The Sinners We Love |18+

[26] amber

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*nervous twerking*

[timeline: after chapter 13 and before chapter 14]

The place had always been cramped, too many people occupied each corner. Perhaps, the fact that Sarahs' was the only grocery across the fifth lane made it busier all along the day. Managing to fill her basket with a pack of detergent powder, Charlotte whizzed through the crowd. Her gaze following the people, falling on the commodities, mentally flipping through the grocery list, and a paranoia crinkling her forehead to the slightest bit.

To say the peculiar man named Azrael had scared the wits out of her would be an understatement. There was something wicked about him, but that was pretty common in humans nowadays. There was a eerie feeling about him, something so holistically unsettling, that it transcended into her mind, weakly layered her already thin sleep, until every light noise on the surface of the earth sent a tremor of fear down her legs, to the point where it had led her legs to walk down several streets, and enroll herself in a self defense class.

His words, and his actions, his gaze, and the predominant disdain in them, Charlotte hadn't felt something like that.

Fanning her sweat beaded features, she added herself to the long queue. Sweat and the scent of mint candies that remained on the long racks, separating the counters, filled her senses and her conscious drove itself to the bold words imprinted on the newspapers stacked up beside the mint and pink candies.

Man found dead in a building. Killer on spree?

So many people died every day. It was hard to keep an account for each and everyone. Charlotte had hardly bothered to care for any either. But this one, this one had a special place not her heart but in her mind.

The house that had crippled her last sanity now laid on the front, pixels forming a picture. Her fingers were faster than her judgement to snatch one issue out of the rack. Charlotte straightened the paper, balancing it on her trolley. The articles was displeasingly brief, leaving out half of the blood curdling details of the eventfully uneventful night.

But it was enough to curl one of her brows. The date of the reported crime was three days later. Only one dead man was found. Some nosy teenagers had found it.

But Luca had told her a different story. A story. Because that's what it was. Just a mere work of fiction, weaved by his blinding words.

But was she blinded?

The old question surfaced one more time: who was winning?

The one who thought they were or the one who was letting the other one believe so?

Charlotte knew it. But she wouldn't tell it.

After all, she was an artist— with colors, and sometimes with her words. Something even she could not tell, if one asked, if it had been there for years, or had she learned to pick some of the techniques recently.

"Too packed, eh?" The paper as if like fire on her bare fingers, burned but never enough to let it go. Sarah stood behind the counter, her brows raised with a familiar smile tugging the corner of her lips.

"It's alright."  Charlotte mumbled, giving a glance behind to register she had walked up the distance, unconsciously. Beeping sounds of items being scanned and registered in the computer enveloped the silence, when the Charlotte carefully added the newspaper.

"Don't needa pay." Sarah dismissed, sucking on the orange tootsie that painted her lips orange.

"Please," Charlotte insisted, like every other time, whenever she picked an issue of the Johnsons Tribune and Sarah refused to accept any payment for it. "You are actively jeopardizing your brother's business."

"He wouldn't bother, prolly smokin' with some college folks 'round the corner." The woman behind the counter shrugged, bringing out a calculator to cross check the bill. Charlotte had often considered this habit a time consuming waste. The computer was already doing it. What were the chances that an old rusty calculator would do a better job than a computer?

However, this time it bought her few more seconds to think. Charlotte took an ounce of breath and slapped herself with a mental pep-talk. It wouldn't hurt her, she had told herself. "Do you know where I can find him?"

Question laced and crinkled the Sarah's nose, as she packed the items in the tote bag Charlotte had handed over. "My brother?" It was rhetorical. 

"Yeah," Charlotte drawled. "Love the work he's doing." A faint pride made Sarah's chest rise, and it was Charlotte's cue to understand she was doing it right. "I could use some publicity for my gallery after all. People must be reading a lot of these." A lure. A lie.

"Take the left. Climb the stairs, he'll be in one of the rooms." Sarah informed, buying the hook Charlotte had sold. "Talk outside if his room is filled with smoke." 

Charlotte grabbed the bill and her bag, secured her card inside, and bid a small goodbye. With a sharp step with full of intent to leave, she halted. A question struck her. "Oh, what do I call him by?"

The next customer had already placed their basket, scanning, twisting, registering, Sarah gave a quick side glance, her mouth rolling to form the name: "Joseph."

Luca was an elite—  in lust and vicious manipulation. Fingers skimming along her waist, tears rolling, and the man kissed the tears tainting the porcelain of her skin. Seizing them. Tasting them, as he recited: "This is not for pleasure, Charlotte. This is a lesson."

Charlotte had never wanted to rinse something off as much as his sinful touch from the gravel of her skin. Sweet scents of a fresh shower infiltrated her rigid senses— a fresh shower after killing people, relentlessly. Her stomach churned, curdled, distastefully, and then painfully. Every thing whirled inside, as visions of the scene etched to her vulnerable mind.

Dead people. Bloody guts. Body matter.

The idea of freedom was delicate.

Charlotte had not understood the gravity of freedom until she was caged by a detestable man. Her strength useless against his and freedom was straying far. Far— so far that reaching out became an illusion. The further it went. Her mind went with it too. Like she was choking on sand and water. The rough and the soft. She did not know which one was the right choice anymore.

The desperate woman smacked her head to the side of his face. It was a voluntary choice. Or perhaps it was not. But again, maybe it was. Charlotte did not know anymore. Would anyone smack death himself? She wouldn't have, any other day, where the time was correct, where the time was sane.

But if you asked her now, she couldn't tell you.

His head fell to side, on impact. His breaths hollowed. Patience ebbed. Charlotte hit the cabinet with a loud rattling noise, hands pushed to her sides, wounded palm slamming against the wooden counter. Luca grasped the little bubble of distance.

Good.

"so violent," His words burned, his sweet tongue nursed. "I desire it in my woman."

Charlotte breathed in her last breath, pumping her limbs with courage, feeble fingers working. "I bet you do."

Her words were sharp, but sharper was the blade that sunk into his left shoulder. The white cotton dampened, now a shade of scarlet. It was not as deep as Charlotte would have appreciated it to be, but it was enough to distract, enough to toss her three seconds.

Luca faltered in his stance, the sharpness piercing his flesh. It was a minor cut, he would survive. But the surprise element of the attack had made him falter. Closing her thighs, Charlotte aligned her knee with his groin, a violent blow landed on him, and the woman scampered down, and fumbled away.

The man palmed the fresh cut, still recovering from the blow on his groin, gaze down, features crinkled, before trailing up to fall on the woman. The woman stood, weakly tethering herself against gravity, back pressed against the fridge, lips quivering, with a bloody switchblade in between her fingers, yet she managed to spat:

"Do not use my pleasure as a distraction, you sick fuck."

Pleasure was a distraction. For Charlotte. The knife was a distraction. For Luca.

A gamble Charlotte had loosely taken. Out of desperation. By giving the bigger man a bigger weapon, while the seemingly weak and vulnerable woman carried her smaller plan with her smaller weapon—  the one she had known how to use. She had stuffed it inside the gauze of her left palm, while Luca had taken the knife from her other hand.

Out of everything Charlotte had conjured to imagine, a crippling smile was the last thing she had expected on his lips. A look that of a predator, surfaced and it reminded her of the truth.

Of what Luca could possibly do. Of what Luca had already done in his life. "This how you show your gratitude, yes?" Running a finger along his lower lip, the man muttered to himself.

"Gratitude?" She grates, soon realizing the consequences. "Please, don't hurt my family."

Mirth never left his features. They never really did— whenever she was around. It was an absurd development. One Luca wasn't sure about. If he liked or not. "How are you going to stab the man and beg for help?" Shoulders stiff from the cut, he eyed for wet clothes around the kitchen. "You amuse me like no other, cara mia."

The tap opened. Cold water rolling down and Luca wet his palm before placing it over his shoulder. "Napkins." The man murmured, and Charlotte took a step around the counter. To sprint out of the kitchen. Maybe if she banged the main door hard enough someone would wake up. "Do not invite them in." He continued, palming the cut on his back, feeling the stretch of it, the depth of it, his gaze straining where the scarlet fluid mixed with colorless water. "They are not good men, Charlotte."

Charlotte halted her steps, feet meters away from the door. His men were outside. Of course, they would come in, and hurt anyone who would try to help her. Feeling the inhale of breaths through the canals of her nostrils, hearing them, she turned back. Looked at the man who stood with his back turning. Blood kissed his shirt, tainting one side in a line.

"per favore, Cara." The man looked behind, over his uninjured shoulders. "Napkins."

"Luca, please," Nausea filled. "Please,"

Groaning with the slight wince from the cut, that seemed to trail down the left nerve of his arm, Luca stopped the running water. Drummed his fingers along the edge of the sink, and turned to face her. "There is a package under that center piece." He pointed towards the living area. "Bring it to me before you get me some napkins." Recognizing Charlotte needed a little more encouragement, he urged. "Go on."

Terrified steps backtracked, her eyes snapping behind her shoulders all the way. Not knowing what adversity the wounded man would wreck upon her if she loses sight of him for a moment. As mentioned, a manila envelope laid beneath the center piece. Her gaze shifted back to Luca, who busied himself to detect the wound. Charlotte pulled on the envelope, and it easily glided with a heavy feeling. Her fingers tracing the outline. A weapon. A gun.

"You can use it if you want." Luca worded her implicit thoughts.

Killing him was almost ethical at that point. But that'd only risk anyone and everyone she had ever loved. Clutching the wrapped weapon, the woman realized this was probably the weapon that was going to end her.

Charlotte scattered on her feet, to bring the envelope as she had been asked and some damn napkins for the man. Fumbling with drawers and cabinets in the kitchen, she tore out some napkins and put them forward for him to take. "Please take these," She cried, feeling the hardness of the metal that a bullet with her name written on it. "Just don't hurt my people. They were not—  it's not their fault, please,"

Something about the distance and the gesture made him smile. The beautiful woman with tears in her eyes and a gun and napkins on her hands.

"Come here," He said.

With her eyes dropped to the ground, and dipped brows, the woman stood, when he asked one more time. "Come to me, Cara."

Tear tainted cheeks and a racing heart, Charlotte took a step, and then another two. Napkins and the folder flailing in her weak hands. At a distance of two feet, she stopped, and Luca took a step forward. Just to scare her. Just to take the napkin.

Charlotte shuddered, with a gasp, she backed against the cabinets one more time.

"Keep that with you." He said, and suddenly the envelope felt too heavy to hold. Charlotte threw it on the counter beside, while Luca took his sweet time to open the tap. Wet the cloth. Cleaned the blood. Tightened one napkin beneath the fabric of his shirt, to keep the blood flow minimum. The man worked in silence with thorough seriousness.

Charlotte watched him with her blurry vision. He did not look like a criminal. Just a regular guy cleaning his wounds. She watched him curl his fists to squeeze the water out of the cloth. His concentrated gaze. The veins along his arms that popped whenever the man touched his wound. The ring on his right hand being coiled and taken out, washed, before he wore it again.

When they man moved his lips to form words again, it startled her. "They are safe," He swung his elbow behind, to check the flexibility. "As long as I want them to be." The man completed his work around the sink, and dried huuyis fingers with the last napkin. He folded the wet and the dried ones, and kept them beside the sink.

Luca walked past. While Charlotte curled in a stiff line, sliding herself on the counter. She silently sighed, feeling the pain in her legs. The man did not bother. Pulling out the drawer Charlotte had opened a minute ago, he brought out a chunk of napkins. Fishing them out, he wiped the handle he had touched, walked back, opened the tap, and started cleaning the already clean sink.

"Why did you do it?" He asked, rubbing the edge of the sink, proceeding to wipe the base where the water had met his blood.

"I, I don't know," She mumbled, feeling the need to answer his questions while she eyed his strange actions.

"Oh, you do." The sides were the next to be cleaned. "I do not mind Michael." Fingers tightened around the edges, and a certain vein popped in his neck. "I do not mind the police, Cara. But you," Charlotte did not dare to look at him. Eyes glued to the pile of napkins, feet dangling. "You infuriate me. Why did you do it?"

"I don't understand you," She mumbled, a little too fast.

The tap was the last to be cleaned. Enveloping his fingers with another napkin, he closed the tap. "Where is it?" Piling the napkins— some bloody, some simply wet he held them together.

"Where is what?" Charlotte shook, words guilty, tone tremulous. "Don't come near me, please"

Luca raised his palm, in a way to tell, he did not have any intention to be near her. The man crouched and brought a paper bag, and tossed the napkins inside, before placing it on the floor and stood in front of the opposite counter. Not leaning. Not touching. "It was not with Joseph. It is not here, yes? Then where?"

The rush had died. Now all Charlotte could feel was the numbness. The calming wait of her death. Her breathing was almost normal, mind clear with nothing. She could think of nothing. Just her Papa. Her old Papa, whom she wouldn't see again. And the only human she had ever confided in. Emma. Sweetest Emma. Charlotte could only hope every lies she had told and all the sins she had committed, they would never rain of Emma.

"I don't know what you're saying," She had managed to mumble, low and withdrawn.

"Charlotte," Luca sighed, looked heavenward as if to grasp all the bits of patience he had trained to bear. "You are challenging my patience."

Hearing her name, the woman peered up. Met his calm gaze and sweet smile. Almost filled with a hint of adoration. Her own glossed with tears, when his voice came again. Sweet.

"Time is very precious, Cara." Luca muttered, fingers running across his lips, before all of them interlaced on his lap. "I will give you a deal, yes? For every question you answer, you can ask me one." He said, bringing her out of the depths of self pity. "Equal rights and all of that."

When she made no move to answer, Luca proceeded to question.

"Where is it?"

The two of them waited in the cold silence. One patient for the answer. Another impatient for the dreadful question. Charlotte did not answer, even after the clock ticked several minutes, so the man noted. "I see." Pinching the bridge of his nose, he said. "We will start from the beginning, yes?" Luca hummed, closing his eyes for a minute, before he phrased his next question.

And even in the weather of the storm, the man had always been the calm. "What gave it away?" Her breathing shuddered, one more time. "Was it Azrael's threats?" A scoff escaped his lips, fingers tearing through his half dried hair. "That one got a tongue, does he not? I would not even start to tell you about mine, you already know."

The curl of his lips sent a shot of disgust in her. The innuendo did not go unnoticed and a beat of silence fell, as if the man was kind enough to let her think. Think about it all. Think of all the things she had done. Of when it had started. 

"How did you know?" The man urged, somewhere in the depths of his warm and beating heart knowing well enough. The how and the who. So he rephrased. The who was more intriguing. Even easier for her to answer, he had believed.

Luca had wanted to hear it from her lips. Her low tone. Her calming voice. Cynical thoughts and reckless words.

Everything the man had abhorred most of his life. Everything Luca did not dislike that much, not anymore.

"Who was it, Charlotte?"

Sleepless nights that had burdened her shoulders, flashed in her mind. And the woman whose native was not silence— never silence, now sat almost catatonic, peered up. Jaw clenched, in distaste as she muttered:

"You."

[timeline: chapter 11]

Charlotte had heard about atrocities. Some of it. Papers filled with the names of the dead. Children starving at the side of the road. Men burning their health just for some extra quid. Women being murdered and burned and killed just for the pleasure.

But the night inside the abandoned building to where Luca had so carefully taken her, Charlotte had seen the atrocities for the first time. Remorseless and relentless. A man was attached to the door with a knife through his skull. Another was shot dead in front of her. More men laid dead. Scattered and lifeless. The dark walls had seemed to close on her and only the rusty knives that dug halfway into human flesh were her company.

There was a pungent smell in the air, and it tasted like blood on her tongue. Yet her hands were clean. Creases and ridges all clean. And Charlotte had wanted to keep it that way.

But when the man who said foreign words and radiated a familiar warmth ascended the stairs, Charlotte had stumbled upon the stairs and staggered her way to him. She hadn't known the man, let alone trust him, but the need was strong. To hold him. And Charlotte was never known to have a weak boundaries. Yet she did. So the woman wrapped her arms around him.

"I told you to stay inside, yes?" Luca had asked her, but she couldn't keep her hands to herself. Her hands trailed down, the first time her own fingers were the prying fingers. To curve at the curve of his body, to see if Luca was hurt.

She had cried and sobbed, and he had let her do everything she wanted in his arms. "We need to leave, please," Charlotte had begged, when Luca had made her steady on her feet, as asked. "Where were you?" Her fingers coiled around the blades of his shoulders. Something damp touched her fingers, and they stopped. The man did not flinch, but Charlotte had still managed to ask. "Are you hurt?"

The blinding darkness could impair her vision. But not all of her senses. The same metallic smell bounced inside her nose. And when fear terrorized, her hopes fell. So did her arms. For some support, or perhaps validation, she had laced her fingers with his. And the brittle feeling of something drying in his palms itched her senses. She had felt it before; whenever her paint had dried on her fingers. The barren feeling. Luca had not spoken a word to her again, rather to the man who stood at the end of the stairs.

And even in the bleak night, Charlotte had yet asked Luca to come with her. "Let's leave, please."

Come with me, come with me, she had asked.

In a hope that everything she was feeling would be just fallacious. That the metallic fluid that dampened the back of Luca's shirt was not blood. And the brittle feeling against his palms wasn't dried blood but just paint. 

So when Luca did nothing to keep her and their new company who went with the name Piero dragged her down, a lurking part of her had still begged. "Come down, come with me," But Luca did not. The man muttered words that were beyond her comprehension and interest, and the man just like she had feared merged with the darkness of the night.

The woman dragged her limp body across the dead leaves and silent crickets, filled with filth and fear. Never dared to look at her own hands, telling herself if only he had come with her it wouldn't be like this.

And that all of these would just be a lie. A nightmare. A corrupt dream with a better end.

When Piero informed the police were being called, Charlotte had found some relief in his words. But like Luca had pointed the first time they had lunch together, Charlotte was indeed a miser with her trust. So she gambled: "What if the police needs to ask questions?" or "He is going to die inside, it was horrible, Piero."

But Piero never heard. When she sat inside the cold air of the well furnished car, the window rolled up. And the woman placed her palms on her windows.

The abandoned building looked the same. Dead. Silent. But now a shade of sin.

Hints of crimson touched the glass window just like her palms had. Charlotte touched her fingers, and they rested on her lap.

Dirty. Dirty. Dirty.

Bloody.

The car passed the sleeping city where the moonlight had cascaded while dried blood had painted the clean ridges and soft creases, after they had touched Luca.

Full of sin and carmine. That of blood and murders. Encased in filth and fear.

A part of her— an artless part of her had waited for him to return. To tell her about the horrifying night, explain the blood and everything would make sense once again. That the dried blood wasn't from taking a life. But for three weeks, he had not. And the time when she had formed the courage to ask Luca, the insincere man had informed: "I was advised to stay outside, away from harm."

So Charlotte had gulped down her thoughts and observations and kept them safe. With herself.

Words were beautiful. Words made art. And words were wicked. A perfect manipulation of them created pure fiction.

The continual suspicion. The excessive security. The private life. Everything was coming around. 

Charlotte had known it.

But she wouldn't tell that to you.

The woman didn't trust her closest friend with her words. 

Then why would she trust you?

Luca nodded in acceptance. Lips smacking in a straight line. "Go on. Ask me one."

If Charlotte opened her mouth, she would probably throw up. Yet she asked: "How did you know?"

Luca let her words sink, as the man thought. How did he know? When did he know? If he knew, why did he not stop her? "You are very unassuming, Cara. I did not expect you." He nodded, remembering the day. "Someone I trust once told, that you are going to be like everyone else."

Charlotte gulped down a hard scoff, keeping the urge to roll her eyes inside herself, she mumbled. "Like everyone else." Her toes curled touching the warm wood of the cabinets lining the counter beneath. Crippling fear invading her brain. "What is that? A whore?"

"My turn." Luca said, not answering her out of line question. A slow movement along his left arm, made him wince, but he took one purposeful step, and came forward.

Charlotte stiffened, feeling his body near her once again. The left arm of his shirt was ruined with blood, and he supposedly used that one less. His right hand came up, his prying fingers brushed a strand of hair, letting her skin breathe. The open cut on her forehead had been washed and treated, and was left without a gauze to let it breathe for some time.

Soft eyes. Softer sins. With a feather like tone, the man asked. "Why did you kiss me, Cara?"

"I'm sorry," She whispered. The white of her gauze had dampened with blood, her fingers harshly gripping around the edge with fear.

"I confuse my English sometimes," Luca touched her, chuckling. "I will ask it again. Why did you let me touch you?" Her arms felt him first, and then slid down to her aching palm. Charlotte did not flinch, and the man loosened her fingers around the edge. She shook her head in denial, when he added. "That is not the answer."

Luca took her palm in his, and kept it there. If the man pressed anywhere on it, it would hurt like a limb being cut off. So Charlotte fumbled. "Because," Eyeing her palm, that suddenly seemed too precious to be cut off so early, she said. "because I needed something from you."

With a click of his tongue, the man gave a head shake. Letting her know it was still not the answer. But he let it pass. Like Luca had for most of the things she had done in the past months. He placed her palm on her side, and coiled his arms around her waist. Pulling her closer to himself. Charlotte writhed and backed her upper body to create some distance, while the man looked down at her. His head dipped, and her breaths shuddered.

Luca peppered a kiss on her cheek, his lips moving against her skin. "You are just like everyone else, Cara." A small beat fell, and the man said: "A deceiver."

[timeline: continuation of top first scene; after chapter 13 and before chapter 14] 

Charlotte had waited in a fog of smoke crawling amongst the walls of unfinished concrete for more than an hour. The stacks of paper scattered in front of her, but the man behind the desk did not make a move to keep them in place. Neither had he acknowledged her presence after he had asked her to wait.

"I read your article." With a nervous heart and clammy palms she informed for the third time in the last hour, and the man let out a yawn. "About the murder in that building. It's terrible," Her fingers fidgeted, lacing together and playing with the loose stitches of her dress.

The man shrugged. "Big cities, big crimes." He tossed down another swig of cheap liquor that left a stench in the room, and added. "What does that have to anything with a pretty lady like you?"

Charlotte eyed the plastic wrapped desk, letting the unsolicited comment slide. The desk was barely holding to the last sign of life, a huge crack ran diagonally and even in its fragility it was burdened with thick books that had turned yellow and papers. "I was just curios about—"

"A curious person visits Google, not my door."  His fingers running through the unmaintained salt and pepper of his burly beard. "What is it again? Carolin—"

"Charlotte."

The man waved his hand in dismissal. Tired and annoyed. "The building murder is classified. Whatever you read is all you get. Cannot help you, miss."

Charlotte adjusted her position, to make herself look taller and strict. Any other day she would have just walked out straight. But not today. She needed some answers and some sleep.

"Your article is incorrect." She quipped, clearing her throat and making her intentions clear. The man named Joseph twirled with his cigarette stick, repositioned himself as well. His brows shot up in question and challenge, but Charlotte did not let him interject. "I don't have the whole day. I've to return home with all the groceries as you can see," The woman pointed at the bag filled with items carefully placed on the floor. "I just want to know what you know about the murders of that night. The people behind, it to be honest. That's all."

"Murders?" The man asked leaning back, and his bushy brows rose. "One body was found."

"There's supposed to be more." She mumbled, remembering she had seen four men. Maybe there were more. But not less. She surely could not hallucinate something so dreadful. "I wanted to talk about that. You wrote the police found the body on 18th of March. A single body." Charlotte surveyed the small space. Worn out walls, littering papers, dust of burnt cigarettes.

"You are not being recorded, if that's what you're looking for." Joseph intruded her intrusive eyes.

The woman stilled. Almost in relief. And in fear, realizing she was quite easy to read. "I was there." Her words low, on the verge of choking. But Charlotte had promised herself she would not let her senses choke her that day. "On 15th of March." Sighing, she remembered. "People were killed. Not just one. I think the police found just one of them perhaps?" She shrugged in question, and hopeful eyes that her admittance would lead somewhere. To some answer and peaceful sleep.

Joseph chipped on his nails, a layer of paper dirt embedding the skin of his fingers. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're the only one covering the case." Feeling the tears lining her eyes, she spoke the only truth she had spoken in the span of weeks. "I was told that the police were being called that night itself. But I had my doubts."

"Why didn't you go to the police?"

Fingers curled around the cheap and torn leather than sheathed the chair handle. "I had never seen people dying." Charlotte closed her eyes, only to open them again in a split of second as if the darkness of it would bring back the visions of that sinful night. "I couldn't understand. I didn't want to think about it. At all." She enunciated. "Even though that's all I ever thought about and still do. I didn't want to believe I had seen something as," Her lips curled in disgust and quivered in fear. "as heinous as that."

Taking a mouthful of breath, she continued. "Nobody talked about it. Wrote about it. Nothing. Like it was just a nightmare that I had to move on from. But it's just so," Her fingers digging into the destroyed leather, she dug. "so damn heavy. When I read your article, that the police are being involved and that they do have a huge evidence that is a damn body, it could lead somewhere. Maybe finally things will come to light. Maybe finally I'll know what the hell had happened." Fear laced with the heat transfused into sweat on her skin. "I'm too much of a coward. I can't," Charlotte gulped the harsh reality. "I can't go to the police and risk my life. So I thought, maybe," Her tear filled eyes met the ones filled with concentration as if the man was trying to calculate something. "Maybe if I give you some of my insights, it could help the case. And maybe you'd let me know about certain things as well."  She eyed the man, before adding. "I know the cops come to you for information. Your sister had said when you involved yourself with the highway murders."

Then there was a pause. A little silence. As if nature was rewarding her. After weeks of tumultuous and chaotic thoughts that had raged inside the hard bones of her skull, there was finally some peace. She had finally spoken her truth. And all she could hope was the man behind the broken table was kind enough to buy her truth.

"You had company." That was the first sentence he had muttered. A slow smile curling the edge of lips that remained covered beneath the beard. But the way his beard moved, Charlotte could understand it was a small smile. Like he had finally calculated whatever he had been calculating from the moment she had opened her mouth. "I'm not covering the murders you are talking about, miss. Neither are the police."

Her spine straightened. It was a quite a bad habit of hers. Always slouching. "But— but it's on the paper, right?" Helplessness grasped her tongue. "It's the same place. Same crime. Same month. Just a few days here and there. How can—"

"It's still different." Joseph firmed.

But Charlotte wouldn't buy that. Too many people had sold their lies to her. "Maybe the people who were involved in the killing, you know," Her hands moved to make sense. "Maybe they left this body by mistake or something else. But these two are not different, I swear. It was a mistake or—"

"A mistake?" Joseph poured himself another glass of liquor that wrenched her nostrils. He did bother himself with the formalities neither did he care to offer and Charlotte happened to like that aspect. "That'd be too much of a novice work."

"People tend to be careless." Charlotte reasoned.

Joseph gulped the shot in a go, his lips smacking, and nose crinkling with the neat burn. "Not after they kill a man." The glass landed with a loud thud on the glass table, startling her. With a finger pointing at her, the man said. "I'll tell you why you are wrong."

Her lips parted in disenchantment, words in a low whisper. "You don't believe me."

Joseph chuckled, his pointed finger shaking, with a head shake. "I will also tell you why I believe you," The man wheeled his chair back, crouched, shuffled with things before emerging again. What looked like photographs, was slid in across the table for Charlotte to take. "but first tell me if they look familiar."

Charlotte positioned herself, moving forward to take a look. Instantly, retracing her way back. Eyes wide that of pure horror. Her weak fingers clutched around her stomach. She hadn't had her breakfast yet and seeing dead people with their bloody guts out was not the best thing to look at with an empty stomach.

"This was the body." Joseph informed. "Do you see any familiarity or anything at all?"

Charlotte whimpered under her breath, as if she could smell the pungent blood from the photographs. "No," She answered.

"The details are important. It would help us, if you look at it better."

When Joseph prodded, Charlotte still did not move. She had taken one look and that was enough. She hadn't seen faces that night. Just eyes. Dead eyes. Still eyes. "The men wore black body suit kinda thing?" Rummaging through her memory, she added. "They had ski masks. I couldn't see their faces." Her gaze almost fell back to the photographs, but she resisted. "This man is not wearing any of those."

"Uh-huh." Joseph admitted. "Plain white shirt and ripped jeans. He was a college kid."

This time her eyes did fall back to the photographs. The boy who was supposedly a young adult was in college.

It had always unsettled Charlotte. How all these people who became bodies after their death had a life before everything went down. A life with parents or lovers or debts or university or jobs. They too had stood in long queue and probably had yelled at someone while stuck in a traffic and bought their favorite pickle and cried for someone and whined for a little toy.

So much life. They were life, like Mum had said:

Life is you and you are life, Charlotte.

And when the life was taken away from them, all that remained was a dead body. With no future. The present was dead. And nobody cared about their past. Just a name and body made up of rotting flesh.

Tears rolled down her cheeks, suddenly her heart heavy with grief and she wondered who had grieved for this bygone man. Did anyone? Did he want anyone to?

"I guess, you're right." Charlotte mumbled, her eyes still stuck on the nameless man whose lifeless body remained frame on a piece of paper in front of her. "I guess, these are different incidents."

Her fingers jolted with a sudden haste, as she went to grab her bag when Joseph firmed one more time. "They are different." He observed the troubled woman. Her haunted eyes, as he said. "But they're related."

Before anyone could inhale the next chunk of air, the woman stopped. Her head snapping with fury, and tongue rolling with hope. "How so?"

Joseph took the privilege to move forward and take the photographs back. His gaze locked on the gore frame, his index tapping on it. "This was a planned murder with a motivation. A motivated to gain attention."

"I don't follow you,"

"That building," Joseph referred. "It's an abandoned one. Not a ghost house. Children play outside the gates, even cross the fences to play. It's a small hood. People walk past, they've work to do somewhere around the house."

Frown lines creases her forehead, and the sharpness of her teeth sunk in her lips. "How's that relevant here?"

"Nobody saw a body in the morning. Now, remember the dates because it's hella confusing. 18th of March the body got reported yet nobody had seen it till the sun went down." The man clarified. "The Sun sets and there it is. Not too inside that it goes unnoticed and not too far from the building so that the police does take the building under consideration." The taps of his index ceased, and the man sighed. Still putting the pieces all together. "And just on time, an officer, a loyal one is informed about the body. How convenient is that?"

Out of everything, Charlotte could concentrate on one detail. "Loyal one?"

"Usually when unwanted bodies turn up at the wrong place in this city, and the police are the first one to know, the bodies disappear like this." With a click of his fingers, Joseph elaborated, as if he was showing her a magic trick. "Because money is powerful. So you gotta dial the number of a loyal one, if you truly want to investigate about any of that shit."

Charlotte interjected. "The people must have wanted to investigate after all. Since you said children play there, it could be a risky place—"

"That place and its people have their own dirt to hide. They wouldn't. Even if they did, it would've handled by the officers that are in their pockets. They wouldn't want any suspicion towards themselves, you fool." Joseph rolled his eyes, grasping the inability of Charlotte's brain.

If the woman was offended, she gulped it down. She could handle some names, as long as it promised a minute of sound sleep.

"I'm sorry. I don't understand—"

"An officer who still hasn't stepped in the dirt of money was called at the sighting. They are from the new team that has been assigned by the new sheriff. The new Sheriff isn't bought." Joseph said, with a hard scoff. "Yet."

When Charlotte sat in silence, her eyes blinking aimlessly, her brain buffering with all the misplaced knowledge, Joseph grated his teeth in annoyance realizing he had to simplify it more for the dimwit woman.

"Someone had conveniently tipped off the police— the good ones. So that they get involved. The sheriff gets involved. And they dig more skeletons in the closet." He paused, trying to slow his pace. "Someone wanted the police to get involved with the building and this dead man was just a way to lure them."

"Why would anyone want to direct attention to an abandoned building?" Charlotte asked, finally catching up with the discrepancies of the story telling.

Joseph banged his palm on the fragile table, with a loud laughter and with a proud tone he let her know: "Good question."  He shook his head for some more, as if learning the beauty of this world and its atrocities. "What do you expect from an abandoned building?"

What felt like a stupid question to Charlotte, was a crucial one. She answered. "When I went there it was filthy. Dead leaves, branches, thick dust, cobwebs and everything. Just plain horror."

"Exactly. Filthy in short." The man confirmed with a silent pause, he added. "But that's when you went. That was 15th of March. Now, what did I say? Dates are important. On 18th of March, when the body was found, I went their with my fellow mate, for the first scoop. And guess what?" His wide eyes filled with excitement, he didn't let Charlotte answer it, because he himself did. "That damn building that had been abandoned for fucking decades is cleaner than a five star hotel."

Joseph urged Charlotte to understand why, but she had failed nevertheless. Defeated, she asked. "Why? I mean, how? And why is that even— I don't understand."

"All these time, I had the same question. Why? Why is an empty fucking building cleaned off? What must have been there that needed to be cleaned off?" Joseph sighed, leaning behind, hands bending behind his head, his gaze locked on Charlotte. "Until you come here with those deep eye bags crying about murders that were never reported."

When Charlotte did not answer, the pride in his eyes dimmed slightly. Annoyance formed a question on his tongue. "Now do you understand why?

Scratching the back of her hand with the other, Charlotte answered. "Not really."

"Because someone had to clean the blood that had been shed three days prior. The murders of 15th of March." Joseph cleared, unimpressed. "Every little thing there could harbor an evidence, so someone cleaned all that dirt. That someone being your company. Since your company hadn't died the night and your speculations say they were the one who did the deed."

"I still don't understand why would anyone want the police to look into the building?" Charlotte asked, momentarily deviating from the fearful rush in her heart whenever Joseph brought up the topic of her company.

"You remember the highway murders?" The man asked.

Impatient and overloaded with uncertainty and information, Charlotte asked. "Why do we need to go there?"

Joseph paused for a moment. Looking at the woman. She was slow. He was wondering if she was even worth wasting his time explaining everything. But the woman had insights that would be useful. Extremely useful. So the man made an exception, and explained.

"Because," His voice lowered and strict. "It is a chain of events and you simply happen to be small part of a single event." He pulled out few more papers, and placed them on the table. "Three had died that night. One was a woman. An eye witness, she had called the police."

Joseph let the information settle. Everything was gore. Hard. He let the woman breathe.

"I heard." Charlotte murmured, gaze lowering, remembering Nicholas talking about the murders. The same night Emma and she had been over the Moon and beyond that the Ferreros had decided to strike a deal with them. Her tired eyes widened. The Ferreros. The same night they had visited their gallery. The night of the highway murders. The highway that was a fifteen minute walk from the gallery. The sudden rush of those men to leave. The excessive security.

Joseph sliced her thoughts, with more information. "The other two were men. Russians." He informed, and their gazes locked. "Those men had ties with the Bratva. The Russian Mob." He cleared knowing the unaware woman would find that piece of information brand new as well. "The Chicago Crows— is what the Chicago Mob goes by has made an alliance with the Italians. Smooth deal, but their growing power is a threat to the Bratva. Don't ask me the details, I don't know either. But when the Russians were killed on a busy highway, they had to retaliate. Now, I am going to ask you a question about your company. Were they an Italian or Russian? I'm assuming it was a he." Joseph paused, but when Charlotte did not answer, he continued. "I'm guessing he was an Italian."

Her head hurt remembering the night and the man, as she asked. "How did you know?"

"You were stuck in that building when the Russians retaliated. And because you said your company had lied about calling the police, I am again assuming he made it alive. That only means the Russians had taken another blow." His words were slower than usual, as he was finally giving a piece of truth about the night that had haunted her sleep. "The men in ski masks or whatever were Russians. They were there to kill your comoany, which they failed by the looks of it, hm."

"And?" Charlotte meekly worded, not wanting him to stop. She had wanted to hear the truth for so long. And finally it was here. Right in front of her. All these time.

"The single body that was found three days later to the attack, that is this kid," He tapped on the photograph of the dead man one more time. "was found on 18th of March. He was in college and you know the rest. Drugs and other shady stuff for some quick cash. He had records of buying the white stuff. From the Italians. He sold some of it too. A college kid has more access that you and me. The Italians must have used him to sell more in the campus, outside the campus and wherever the fuck they wanted."

"So he was working for them and they killed him?"

"No." Joseph snapped. "Are you not listening to me?" His unimpressed eyes pierced her soul, judging. "The boy had records being tied up with the Italians. If they wanted to whack him, he'd have been swimming under a nameless stream. Dead. The Italians wouldn't want the police to get involved in the murder of someone that was involved with them."

"Oh,"

"It was the Bratva." Joseph said.

Charlotte let out a heavy breath. Her brain hurt. From everything. And so did a part of her stomach. It had been a recent development, especially, whenever any electronic was around. Slightly wincing, she asked. "What would the Russians gain from killing like— just one man?"

"A lot." Joseph insisted. "If done properly, a lot." His thick finger through his beard, getting lost in there. "They knew the murder of their own men would go unreported because the Italians would relocate and dispose those bodies. And the person they had wanted dead isn't dead. Yet." He paused. "So if you can't kill the man, what do you do?"

It was supposed to be rhetoric question, but when the man seemed to expect an answer, Charlotte fumbled. "How'd I know? I've never thought of killing a man,"

"You bring them down." Joseph added with a light roll of his eyes. "Nothing is a mistake or a careless execution in organized crime. It's just our naive perception that's incapable of understanding their intentions." He pointed, rising from his seat. When Joseph stood up, it felt like a mountain had been awakened.

"This body was planted and the police was tipped off to apparently loyal police team because someone wanted a steady investigation. His wounds were deep but they weren't prolonged, which means he wasn't extorted for information. He was simply killed because it served the purpose. His identification, security number was left with him. So no one was trying to hide the identity of their victim and neither the body. It wasn't a novice act. It was an intentional act. Because the body was cleaned of every bloody fingerprint or feather that had touched him. How fucking convenient is it that he was cleaned off and dumped at a place that has harbored murdered just three days before? Tell me why?"

Dumbfounded, she asked. "Can I ask why?"

"Because the police were bound to investigate the premise in which the body was found. And if they found a hint of anything it would chain down to the murders of 15th March that was never reported, like the Bratva would have wanted." Joseph lit another stick of cigarette, set it between his tar tainted lips. "Unfortunately, the police did not find any clue because the house was goddamn clean like crystal." His heavy chest fell, and Charlotte kept her neck craned to keep looking at his standing form.

"But the Bratva did not have anything to lose. Because an abandoned building being cleaned raises some fucking questions." The man raised his palm, circling back to another thought. "And even if the police never gets to the bottom of that question, they will still trail down the tail that would lead to the Italians."

"How?"

"The dead guy was involved with the Italians. So of course, the police would be knocking their doors. And let me tell you, if the Sheriff gets his hands on that, he will reopen hella more cold cases that lead to the Italians. They have been rampaging this state for years now. Every lane you pass by has some filth that is created by the Italian Mob. And if cases keep on opening they will soon be in trouble." Another thick trail of smoke escaped his lips and he asked. "So what does it tell you about the situation?"

"My brain hurts."

Joseph chuckled at that. A genuine one, as she shook his head saying: "No." The man wandered around before taking a file from a pile and settling on his previous seat. "It tells you that the Bratva always plays their cards right. They are always one fucking step ahead."

"Why is it so complicated?" Charlotte asked, streaming the depths and crests of the situation.

Joseph leafed through the pages, gaze glued to the words written. "That's why it's called organized crime. This complicacy of their organization protects them."

"How?"

The man shut the file, vigorously scratched his balding head. Clasping his hands, he leaned to look at Charlotte. "One layer after another and then another. You think you're going for this one group when you realize you've to go for another one first." Twirling his index, he illustrated. "That is why there are hierarchies in their structure. It's a snake hole. You get your main man and realize he was just a puppet, and then when you get a hold of the puppeteer you realize, they are just a pawn for someone more powerful. It's how they keep themselves safe and that's why it's so hard to pin them down because no matter how many puppets and pawns you take down, you can hardly reach the guy up there."

Joseph pointed heavenward, as if he was speaking about the almighty. He was not. "The Don. And when you do, mostly it's because you're going to die."

"I want to cry."

"You can, but it never helped to solve a crime." The man shrugged, jumping to the question he had been biting his tongue to keep forming from. "Who was with you?" Charlotte did not answer, so Joseph said the words he knew she had wanted to hear. "I could help you, and if the people behind all these chaos gets the punishment they deserve,"

Joseph did not care. He did not care if the seemingly troubled woman deserved an explanation or some peace. But her insights were important. One name and it would help a lot. Charlotte was a living eye-witness who hadn't been harmed yet. If the police could utilize her, a lot of things would go right. "maybe you'll feel better if all of these gets solved, Charlotte."

That was the first time he had even bothered to recognize her. Give her a name. And it worked.

Clammy hands, mirrored by wet cheeks told him the woman was going to either go hysterical or speak her mind.

With a nervous heart and shaking feet, Charlotte sat there. Finally letting go off this secret she had been carrying everywhere she went. "He left me when the fight broke out and told me to hide. I was just— scared for my life. And his, of course. He wasn't returning and I don't know how many minutes I spent inside that hell."

"What happened when he returned?"

Throat heavy and prickly with words and emotions, Charlotte gulped which didn't help much but she could continue speaking. "He asked me why did I come out of my hiding."

Joseph nodded, and asked. "What gave it away?"

"Everything." 

"How did you understand?" 

Wiping the defiant tears, that just wouldn't stop no matter how many times Charlotte wiped, she said. "The way he came back casually after people were killed. I was afraid he might have been— he might have been a victim but he was so—  so fucking calm. I don't know how anyone manages that. So I did some reading and realized it's pretty normal for some people to act calmly even to disasters, I guess. But— that wasn't it," Her tone a low whisper lined with pure appall. "His hands. He had dried blood on them and a wound on his left shoulder.

"I— I was scared. I thought he'd tell me that somebody had attacked him or anything. Anything," Pausing she remembered what Luca had said. "He didn't want to speak to me that night. Later when we got the chance he had said some other story, and I just knew it. He was lying."

"He doesn't know that you knew, I gather." Joseph observed.

"That's not true." The woman stuttered, curling her palms into fists. "I think— I think he knows."

"What makes you think that?"

"The man isn't the most straight forward person, alright." Charlotte said. "He tells you one thing, but I don't think he really means any of that."

"He lies." Joseph phrased.

"He manipulates." Charlotte rephrased. "The day he gave his side of story or whatever bullshit that was— he was judging me. I don't know for what, but I knew he could feel my, my doubts about him. He never worded them, and I didn't indulge further." Her eyes Joseph, to clarify. "Because I was afraid— afraid of him. There's this other man. They're probably family. He threatened me to stay away from them. From business."

Joseph made a soft noise with his mouth. Not getting the clear picture. "Why would he let a witness live?"

"Exactly." Charlotte exclaimed, without missing a beat. "Every day I go out, I— I pray to God I'll get back home, and it's fucking serious because I don't even believe in God." Shaking her head, she rambled. "I cannot look at anyone without the suspicion that they might just be there to kill me off, because — because I don't know maybe they don't feel like keeping me alive anymore. That's why I had to come to you. I had to know my suspicions aren't just my mind playing sick games. I needed to know that he— that he is like that"

Joseph hummed. The old wood of the chair groaned as the man moved in his seat. "You gotta give me a name, you know that right?"

Her lips parted without a trace of word, as she shook his head. "If they know it was me—"

"They would not." Joseph interjected, carelessly.

Bewildered with the concept of how casually Joseph treated these people who killed. Killed other humans. Resting her palms on the edge of the fragile glass, she complained. "You don't know that." Her breath caught in her throat, and teeth grated with frustration. "He is a fucking psychopath for all I know."

"People are dead, Charlotte." He rebuked. "They will never stop if they aren't stopped. Do you understand?" Equally agitated Joseph snarled. "If you give a name the case will move forward. The murders of the night you were present would come under light and god fucking knows how many more will. The Sheriff is a good man, till now. He can help us to put these men behind those fucking bars."

"You don't understand." Charlotte whined, leaning behind. "They know where I live, they know where I work and I can't lock myself in. There's no one to protect me from shit. If they get to know I'll be fucking dead, and I know, I know— my life is not to serve a greater purpose but I've people I love and they love me, and I've things to do, so many things to do. I can't risk all of that,"

A bitter chuckle left his mouth. "You're being selfish and backing out when you fucking know how much you could help. Do you know how many people have died because of this? Just not murder. Your money, our money— they steal our money, they work with the people we vote, people we trust, they take away our jobs, hike prices of basic shit we need in every day life and our people move cities, drown in loans and live on the fucking roads to be noticed for a damn minimum wage job." His nose flared with rage, and Charlotte cowered with the fury that settled in his eyes. They were filled with helplessness and hopelessness. "We watch these damn movies and fucking television about the Mafia. Their struggle, the money laundering, men dying in the middle of bad deals, their luxurious lives, the power. Fucking romanticize that shit. But they never show the dirt under their bloody rug. How people die, good people lose their lives, their families. How some of them don't even stand a chance in this fast life, and we read and watch of these shit and shut our fucking lips and go on, as if it's all fine. Is it?" 

Joseph ran his fisted palm across his nose, breathing in hard. His body leaning forward on the table, eyes filled with pure vigor. "If we don't help now, then who will, Charlotte?"

Her eyes shifted to her side. Blue magazines littered one corner. Books with pages that had turned yellow laid beside them. Bottles of liquor and soft drinks, empty and some crumpled, scattered the whole floor.

All these things she was seeing now. And so many much was there, for her to see. To live.

So many things to lose. For such a great achievement. Maybe Luca was correct. We all were inherently selfish at some point of our life in order to get something. But she didn't want the power neither the highest position in the room, like Luca had said how greedy humans could be.

All Charlotte had ever wanted was a corner of that room. A corner to sit, where she could live, create and breathe freely. A corner that was only hers. There were very few things in this life we could call ours. Was it too selfish, too greedy to want to keep it?

"I don't have any evidence," She mumbled.

"We can still start from here." Joseph firmed, his tone lighter with a sigh that the woman hadn't completely backed out yet. "Do you have a chance of meeting this man again?"

"The last time I met him, he said it was my fault for being getting assaulted by that other guy." Charlotte said. "He also warned me," Her brows dipped, finally reading in between the lines. "He kept saying that I should choose wisely, fuck," Laughter fell from her lips and bounced against the congested walls. "He knew, yeah. He knows that I know, for sure. He was fucking warning me to choose wisely, so that I don't do something out of the line. He is giving me a chance,"

"People like these," Joseph illustrated with a mouthful of disgust. "They don't give chances. They'll come for you when you don't serve their purpose anymore. Fuck those warnings, do what is the fucking right thing to do."

Charlotte did not have the energy to stand up and leave. Neither did she want to speak. So she sat in the silence that smelled like nicotine mixing with liquor, when Joseph interrupted.

"We could speak to the police, if you don't want to be involved, I will do the talking." He said. "Maybe later they'll ask questions to you. This detail is huge, and I had gathered blood sample from the highway case, maybe if they put all the pieces toget—"

"Whose blood?" Charlotte shot up.

Joseph sighed, telling himself not to disclose the detail yet he did. He had to sell some information if he needed to buy some from her. "I happened to retrieve some blood sample from the crime scene on the highway. I had run some tests with a local lab, it didn't match with the three victims." A cough etched the corners of his throat, as yawned. "It belonged to someone else. Someone who was also present in the scene and did not die. I gather it belongs to the one who did the killing."

Placing her elbow on the table, she dipped her head on her palms. Ragged breaths puffing her cheeks. "He was there." She mumbled against her skin, feeling the chills elevating the cuticles.

"There where?"

"My gallery." Charlotte whispered, eyes closed, mind dizzy. "I co-own an art gallery with my friend. He visited it that night. The night of the murders on the highway."

"Did you see anything fishy?"

It almost physically hurt her whole body to imagine the situation. "He had extra security and he seemed in a rush all of a sudden."

"Motherfucker," Joseph laughed. Mouth open, chords high, the man laughed for a straight minute. Charlotte couldn't bring it in herself to find humor, so she remained catatonic for the whole minute, with her eyes closed the whole world seemed more peaceful. "Match the samples."

Like every story that had started to bring peace, hers too ended without an peaceful ending. "W-What?"

"DNA tests. Match with the man whose name you're so dearly trying to keep to yourself. Do you know how much probability we have here?" Joseph cleared, with eyes filled with merry. This was the liveliest Charlotte had seen him in the past hours.

With an incredulous look and small hopeful laughter that Joseph was just being sarcastic, Charlotte asked. "Are you crazy?"

"Not enough to go to an abandoned building late at night with a man who probably has his ties with the bloody Mob. So no." The man bit back. "You can something from him that has his DNA."

"I-I absolutely canno—"

"Do you know how many cases will be solved if it's a match?" The man raised closed the gap between his thumb and index, showing the minuteness of the task. "Just one little report."

"I don't know if I want to solve any cases." Charlotte retreated in her intentions.

"Oh, you don't?" Joseph sneered with jaw clenched. "Tell that to the children whose mother never returned because she had seen something she wasn't supposed to see on a damn highway."

Sighing, she lost the correct words to explain. "I am scared."

"Then don't fucking be." The man slammed his hand on the desk, rattling the whole area. "It's fucking easy to get that shit, anything works. Skin cells, hair or saliva. Anything as long as it's not completely damaged. It can be contaminated, but that's what forensic people work with everyday. They'll work through it,"

A speechless Charlotte eyed the crazy man. "What? I can't— I can't make him spit in a vessel."

A lopsided smile curved his lips. His stealthy eyes suddenly falling down on her body. "How close are you two?"

Feeling his intrusive gaze and coated question, the woman shifted in discomfort. "How close should I be with a criminal?"

"I wouldn't know." The man shrugged in disregard. "Did you know when people collect samples of saliva mixed with someone else's saliva or any other bodily juices," The man smiled. "it contains mucus, bacteria and most importantly— DNA."

"What are you trying to say?"

Joseph sighed. But this time a sigh of relief. "It lingers behind. Like a lingering kiss."  Twirling the dwindling cigarette stick that Charlotte had lost count of the number, the man said: "And a kiss never hurt anyone."

Luca took a step back. Fingers tearing through the mess of his hair, eyes heavy with sleep, as the man informed sliding his hand behind his back. "Your turn."

Golden and black encased the skin of the pistol. It was small. Charlotte did not know the name. It was not her forte. She didn't know how to use that but she did know how it was going to be used tonight. Dried tears pasted her lashes, as she fought to keep her eyes open. "Did you send that woman to kill me?"

Thick fingers ran across the coldness of the metal, as Luca attached the magazine of the pistol. Twisted it to check something, before his distracted gaze met hers. "No," He mumbled, brows knitting as he stretched his wounded arm, wincing and warming up the weapon. "Which one did the job?" He asked, eyes still fixed on the deadly ammunition. Luca stepped back, and placed the pistol on the marble counter with a slight clink in the cold night. "Hm?" Looking back at her, he rose his brow. "My tongue on your cunt or the strands of my hair that you pulled while you came for me, Cara?"

"Both." Charlotte murmured, not looking into his eyes. "Are you going to kill me?"

"Not if you get me first." The man chuckled. His gaze falling on the manila folder resting beside her. "Go on, try it."

Stiffly craning her neck, Charlotte too eyed the folder. "No,"

"Use it."

"No." She cried. It was perhaps a trap? Luca wouldn't let her kill him, now would he? Or maybe he wanted to frame her for murders? But why him? "No, I won't."

"Charlotte," His tone was berating. Like scolding a child. "Take it out. This is your only option." He said, his lips cherry and lies lining like a small pout. "Shoot me."

For the first time— for the literal first time, Charlotte noticed a ripple of his chest heaving. He was losing his patience. Sniffling, she reached for the folder in a hurry, her fingers muddling with the tape, uncertain eyes shifting back to the man, who stood in silence. She took out the gun, it was a size bigger than the one Luca had kept behind him. It felt foreign and heavy. She hadn't known one thing about shooting, and now holding a gun in her hands, she realized it was a lot more than just pulling the trigger.

"I don't want to do this please,"

"You know better."

"I don't even— I, I don't know how to," It was a strange feeling. To ask the man how to use the weapon that she was supposed to use to kill him.

"Up. Towards me. You do not want to shoot your own foot." Luca guided, making Charlotte grip the weapon tighter than before. Her thumb rested on the side, and others curled around, and her index rested on the trigger. She didn't have the energy to add her injured palm to hold it firmly. "Arms straight."

Charlotte aligned the pistol with the range of his chest. Her hand shaking so she moved upward. On his forehead. Her uncertain eyes flickered to the man, and down at the pistol, and down at her feet.

"Eyes on me, Cara." Luca pacified, she was seeing things is double, her heart furious against her ribcage. "Always."

Charlotte nodded, accepting his orders. She hadn't imagined the day Joseph had asked her to match DNA samples would lead her to this exact point of her life. Vision blurred yet she could see the man as clear as the way he had seen her. All these time. Like she was an open book. The idea of killing a man was easy to write, easier to read. It was difficult to execute.

The man who had killed countless and would continue to do so, was alive. He was alive. But he would be dead if she would just pull the trigger. Life was unfair and life was vile but to snatch it away from someone was— hard.

But harder was the aftermath. The dead eyes. The shallow breaths. The slowing beats. The cold blood. The fading memories.

The man who had killed so many waited expectantly. It was almost impolite to let him down. The light grey of his eyes that allured— wonder how many times it had seen life leaving others? Wonder if he had blinked or cared? Wonder if he had seen his own death in them and waited for it?

To let him live was a sin. To kill him was also a sin. Luca was a sinner. And the sinner was looking for someone else to sin.

So, when the tears rolled, the pistol slipped with it. When a strangulated sob choked her throat, and the pistol landed with the loudest rattle on the floor, the sinner smiled.

"I can't,"

"Pick it up."

"No, please, I can't, I just—"

"It is empty." Luca rolled his lips out, with a small breath and a yawn, he said. "Pick it up and keep it inside."

"W-What?"

His lips pressed in a thin line, not interested in repeating his words. "Fast." His words held a rush and a terrifying urgency that made Charlotte follow his instructions. She once again fumbled with the folder and the picked up the heavy weapon before keeping it inside.

"Now," Taking a long glimpse of his timepiece, Luca sighed. "Let us make a deal. Make it fast and efficient, yes?" Loosening the watch, the man held it in his hands. "One, hand me the reports and pray to your deaf god that I do not put a bullet in your pretty head." His arms half raised in air, alarming her the rapidity of the situation. "Two, continue this silly game of yours and I put a bullet in your pretty head right now."

"You're going to kill me anyway." Charlotte said hearing the two choices.

"Choose wisely, Charlotte." The man said, bored and slightly annoyed. "How many times are you going to make the wrong decision?"

"The reports never reached the police, I swear." She cried, hot rills of fresh tears tracing the dried path. "You don't have to worry about anything, I promise. Just let me go, I'll give you the reports, please, please, Luca."

The man heard her. The man saw her. Then gave a head shake. Firming a no. "I am not sold."

"No, you're doing all these for those damn reports?" A disoriented, wounded and tired Charlotte asked in a whisper. "I'll give them to you, Luca. Don't you care that I'll have to die just for a piece of paper?" Realizing her mistake, she said it one more time for him to hear. A little louder so that her trembling words didn't get buried underneath the raging storm. "You don't have to care, but it's absurd. I'll give what you want, then why can't you just let me leave?"

"You are very disposable to me, Charlotte. Living or dead." Luca firmed, eyes cold. "But what you know is not. I do not like to keep loose ends."

Burying her face in her palms, the woman cried. The patient man let her. He stood few feet away, taking in her crying form. Listening to the silent sobs. Even in adversity and the end moment of her life, the woman did not allow herself to cry openly. Her cries were so mellow. Like a soft lullaby. Her angry words were sharp yet so low, as if all her life she had lowered her tone, cut her words, silenced her thoughts.

It made the man think— why was she like this? But rather he asked. "Where are the reports, Charlotte?"

Charlotte peered her eyes slightly to look up, lines forming under her swollen eyes. "All of these for a paper." She kept on mumbling. "I'm going to die for some piece of paper.

If it annoyed him, Luca did not let it show.

"Charlotte," There it was again. Him saying his name like he was training a child. It made her feel more helpless, like a trapped child who did not know about the secrets the adults shared.

"Please be kind, Luca." The woman begged. "I have a life to live, and I know it's boring and plain and mundane and a barrier to whatever you want to achieve, but it is all I have. And it is all mine. Please don't take it away from me, please, be kind."

It was pathetic. Really.

The open wound on her forehead seemed to bleed again, because all the tears and her runny nose and traces of blood laced together and joined her pleas. There was a tremor in her legs, and every time she thought Luca would say something, she would just watch him blink. There was no kindness, but there was a consideration. For what? Charlotte could only imagine the reports. They must have been important enough for him to finally face her. Luca had known about Charlotte knowing the truth, but he did not seem to mind. But the reports were what triggered him. He just wanted them. And she could tell he wanted them enough that he was willingly letting her breathe and talk and cry and beg for the past hour.

That's all he wanted. The reports.

"How about," She started in a meek whisper, placing her coins right. "I make a deal?"

The tension in the room almost disappeared when Luca smiled. He had a beautiful smile. Charlotte did not like the word beautiful to describe it. But that's all she had ever used to describe it. Perhaps, she never got a hold of a stronger term.

Luca smiled like the man did not smile enough. So when it was there, it brought all the springs with itself to make up for the lost time.

"What did I just hear?" He asked, clearly amused.

Dazed at her own words, the woman took a moment to remember what she had said. And then she repeated. "H-How about I make a deal with you?"

Luca placed his fingers over his curled lips, eyes stern and strict on her, before he sighed into his skin and with a small noise moved his fingers away. "Go on."

Suddenly, getting the opportunity to use her words right, Charlotte finally breathed a fresh breath. She could do this, she had thought. "I— a, ok, ok." She dried her cheeks, and hummed to herself.

"One," She started with no clue or whatsoever where her little deal was leading her. "You kill me." She said, with a sense of annoyance of how dimwit that suggestion was but recovered soon. "You kill me here and anywhere. And I never return. But Emma knows where I was," She pointed, firming to herself more than he did to the man. "You made sure of it. She'd know I was with you having a little date over my favorite red wine when I accepted your old request for a customized tour.

So when I won't return after days and months, she will go to the police. You can make me say things to her that hurt her, but Emma will still look for me. Because she's my friend, you wouldn't know what that means. But know that she'll look for me hard and then she will come for you, with the police. Michael would help her, you know why? Because he knows about the reports. He knows I had it, and I am of great importance to him. But since they won't be able to find me directly, he will reopen old cases, which was already being in the process. And he'll reopen some more of your dirty business and bring them down. And you might think you're invincible, but if you really were, the organizations that help you with human trafficking wouldn't have been taken down. Joseph managed to acquire blood samples from the highway even though you had made sure the case didn't get enough exposure. What does that mean, Luca? That even with so much power there are people, probably even in your payroll who want you down. The Bratva even succeeded to get under your skin by just killing one man. That too your own. So when the police comes for you, they will dig more skeletons from your filthy closet.

They might even find my rotten parts somewhere in the woods or inside molten concrete. And people will be enraged. Not because of me, of course. But because their children and their innocent men and innocent women had been taken away from them, by you and the people in the government who play as you pay. You won't be the first one to receive the anger but they will. Because common people have put their trust, and faith and money and votes and what not, and they will want these officials to be down. And these officials are just hungry for money, and they don't care about you and they won't care about your money. You know why? Because when one man like you falls, hundred more of you will stand to feed them. So they will let you take the fall, because they don't want to lose their jobs, they don't want the public angry. I know, there are a lot of them, a lot of pernicious men in the system who will still make a way out that mess. But you on the other hand, you and your corrupt organization are alone."

Luca leaned back on the counter for the first time. Rolling his lips, the man bit the lower one in mischief. "Seems a little uncharacteristic of you, yes? You cannot trust a man for your life yet look at you," His eyes raking down her battered body. "Being so optimistic."

Charlotte held his gaze, not letting him get his way, so the man asked out of politeness. "Kindly share the other option. We do not have the whole night, Cara."

Feeling the dryness the tears had left, the woman said. "You let me live, and I will hand you the reports. You've killed Joseph for what? For the reports? I had seen private photographs of the murder scene on the highway. Michael said they had reckless strokes on the body. If you think about it, highway is such a reckless place to even do something like that for a man who has so much to lose. But I saw you tonight. You were too precise. You're always so subtle. You're too calm to fit the role of a reckless murderer, no?

You're so subtle, so concise with everything, really. But someone is not and something tells me they are very precious to you."

Charlotte said, her tone forever low like feather, not meaning to rattle his mind. She did. A tick in his jaw said she did.

"Your DNA didn't match with the blood sample Joseph had acquired. Your DNA did not match completely. Only fourteen percent did. Must be family, the one you're trying to protect, the reason you're still letting me breathe and speak because you want to erase the last piece of evidence. Who are you trying to hide, Luca?"

"Things." The man informed, with a wry smile and clenched jaw.

"Then keep them hidden. By keeping me alive and taking the reports." Charlotte gambled, hoping he would take it. Hoping he would just spare her life.

A sardonic chuckle tainted his lips, as he craned to look to his side. Away from her. Running his fingers along his chin, with eyes closed. "What makes you think I will believe that you do have the reports?"

Easing her breathing, Charlotte answered. "I do."

"Aha." Luca hummed, his calculating gaze raking down her body. Taking in her stiff movements. "What makes you think I will believe that you will hand them over to me?"

"Because I will." Charlotte firmed, lips pressed as tears made a puddle over them.

Placing his hands on his hips, the man stretched his left side with a silent wince. Pressing on the bloody napkin pressed beneath the fabric of his shirt, he brought it out, all the while holding her gaze. "Rich for you to even think that I will believe a word coming from the woman who had let me go down on her just so she could pluck strands of my hair and what else?" He spat, for the first time in disdain and a sliver of anger. "Collect my damn saliva from your cunt?"

"I, I'm really—"

"Go there." He interjected instructing, his finger pointing at the living area. When Charlotte couldn't move her aching feet, the man clenched his jaw with eyes closed, his Adam's apple bobbing as if caging down his own rage. "What did I say?"

The woman scurried, dragging her heavy feet and backed against the lined sofa. The man joined a minute later with the bag filled with napkins in his hand.

Luca flicked his fingers, gesturing at the blazer that rested on the curve of the sofa. Clueless if he wanted her to give it to him or was asking her to take it, Charlotte fiddled with the blazer after getting a hold of it. Luca waited for her to do what he had wanted her to do, while Charlotte tried to figure out what he wanted to do.

"You're going to kill me now? Here?" She asked, counting the seconds. "You don't want the reports?" Her fingers curled around the thick fabric, the only source of warmth that had touched her in a while, her tone rising wanting to be heard for the last time. "I'm literally making a fair deal unlike you who—"

The sudden clink of buckle being unclasped cut her short. Charlotte glued herself against the furniture, feeling the fear doubling. "You don't have to take off your pants to kill me it's not—" Oh, maybe he was going to choke her to death, what the hell. "Please, please, I didn't think it'd be so, so—"

"That is your problem, Charlotte. You do not think." The man pulled out the leather belt, and checked the time on his right wrist, taking a step forward. "You act like an one-dimensional protagonist."

Dwarfing Charlotte in every possible way, the man ceased the distance between them and eyed the crumpling blazer in her tremulous hands. The wind struck one more time, rattling another unknown window, and Charlotte finally understood what he wanted her to do. Wiping her nose clean, she draped the blazer around her. It was too big. The shoulders did not fit and the length ran till her knees. She must have looked like a clown, she thought and the humiliation of the situation only administered more tears.

Pulling the material of the blazer, the man pulled her closer, and she did move closer with ease. Coiling the sleek leather around waist, Luca tightened the material, noticing there weren't enough loops to clasp. Loose yet tight enough to keep it from falling off the man said. "You are coming with me."

Eyes narrowed down at the never-ending fabric wrapped around her body, which protruded so much Charlotte couldn't see her feet, she mumbled. "Just end it here,"

"Shut your mouth." Luca groaned, bringing out a pair of keys. The keys Charlotte had been trying to get her hands on. Her own keys. "Open the door."

Along the line of of some time, the woman managed to unbolt the locks, the extending clothing falling off her arms. Opening the door wide, Charlotte had thought of running or screaming but when she took a glance behind her shoulders, catching a glimpse of the man who shrugged himself inside trench coat. His gaze fixated on her with a silent warning.

Placing the paper bag of napkins somewhere inside, Luca stepped out, along with Charlotte. With a look from him, and Charlotte knew it was time to lock the door. Charlotte had expected someone to wait outside like Luca had earlier said but turned out she fell for his trap once again. No one was present. The cold corridors were empty and escape felt like a thrilling idea. But she resisted.

The walk was silent, so was the elevator ride. When the door opened another gust of cold crisp air shook her to the core, but at the warmth of his blazer was present. Her slippers made a soft noise stepping out on the concrete land. The security had changed shifts.

Arthur was in her mid seventies, who sat under the shed, in his blue attire. Charlotte concentrated her eyes on him, hoping he would see the trouble in her eyes and somehow stop her from getting abducted in front of everyone. But the man rocked himself in light sleep and before he could spot the two walking out, Luca had already pulled Charlotte closer, his arm coiling around her waist.

"Do not try anything." The man murmured, placing a kiss on her cheek.

"At least he'll be an eye witness when I end up dead." Charlotte retorted gently, peeking to look at the old man with droopy eyes. "There are cameras that are recording this as well," She informed with a sudden uppity anger. Her tone higher than usual to talk above the raging wind.

Her hair flailed, and they stepped out of the complex. Curling inside the warmth of the blazer that smelled like soaked fresh grass, the woman sniffed, nose red from all the crying and now the naked cold touching her. Her feet stopping, and shoulders curling almost backing themselves against his side, when she spotted the three people who had been waiting for their arrival.

"I would not trust the corporation cameras after a stormy night." The man tsk-ed, lowly.

"I don't want to go," Charlotte said, taking in the three figures. One was as stoic as she had remembered. Not even a crease could touch his features, as Piero stood with fingers clasped, in front of a black car. The next was the man she would never forget. His fingers weren't covered in leather, Charlotte could remember the time he had held her from behind. Balancing her on her feet, and challenging her to watch the gore in front of her eyes. Azrael was a nightmare in every sense, and had he not made her stand properly, maybe Charlotte wouldn't have to look at a dead Anthony and a carnal Luca with no trace of compassion. The last one stood few feet away, in front another car, the familiar Rolls Royce. The woman too stood with a familiar ice in her features, than warmed the cold of the night. Tonight, tight black fabric wrapped her body from neck to toe, her feet apart as she pushed the tight ponytail behind her shoulder. Violet looked like a storm. A beautiful storm.

Charlotte clutched Luca's arm, and with pleading eyes that crinkled with the strong wind, she said one more time. "Please,"

The man stopped before they could reach their awaiting company. Looking down at her, with a smile against his smile, the man whispered. "Use this," His fingers trailing down her skull, indicating her brain. "You have abundant of it, use it wisely." When a new tear prickled the corner of her eyes, Luca traced his thumb below them, catching them before they fell. "I want to see you alive, Cara."

Her nose flared with the cold and a sob. "Who was it?" She asked. "Who said I was a deceiver? Azrael?" A light sour scoff lined her now tired tone. "Or was it Violet?"

Luca brought his arm down along her side, clutching her left hand at her wrist. Charlotte twisted her hand to loosen his grip, fearing he might press on her wounded palm. He did not. Luca did not bother, while he strode towards his people. Charlotte couldn't concentrate straight. She couldn't bear the wait. Everywhere she looked, she imagined her death was planned from there. When Luca murmured words against her ear, it was slightly disorienting. "The storm is not the cunning one, Charlotte. The silence is." His words mapping her attention back. "Because it always lingers, even when you do not see it."

"What?" Charlotte asked, feeling the light touch of his lips against the shell of her ear, before it was gone again. Her feet trembling yet never stopping, when the man clarified.

"Piero."

[timeline: chapter 11]

"I can wait here too." Charlotte had pleaded when Luca refused to live the bloody building with her. Piero did not give her a second glance as he pulled the metal door open, dragging her outside. He had been given strict orders.

Her concern was slightly refreshing to him. Piero had seen a fair share of people. Living and dead. And people had always found a way to disappoint him. So when his fingers curled around the frantic woman who gushed how insipid it was to leave Luca alone inside that hell, Piero had almost believed it. Even when people disappointed him, he liked to put his belief in them.

After all, humans were quite peculiar he had often thought and observed. They were ambiguous to the point it was hard to differentiate them from their thoughts. His days passed like the passing city, and his nights burned like the ashes of his expensive cigar that was bought with his bloody hands.

Even after years, Piero had never grown to like the taste of the burn that touched his tongue or the way his lungs suffocated every time the poison clouded the organ. Yet he bought one. And placed it between his lips. Felt the burn. Flicked the ashes.

To remind himself.

To remind himself of the lives he had ended. And somehow even after their death, he was letting them live and crawl inside him. To remind him the burn. To remind him which money had afforded this piece of cigar. To remind him, that even after their death he was giving him a chance to gnaw at his lungs.

To wilt him, ruin him, and finally end him. End him. Relieve him.

But when Charlotte sat in the back seat rambling about the reasons why Luca was going to die— it felt odd. He hadn't exchanged many words with the woman. She used too many words. He did not mind that aspect but Piero never felt obligated to answer them either. But he had seen her. The way she spoke. The way she would take a step away if she happened to block someone's path, even before the person could ask her to move.

Peculiarly observant she was.

Piero had observed the observant woman.

As if the world was running at its fast pace and barely anyone paused, but Charlotte did. Charlotte would stand, and look to her side at the playground. She would look at the empty benches and crowded rides, and dew soaked grass or the honey drizzled skin under the warm rays. Charlotte would wait, and she would take a moment to look at you, when no one in the world did.

She was seeing people.

Why? He couldn't tell. Perhaps it was because she knew what it felt like to be not seen. Maybe that's why she had bend over her back and asked for his name even though the man hadn't spared her a glance to their way to La Lena.

Perhaps.

Perhaps, that was the reason.

And perhaps, that's why Piero couldn't buy a word of concern the woman had uttered from the moment she had left the abandoned building. Stealing glances of her in the mirror, the man swerved the engine and shifted to take her phone from the passenger seat.

"Your phone. You left it in the minivan." Piero said, and the woman moved forward to take it. Her open palms for him to see. His gaze fell on them. Traces of dried blood painting the creases, and his gaze lazily peered up at her. Charlotte was swift to take the phone and took her hands away. Closing them in tight fists.

"I still think we should go back and see if he's fine. People were killed, like mercilessly." The woman managed to mumble under her breath. And it made Piero think if she was trying consolidate the idea that an observant person like her hadn't noticed the brutality that his brother carried with him.

Charlotte had seen, Piero could tell. But she wouldn't tell.

If Charlotte didn't want to confront the brutality yet, Piero did not have any interest to force her into. Not until she caused any trouble. The man hummed in silence, thinking what this woman would do with the newfound information about Luca. She could certainly run to the police. She probably would or maybe wouldn't. Piero couldn't tell. So rather, being mindful of the situation, he asked. "Do you need anything? I can stop by some convenience store."

Someone else would have wanted to stop. Someone else would have a hint of tension lining their eyes. But Charlotte rambled apologizing for taking her home. She wasn't that grateful. No. She wasn't necessarily brave either. Charlotte was simply perfect at keeping her intentions isolated. Almost as if it was so hard to grasp her true words. Maybe that's why she used so many meaningless words to fill the silence.

The woman was gazing outside, and Piero too looked at the passing city. The sparkling stars that blinked to see the stranded humans in a far away ball of dust and and gas. 

"He will be fine," The man mumbled, with a faint smile in his passive features, realizing how the woman was truly an artist. An artist with colors and her words. It reminded him of his brother—Luca. That man was an artist as well— with blood and his words. A manipulator. And Charlotte seemed to happen to be the perfect deceiver. "come sei qui finalmente."

[as you are here, at last]

Like a ragdoll, Charlotte was handed over to a very passive Piero.

"The whole place." Luca spoke three words that did not fit the puzzle, and that was all. The man strode away towards the car, inside of which Violet had already settled. Piero like the night in the abandoned building dragged her to the car, opened the door, ignored her tearful pleas, and placed her inside.

The opposite door opened in a minute and Azrael entered, suffocating her more in the dark place. He muttered foreign words under his breath, in annoyance and surprise. Pulling out a small bottle, Azrael shook it, and the contents insides jingled. Nearing her, he went to grab by her arms, when Charlotte pleaded. "please don't hurt me, I'm sorry,"

"Not that." Piero intruded her moment of crying. Passing another bottle of transparent plastic, he said. "She has an infection."

The single pill caught her eyes, and they widened in horror. "You're going to poison me?"

Azrael took a hold of the bottle, with a glint of murk in his eyes. "I thought brother said she wasn't going to live." His jaw clenched, while Charlotte muddled with the lock, banging on the car door.

The vehicle moved, and her finger screeched against the foggy window. "Maybe he changed his mind." Piero informed.

Azrael swatted her palms from the window, dragging her closer, hurting her wounded body. "Not really." He grated, his fingers coiling around her jaw in disdain. "It seems, he came prepared to change his mind."

"it hurts, please,"

"Don't." Piero added, giving them a stern look, and Azrael released Charlotte from his death grip.

The man spat. "Take it or I'll make you choke on these pills."

"I don't want, I don't want to—"

"These are safe, Charlotte." Piero's distant yet only familiar tone calmed her nerves. "They will make you unconscious for some time, give you some relief."

Her breathing hitched listening to his words. They could anything to her unconscious body. So the woman thrashed against Azrael, and the car came to a sudden halt. Her wounded palm banging against the window against, dampening the gauze scarlet, as the window rolled down.

Harsh lights blared and blinded her for a second, until they narrowed on a man. The man seemed to near the car, his hands slid inside pockets of his uniform. Police uniform.

"Help!" The woman screamed, breathing in the windy air, hope tattling in her heart. "Help, please,"

The man looked at the woman, and stood near the open window to bend and look inside. His solemn features surged some calm in her, as she screamed. "They're kidnapping me, they're gonna kill me, please, please, please," Her fingers banged the lock, but nothing happened.

Azrael dragged her back, making her lose touch of the car door. The police man scrunched his brows, before looking both sideways. Inserting his head a little more, he said. "The horses are ready and some happen to be extremely hungry."

Charlotte writhed. Thrashed. Kicked. Bit. But Azrael was stronger. He slipped the small pill in between her lips, covered her lips for moments until Charlotte could feel the bitter substance melting on her tongue. Azrael pushed her away from his body, and the woman landed on the side of the where the cop stood.

Her palms had been aching for hours now. But now, the pain felt distant. And her fingers couldn't crawl along the side to get a hold of the man's collar, yet she mumbled. "Please help me, please,"

Something shuffled behind her, but her eyes could only make out the man. He probably was in his mid forties or maybe not. Charlotte could not tell anymore. Her vision blurred. "I don't wanna die, sir, please can you—"

A white envelope was passed, and when the cop put forward his hand, it wasn't to help her. He took a hold of the envelop, and slid it inside his pocket with a broad smile. Crooked teeth, he had crooked teeth, that's all Charlotte could focus on. Her feeble hands moved to touch the man, to tell him that she had promised to see her Papa at the end of the month. That her old Papa would wait outside even in the coldest of nights in the hopes she would visit him. And that her friend needed her more than ever, someone to hold her and tell her it was going to be fine. But her throat ran dry, and words felt too difficult to even form.

Someone spoke beside her, and she craned her disoriented neck to look at the man. In the stormy night, Azrael looked like— Azrael. Dark, wild and wicked. The man passed a small bottle with navy blue label wrapping it. "In case some are thirsty." He said, passing the bottle and the police who was supposedly help her accepted it with greedy eyes.

With a flick of his fingers, Azrael signaled the man to leave. And he did. While Charlotte curled in the side, dried tears making her skin flaky, her eyes closing but still she fought to keep them open. With a vague tone and incoherent words, the woman mumbled things which sounded like: "Where are you taking me?"

The cold Azrael let out a bitter chuckle looking at her pathetic form, but unlike Luca and Piero, the man too seemed fond of words. So he answered. "Fifth estate, principessa," Charlotte did not know where the hell that was, she couldn't keep the energy to care either. So she concentrated on the warmth that wrapped around her body. The warm blazer hugged her close, and it was the only warmth in the cold night. Like Luca was— the only strangely familiar being in his foreign world.

"The world of organized crime awaits you."

bros I hope you liked the chapter :) 

it is highly unedited. just finished writing this up, so please turn blind when you see mistakes xD

certain parts of this story are slightly technical.

I have added the whole 'Charlotte calls the police' earlier. In bits and pieces. It's a little confusing because certain things seem out of place. But I really don't know how to make it flow smoothly.

Honestly, I imagine all the scenes visually. So it's like a movie in my head. And it's difficult to put them down with the right words and the right time because stories work differently. That is why the story feels like jumping from one timeline/scene to another because I wrote it as if it's a motion picture.

I have added the whole Charlotte calls the police after Joseph's death so that the audience gets to know the stakes early, build the suspense of what would happen when Luca finds out, until we finally realize she had done something more. That we did not know about.

I am pretty clueless when it comes to writing, and I'm just playing with the narration. So if you found it shitty you can always let me know.

I am still learning and your feedback would help a lot. :)

since a lot of scenes/dialogues were vague and I purposely like to add double meaning to some dialogues/plot points in order to build a scene, I am explaining some of them here. There are more dialogue and narrations which I am using to build a scene, but I'm not going to explain because it's so much more fun if you can figure it out yourself.

Anyway. Hope this helps!

1. Charlotte is not a reliable narrator:

Chase had called her a bad narrator during their conversation. And Charlotte herself had mentioned in her narration that stories are just manipulation of words, filled with plot holes and that you would see the reality of if only you can read between the lines.

So she shows you parts of the incidents that she wants you to see. Also, because she doesn't trust people. You— who are reading this are also untrustworthy to her. So she keeps things from you, because the whole incident with Joseph is so scary and fearful for her.

2. When Charlotte knew: [chapter 11]

That scene when Charlotte was concerned about Luca was a misdirect.

There were certain parts where she chants the word 'dirty' after she touches Luca after the attacks.

[which becomes clear in this chapter when it's revealed why she asked or said what she had said in that situation]

It was just the horror that she had seen inside the building and then the blood that coated her palms after touching Luca, that made her desperate for answers. Thus the recurring nightmares. That is why the killers face was always so familiar. But she could not see him completely. [dream sequence in chapter 12] 

Because a part of her mind was not ready to believe that it was Luca.

3. Charlotte narrates how she watches a man get shot in front of her. And yet her palms are clean. [chapter 11]

She watched a man die and she says her palms are clean.

Again, one is an irony. That even though there's no blood in her hands, there is figuratively. Because someone died so that she could live.

second. The moment she touches Luca, they get dirty with blood. And it becomes more consistent. The filth and the fear. Filth that is the dried blood from touching Luca. And fear that he might just be a murderer.

4. "Does it make me weak?" [chapter 15]

Charlotte asks Luca before he goes down on her. 

This question is out of place. I think it has two reasons to be there:

(a) Charlotte accepts to kiss or touch him even though Luca had clearly not taken her side when she had complained about Azrael. Rather he had asked Charlotte to stay away from trouble. [which was Luca's way of warning her] It makes her look weak that how easily she gives in even after the man clearly had not taken her side.

(b) Charlotte must be having this feeling that she might have to use her body to go against Luca. At that point she needed his sample and using her body was the only option. It becomes more prominent later when Michael asks her to be a distraction.

The question is like an inner dilemma, that makes her think that she is weak— in the sense powerless. And that she has to sell her body to get things.

5. Luca talks about murders in the meeting after he returns: [chapter 20]

Luca talks about the recent murder that happened a week ago and that he was being pinned for it.

There was no way Charlotte had made the call let alone know about the case because Luca hadn't been in her life for almost 8 months. Yet Charlotte tells that building was abandoned in which the recent murder had occurred.

I believe, Luca had just tried to lure her in the trap. Made up a similar scenario and instilled the fear that Luca knows when people go against him [that is he knew someone had tipped off] and it was a warning from him. For Charlotte to stop whatever she was doing by working with police.

If that even makes sense. That chapter needs some more thought and better writing. Anyway.

6. "Why do you have to be like this?" [chapter 22]

Charlotte asks Luca when he is asleep on her kitchen floor. 

I just want to clarify that Char did not ask this because she was sad that he had left her for months. She had asked this in the sense— why did he have to be a criminal.

7. "You are just like everyone else, Cara": [chapter 22]

I read some of you were confused but it's pretty self explanatory after this chapter, I assume? 

Piero was the one who had told this to Luca. Not Azrael (previously named Cruz) or anyone else. That Charlotte was a deceiver.

And the whole scene occurs when she is asleep. Since it was cold, her sleep was light because she couldn't sleep properly. The whole movement is because Luca was shifting her to the bed and the sounds were of things being searched by him in her home.

While she was dreaming about pastries.

It should ideally be written in a third person point of view for clarity but... anyway.

8. "You did it because guilt is stronger than conscious": [chapter 25]

Luca tells Charlotte. 

Because Charlotte, our narrator, lets us know that she had phoned the police because she did not want Joseph's murder to be ruled out as a suicide and that the man who had died inside that abandoned building deserved justice too.

When in reality, she had made the call for a different reason.

Charlotte knew she had messed up when Joseph died. Because if Luca or his men knew about the DNA reports that Joseph had, they would most definitely know who had helped him. So she called the police out of guilt that she had led Joseph to death + the fact that Luca would come for her next.

That is the reason she wanted to involve the police.

Thus she keeps saying: "More are going to die," because more is her.

9. "You act like an one dimensional protagonist": [chapter 26]

Luca tells Charlotte. 

Charlotte plots with Joseph against an organization of organized crime without understanding the depth of the fatal consequences.

Making her act like an one-dimensional character like she won't ever get the repercussions of her actions.

miss girl, you can say I am invested because I am writing scene analysis for a wattpad story.

I need help. And friends.