Life Is Not a Bed of Rose

First Things First

"All clear?" "Positive." "No sign of the cops?" "Nope, not a sign of them" "So let's start" I stepped out of the car in the darkness of the night. It was a very quiet place. A shop stood on the other side of the road. And it will be easy to frighten the shopkeeper. Not because she is a woman, but as we have been doing our job for almost 2 years, we understand people by looking at them. Of course, my Anne is a good fighter. She once knocked out a man by her own bare handed (which is saying something because that man used to go to gym each day of the week!) Anyway, Anne turned the radio on, and I checked the license plate of our car. It was covered with mud, not a number could be seen. We walked to the shop. A couple of lady customers were also in the shop. "You take care of the customers. I'll get the money" I said to Anne. Then we entered the shop, pulling our masks on. "Hands up!" we shouted. The women's face became pale and one of them looked like she would shout. So I said, "If anybody moves a muscle, all of you are dead" the shopkeeper was pulling out her phone. Such a fool, thinks she is cleverer than us. I shot the wall behind her. She jumped and the phone fell out her hand. I walked over to her and picked it up. "Now quietly put all the cash from the drawers in here, and we'll harm no one" I said, throwing a bag to her. She gave a frightened whimper and started pulling all the money in the bag. Suddenly I heard the radio say, "Violence at South Hills, block B, all units attention –" "I seized the bag from the woman, making sure the drawers were empty. Then I turned at Anne. She was pointing her gun at the two customers, who were sitting on the ground, apparently horrorstruck. Anne had two phones and some cash in her hands. "Throw away the phones. The cops are coming, we need to go." We ran outside and got in the car. I threw the bag in the backseat and started the car. After some moments, I heard police sirens.

We opened our masks and looked at the backseat, which was literally full of money bags we've got all day. "Another lucky day, huh?" I said. "Yeah, but I don't think you'll be saying that once we're out of Troy's." I let out a sigh. True, we've robbed bags of money today. But how much of that is really ours? Maybe one bag, or two, if we're lucky. But the rest goes to Troy. He's the most feared criminal in San Francisco, and he also happens to be our boss. He has about a hundred criminals under his command. You could tell they are an army of his. Once he owns someone, he also owns most of his money. The rule of the army is simple yet hard to maintain, which is – get money, loads of it everyday in any way you can. Cause at night you must give Troy his share, which means most of the money. If you don't bring much money, Troy will take all of it, leaving you with nothing. If you want to feed your family, you must bring loads of money everyday. As I've said, simple, yet hard to maintain. And if you fail to bring money even a day, you have to face Troy's wrath. And everyone knows what that is – death. You can't even resign, cause once a servant of Troy, you're always a servant of Troy. That's a deal. You want to flee? He owns the best trackers and shooters of San Francisco. No way you're escaping them. So, yes, the day won't be lucky anymore once we enter his place.

We parked our car in front of a grand house, or a royal palace, you could say. This is Troy's house. It was three storied, with a wide balcony in front of the third one. We pressed pour horn, and stepped out of the car. A guard came and took all the bags from the backseat and walked through the gates, with us following. There is a fountain after the gate, and after you pass that, you will face the wide door of the house. The interior of the house is truly like a palace, given that the outside is grandeur. Entering through the door, there is the sitting room. There, Troy sits in his throne like armchair, smoking or sometimes drinking. He is always surrounded by his bikini clad fancy ladies, whom he calls his "collections".