Sinclair

Chapter One: The Cat That Ate The Canary

THE TOWN I LIVED IN WAS a small one. It was one of those towns where everyone has seen everyone at least once or twice. Whether you happened to pass each other at the Piggly Wiggly located smack in the middle of town or you happened to end up in "Stella's Furniture" at the same time. In this town, you were bound to come into contact with one another eventually. We were incredibly small after all. A population of only 1,122 of us, to be exact.

Willow's Creek was located somewhere in the south of North Carolina. It was a town so small that no one else in the world had heard of it. It was a town so small that if you walked up to someone from out of town and asked them about it, they'd look at you incredulously and ask you what in the Hell you were talking about.

It was a fairly close-knit community. But, like all small towns, the townspeople loved to gossip. Last year it had been about Mrs. Johnson sneaking her female coworker into her home on Wednesdays when her husband was working and her kids were at school. The year before there were rumors that Chase Mitchell, the son of the most cutthroat lawyer in town, had gone and joined the shunned biker gang known as The Iron Order. This year it was about that very same biker gang getting into it with a rival gang that had slipped into town. People were uneasy.

See, The Iron Order may have sounded like the name of some harmless wannabe rock band, but they were far from harmless. The Iron Order was led by a man named Sinclair Buchanan—they called him Sinnerman or just Sin on the streets. He ran a "business" from this small town all the way to the metropolitan areas of New York and across oceans in places like Japan, Italy, England, Ireland. There were talks that he had ties to the Japanese crime organization, the Yakuza and the most powerful mafia families from each state and country that he visited.

Despite all the rumors, though, no one could seem to catch The Iron Order or their boss in the act. Despite the talks of numerous drug rings, unauthorized brothels and murders of the men who opposed them, there seemed to be no evidence that The Iron Order had anything to do with those crimes. Many people have summed it up to the fact that the police were in their pockets. To be completely honest, it wouldn't surprise me. Considering the fact that The Iron Order had only started up about eight years ago and was already gaining so much reach and power, it made sense that their boss—the Sinnerman—would be reliable enough to make the police his bitches and keep them off his back. A lot of people even said that when murders orchestrated by The Iron Order took place, the police would purposely file false reports, saying it was just some random argument among street thugs gone bad and never look deeper into it.

Whether it was fear, money or pure respect that kept those officers quiet, no one really knew. But it was clear that everyone with any sort of power in this town answered to one person: Sinnerman.

The Iron Order frequented at a bar on the edge of town simply named Carla's. It was owned by Carla Rodriguez, a fiery Latin woman who cursed like a sailor, often got into fist fights with guys-- and won--and was married to a man with the friendly name of Bruiser. Bruiser, from what I knew, was Sinnerman's right-hand man. If Sinnerman was going to make a move, you could be damn sure Bruiser would know about it. This led to a lot of enemies trying to kidnap Bruiser, wanting information. But Bruiser didn't get his nickname for no reason. The rumors say that those men who tried to get at him were always found later, beaten beyond recognition.

Which, again, makes sense. If he's Sinnerman's right-hand man, it only makes sense that he would be tougher than your typical lackey.

As I sat inside of Wallflower Diner, waiting to be served, I let my hand type at the keys rapidly as the inspiration for my new story really hit me. You see, to deal with the knowledge that I hate people and that I'm twenty-one years old with no hint of a love life, I write. Whether I'm good or not, I'm not sure, but all I do know is that I love it. I love the feeling of creating characters and the feeling of creating the world in which they will live. There's something so satisfying about writing through someone else's eyes, about seeing the world that exists in someone else's mind.