Chapter 1

February 14th

11:31 am

"You've got about 10 minutes left."

"Pleasure doing business with you!" I cooed at the woman as she handed me a parcel that I specifically asked for. Her and several others where planted all around the city to deliver things for me and others from A to B; very useful tactic if you ask me. As I began to walk out the alley and towards the main streets, some chatter came from behind me and some shoes shuffled along the gravel. Before I knew it, I was surrounded by 7 men with hand guns pointed at me and someone walking over from behind me. "Hands in the air, drop the parcel and face me!" He shouted so I did as I was told. "Ah, Mr Curtis Lee; good to see you and your posse again! Though, could you have not been more subtle about all this? The guns are a bit much." Lee scoffed and pulled out a gun of his own before pointing it inches away from my forehead. "You still owe me money." I nodded my head and laughed. "What do you think is in the parcel?" He glanced to the package briefly before looking back at me. "You tell me!"

"Half a million. All for you!" Lee gestured for one of his men to grab the parcel and move it away from me. "The last few thousand will be in your possession by the end of the week. May I go now?" Without an answer after a minute of silence, I turned around and took a step forward before freezing; I felt the tip of the barrel pressed against the back of my head. "Not so fast missy, how can I be sure it's real and not a reason for me to blow your brains out?" With a smirk, I faced Lee once again and grabbed the gun off him lightly before putting the tip of the barrel in my mouth; it took nothing for my tongue to start examining every crevice it can find long before it reached my lips with a hunger for those bullets in my frail skull, and pointed it up towards my brain. "I'll kill myself right here, right now... if it's not all there." My muffled voice was just about comprehensible.

Lee raised an eyebrow. "C'mon Curtis," I leaned closer to him, "would I lie to you?~" I whispered before shoving the rest of the gun into my mouth and stepping back. "I'll admit, you look hot when you do that~" He cooed and I smiled in return. "You say the nicest things sometimes, you know?" He chuckled before nodding at three men who began to open the parcel. "I bet you've put worse in there, huh?"

"I don't recall sucking your dick?" He burst into laughter before yanking my collar toward his face; I barely avoided pulling the trigger from shock. "You're on thin ice already, don't push your luck!" I shrugged and pulled the barrel out from my mouth; my fingers running along the metal shell and fiddling with the open hole at the end of the barrel. We don't need Curtis thinking that's he's the reason I'm turned on after all, do we?

It took a while for them to fully inspect that it wasn't a trap, a solid six minutes, before I was quickly shunned away from the alley. "End of the week, you hear me?" With a devilish smirk, I tossed the gun back to Curtis Lee. "I hear ya'! Happy Valentine's Day~" As I started to stride away, I mumbled under my breath, "Crazy bastard..." I straightened up my blazer and began to walk back home with a pleased smile plastered upon my face; the plan was about to-

BOOM

Car alarms began screaming and all glass within half-a-mile radius shattered into small shards. I stumbled to the side as several broken panes of glass from the apartments above me came tumbling out of their frames. I recollected myself and brushed off some dust that caught itself on my suit as my hand supported my weight against a car that was blaring in pain. I guess I lost track of a few seconds when sticking that cold, long, hard metal shaft down my thro- excuse my foul description; sometimes I forget how crude I can be when unsupervised~

What? Confused how I blew their pathetic existences to nothing? I might as well tell you, it's not like you're going to try it for yourself... right?

You see, me playing with the gun wasn't just my hormones raging at the thrill I went through (putting it in my mouth was a little bit to do with me being a horny fuck, I'll admit that). I always have whatever I can on hand to make any interaction I have end with a bang! (I mean that literally and metaphorically). Me messing around with the gun was a signal to his men - most of which where on my side from the very beginning. Long before they started scheming with Curtis Lee, they all went to suicide prevention classes an old friend of mine from the streets used to go too; I wonder how he's doing these days? Most of those who went didn't get the help they needed since it was cheap and just to talk about feelings and all that boring stuff like lectures, you know, the shit that made you want to kill yourself even more then a minute ago? Yeah, those type of lectures!

Back to my explanation, I met up with (almost) all of them a few years back and gave them a deal they couldn't refuse: they go on as new recruits for Curtis Lee for a few years, see how they enjoy the job, help turn their life around a little, check up on them to see if they still have the craving for death and then, if anyone still does, cover them from head to toe with explosives and make sure the others don't join them on the outing with Lee that day. If you couldn't tell, the greatest plans are thought of ahead of time and long before they're needed!

(Keep that in mind when you plan to go back into the dating world).

Now call me a monster for taking advantage of suicidal citizens but I did them and the ones who made it through their struggles a favour! Curtis still has a few men left... except he isn't able to boss then around anymore. It's a win-win for everyone!

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February 14th

03:09 pm

It's almost too good to be true when you basically run this city with an iron fist, and all from the shadows! You get access to anything and everything with the right contacts and suitable amounts of money for whatever job you require. But, as insane and heartless as I may seem, I've got the odd soft spot for a few people although, some of my requests seem a little random and meaningless to those I ask.

While I rested my back against the brick wall of the florists, my eyes searched up and down the street to the best of their abilities. Since that little incident I had earlier, everything else seemed rather peaceful. A large amount of couples where walking the streets together, hand in hand, and had the perkiest looks of joy slapped across their faces; most were clearly forced by those who had the guilt of cheating or not truly loving their 'significant' other. I suppose the best part of watching them all, young and old, was how much each different pair varied from the next: man with a woman, two women or two men, two men and one woman, each had their own unique partner and it warmed my heart to see no one judging a single-

"Oh you two are just DISGUSTING, shouldn't you be dating women so you can be seen as pure in the eyes of god and to go heaven?!" Some 50 year old bitch complained across the street while two boys (roughly in their late teens) sat uncomfortably at a table outside a small café. The woman continued to shout at the two about how being gay was a sin and then somehow went on to them worshiping the devil; long story short, I have had enough of her shit.

Since no one else was brave enough to do anything about it, I pushed myself off the wall and marched across the road while nothing was coming from either side. I grabbed a free chair from a nearby table and spun it so the back faced the table the two boys sat at so my legs spread themselves (very willingly too) to put the back of the chair between where most men try to get their frail skulls for a good thigh crushing. "Evening ma'am, gentleman." I nodded to the boys with a friendly smile which they gratefully returned. "Don't tell me you're like them, are you?!" The woman almost gagged on her own words - if only she choked herself to death but hey, we can only dream. "Be like them how? In a happy and loving relationship with someone of the same sex as moi?~ If so then yes, I'm just like any other person that is or can be attracted to their gender: gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual; the list goes on honey!" Resting my chin on my hand, I stared at the woman with a smirk before looking behind her to see a young boy and a man who I'd assume to be his father. "Say, do you have any family with you?"

"Why do you ask? So you can curse us with your black magic and give us the plague?!" She took a few steps back for dramatic affect and the man I looked to flinched, not sure whether he had to grab her or not, which gave me my answer. "I'll take his reaction as a yes." I stood up and spun the chair the right way before pushing it under the table and looming over the 4'3 woman. "You talk about how you hate the gays so much buuuuuuut..." I looked down to her hands and saw a ring on her wedding finger that she constantly kept fiddling with. "...You decided to marry an almost stereotypically looking and open closeted gay man? Not what I expected from the likes of you but you do you I guess!" The woman, now with a face full of complete and utter disgust, turned to her husband and spat her words like venom. "Is this true? Are you really like these three filthy fa-"

"Hold the fucking phone lady, don't go throwing that language around like that, and really? In front of your kid?! That's low, even for a Facebook mom like you who's not had her daily four boxes of overpriced cigarettes and secret bottles of wine behind everyones backs!" I grabbed a butter knife from the table behind me pointed it to her neck (no where near it, might I add, but still in that direction). "I suggest you, your loyal yet mistreated husband who could do sooooo much better than you and your poorly taught son who'll most likely join a gang that my a- uhh, Alba Rosas' ass ends up using to put on the next New Years fireworks display RIGHT HERE in these very streets! Now get your scummy ass out of here before I show everyone watching how to deal with the REAL sinners of this planet."

When her mouth opened back up, I expected her to argue back to me but what I got was much worse. "OH MY GOD SHE FUCKING STABBED ME!" What? The woman grabbed her shoulder and poorly lowered herself to the ground as though she fell before screeching out another lie. "THIS F*GGOT JUST STABBED ME IM THE SHOULDER- Did you see that? I know you saw it, right?! Everyone here saw you ASSAULT ME! OH GOD IT HURTS!!!" The witnesses to her fake crime just stared at us both blankly and without even a breath being audible to her to draw attention to themselves. "Yeah no, everyone here knows that I didn't stab you BUT what they do know is that you should get your pterodactyl mating call of a scream out of here before the police turn up and arrest you because, and let's be real, you couldn't win the court case. "I don't need to take you to court to get you arrested for ATTACKING ME which EVERYONE SAW if they want to keep their heads!" I leaned over the woman who was still outstretched on the cobble floor and chuckled. "I was talking about the case to keep custody of your little meat bag of smiles." I gestured to her kid that was carefully being taken out of the high chair by his father and watched the man begin to gather their things. "Honey, get off the floor and get to the car, now!"

"But she-"

"This kind lady with common sense did nothing to you, you hear me? NOTHING! So get up, apologise to all three of them and everyone else in the area for ruining their Valentine's Day before I lower your week of being able to pack to two days because I'm kicking you out of my house and I don't want to see a single tear until we've taken this to court!" Not a word was spoken after that and the woman got up and began speed walking for that car. "You forgot to say something 'love'!" Her body froze and she looked around at everyone. "I'm sorry for ruining your day, especially you three! I hope you enjoy the rest of your day." And with that, she ran off to the car and dived in like an Olympic swimmer to a freshly cleaned pool.

Once the man walked off with his kid and their things, I turned to the two lads that surprisingly didn't just get up and leave. "Are you two lovelies ok now?" I placed the knife back where it belonged and watched as the two nodded with tearful eyes. "Oh don't cry, come here!" I opened my arms and walked around the table to give them a hug which they gratefully accepted. "Thank you so so SO much for that, you don't understand how long she was trying not to make a scene!" I smiled and gently let them go. "I've dealt with a lot worse then her, but none of their screaming could compare to how much hers wanted to make me rip my hair out!" We all shared a laugh and, by now, everyone around us had gone back to doing what they previously started.

"Anyway, I hope you don't run into any more people like that, I'm low on original insults at the moment!" They smiled and shortly after, we said our goodbyes. "Enjoy your Valentine's Day!" I yelled and made my way back to the other side of the street where Ms. Lloyd stood with a bouquet of white roses; just like I asked her for. "Oh Jasmine, you're a star!" I praised the old lady as I sniffed the freshly picked scent of the flowers. She handed me the bouquet with a small grin. "Anything for my favourite customer and her girlfriend. Especially on their 5th anniversary as well!" I loved this old lady as much as I did my girlfriend and our cat Moxie. She was just so kind and modest about everything, a little like my special someone - I can't say much though, she's Canadian so I suppose she's just born that way! "I'm shocked you remember that Jasmine, don't you have better things to keep up there then my anniversary date?" She shrugged before shuffling her way back inside the shop. "You'll forget one of these days, Valentine's Day or not!" She's not wrong! "Fair point, but thanks again Jasmine! Have a good day!"

"You too dear! And it's Ms. Lloyd to you!"

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February 14th

07:58 pm

"I'm hooooooooome!~" I swung the door wide open and kept the flowers behind my back as I stepped through the door. As I locked it as fast as possible, I noticed a grey blob rubbing against my left leg. "I missed you too Moxie~" Some movement could be heard upstairs so I ran to the kitchen, pulled out a vase from a cupboard and filled it with water before placing the bouquet in. "Is that my favourite person in the whole wide world?" My girlfriend yelled as she made her way down the stairs. "Nah, this is a robbery." I saw her smiling face peak from around the doorframe (making sure it wasn't actually a break in) and then running towards me with open arms. "Aww baby, you didn't need to get me these." She cooed before trapping me in a hug. "What can I say? I've gotta leave my mark on you somehow~" Zaya laughed before looking down to me; being 5'7 isn't always fun when your girlfriend is 6'! "Speaking of flowers, how's our special little Rose bush doing?" She glanced down at me unamused. "You need to stop calling it that." I raised my hands in defence. "I'm just saying, it looks like what I'd like to say are roses! Is that such a crime?" Zaya scoffed while finally setting me free from her loving grasp. "Babe, you commit what I'd class as war crimes; you can't say shit!"

"I get it, I get it - I only wanted you to show a little skin~" Zaya backed away before smelling the roses with a thoughtful grin. "Leave my birthmark alone and I won't complain about you keeping body parts in the fridge for the next 3 weeks. How's that?" Shrugging, I looked around the room to then lay my eyes of a grey ball of fur and start making my way over with open arms. "Then I won't ask to see it for three weeks." I picked up our cat, Moxie, and nuzzled my face into his stomach. He let out a small purr before stretching out to his original mother. "So how was work today?"

"It was alright, everyone is looking for you after this mornings' stunt though." Looking up to Zaya when she speaks in her assertive tone was always scary, but in an attractive way! "You didn't say anything, right?"

"Obviously not babe, otherwise you wouldn't be here and I wouldn't have a job!" Alright, she's got me there. "Fine, but if you ever DREAM of ratting me out then-"

"I know, I know: you'll have my head on a string and hanging from Buckingham's flag pole. Happy Valentine's Day to you too love~" Fuck, I love this woman. "You know me so well!" Shrugging, Zaya gently kissed my earlobe. "Perhaps... a little too well?~" Almost melting into her, I felt a soft chill travel along my neck and down to my core. "M-Maybe...?" Unable to contain her silk-like laughter, she took a tight hold of my hand and began to walk out of the kitchen and to the hall with me in tow. "Let's go, you know I hate it when people stall!"

And I think that was the greatest Valentine's Day of my entire life! Though I don't remember much of it, only how it felt~