Dom's Absolution

Ch. 5 - Party Favours

Knowing exactly where James' question was headed, Raeni slapped him on the upside of his head cutting his speech off, "What have I told you about mentioning my sister's name?"

"I didn't even get to say her name! Damn! So feisty!" James exclaimed as he looked at Da'mon and asked, "How did you ever make out being her boyfriend?"

"It was a long time ago," he replied, his eyes warning the Irishman to behave, "let's leave the past in the past, yea?"

With an impish smirk on his face, James moved his chair a bit, putting some distance between himself and Raeni. I shook my head, knowing that he was up to no good, and waited for the chaos to unfold.

Thinking he was safely out of reach, James then added, "Kiyana is such a beautiful name though."

"Boy!" Raeni suddenly stood, drawing her gun, her dark brown eyes blazing as she pointed it at him.

Da'mon chuckled softly, "Come on James, enough with the jokes, you know that she will shoot you."

"Oh no Ms. Dixon, by all means, put a hole in that goofy-looking face of his," I joined in with a soft cackle as I leaned forward in my chair.

"Shit!" James eyes widened as he looked up at Raeni, his hands went up in surrender as he defensively said, "Don't shoot! Look, you know I like to talk shit, I'm sorry!"

"Keep talking shit and see what happens! With yuh likkle leprechaun self!" she fumed then sat back down, a bit of Jamaican slang escaped her anytime she got really mad.

"Little? Leprechaun?" sputtering James argued, "But I'm 6 feet tall!"

"You can't round up your height, it doesn't work that way!" Raeni replied with a cheeky sneer, rubbing it in his face that he was the shortest of us all, at 5ft 11in.

The laughter that erupted from around the table instantly calmed the atmosphere, and the altercation was immediately forgotten. We, the mafia leaders, often used festivities like this as a means of relaxing, since going out together, celebrating gang members' birthdays and such was an attempt to strengthen our bonds with one another.

Seeing as we were all in our thirties, we each had various things that we wished to accomplish, wanting to prove ourselves to the generations that came before us. In a way, I felt like this motivated and helped to keep the alliance intact.

This club was one of many that I owned in Aelbank City. However, our business was not all fun and games.

Myself and the others had our hands in everything; from money laundering, illegal gambling, drug trafficking, weaponry, extortion, to pornography and prostitution. Although, my personal favourite was arson, but that was something that I did more on my own time, though I never hesitated to use it for business.

If you want to get fast answers, just light a fire under someone's ass, literally!

You see, as a young boy, I had enjoyed setting fires. It had started out at first with just a simple box of matches that I would carry around in my pocket. While the other children played together, not wanting me to join them, I would sit outside alone, strike them and contemplate.

Observing the compliant flame, I would watch it flicker in the wind, besmirching the wood, converting it to charcoal at my command. An uncontainable smirk would spread across my gaunt features, though my smile never reached my eyes. After some time, I had progressed to burning the belongings of those who had upset me.

I would often daydream while watching the different hues that the flames emitted. Sometimes, I became transfixed until the smoke had started to suffocate me.