I, Death

Sin Eater: Chapter 1

“You think I’m just a stupid punk?” Richard Yale shouted, advancing across the storage room of Johnnie’s Bar & Grill at the teenager with his fists held in front of him. He wore a classy designer shirt and slacks, but there was no mistaking the blatant street fighting stance he moved with.

“No, Richie, no,” Allan said, backing away. “I d-don’t.”

“Why did you have to start cheating me, Allan? Did you think I wouldn’t have found out about this?”

Allan had backed all the way to the end of the aisle and moved around to the other side of the eight foot length of shelving that split the storage room into two areas.

“I never cheated you, Richie. Never.”

“The fuck you didn’t,” Richard spat, rounding the shelves, moving in closer and grabbing Allan by the front of his golf shirt, “and we had such a good relationship, didn’t we?”

“W-we still do, Richie.”

“You made some drops for me, you got a pretty decent cut. And it was a damn good percentage, too. You made thousands from me in the past two weeks alone. You had it pretty fucking good. But then you had to take me for some sort of stupid punk and start cheating me.” Richard easily lifted Allan off the floor and bounced the side of his head and shoulder off the shelving unit. The shelf swayed precariously, but neither of them noticed.

“I n-never cheated you, Richie,” Allan said, his face turning red.

“The fuck you didn’t.”

Richard noticed how the redness of the teenager’s face started to overshadow the pale red freckles and liked it. He hefted Allan again, this time twisting him so that his nose connected with the edge of the shelf. There was a satisfying crunch as Allan’s nose broke, and a smattering of blood coated his left cheek. Richard liked how the crimson smear completely covered the kid’s freckles.

He’d never liked freckles, and hated anyone who had them. He also hated red hair; hated it with a passion. Allan had red hair. But he’d been professional enough to ignore all that back when Allan was working deals for him — back when the relationship had been going smoothly. Allan was a Business Administration student at George Brown College and nicely covered a decent-sized physical and demographic area for Richard’s drug trade business.

Because he was studying in the marketing area, Richard found the kid very successful in moving supply for him. Allan not only had a large clientele among his fellow students and faculty members at the college, but he actually applied some of the marketing techniques he was taking in school. Richard was delighted to see how it increased the flow of goods tenfold.

The relationship had been more than good, it had been one of the most profitable operations that Richard oversaw.

But then Allan had decided that Richard was just a stupid, uneducated punk.

That had been the youth’s first mistake.

It was just a few weeks ago, when the business took a slight dip after steadily rising for months, that Richard first suspected something was amiss. He'd experienced this type of thing before. Hell, Richard had done it himself when he first started out — it was one of the ways he proved what he was capable of and eventually awarded the position he currently held. He had called Allan on it, asking him if he’d been skimming some of the supply, keeping it for himself and doing his own private sales.

Allan had denied it.

Which was his second mistake.

Despite Allan’s denials, Richard warned him not to skim the supply. He made it quite clear what would happen if he ever caught the kid cheating him. But again, Allan had denied it.