twinkling wonders I so longed to see clearly.

My foot stepped on the roof edge. Up I went walking the ledge between my place and the world. One step in the wrong direction and I was bound to fall and splatter on the sidewalk below. So I lit up a cigarette.

Arms spread as I stood straight against the cold December wind, the cigarette hung between my smirking lips veiling my eyes with curls of smoke.

Boom. Boom. Boom. My heart pounded in a frenzy, reminding me that I was alive and that maybe I wanted to keep being alive for a while longer.

Relax.

My feet planted in odd certainty as I held my balance. Don't worry heart. You're safe.

There may have been plenty of things that I didn't know or understand, but I wasn't going to let fear tug at my body anymore. That was a sure way to end up on the wrong side of the ledge. I waited for those black tendrils of dread to run their course and pass through me.