Chapter 16

Back in the warehouse, Daru parks the car.

He closes his eyes for one second and then walks out with steady movements.

He takes slow breaths.

Lowering the shutters, he goes towards the trunk, takes a grey shirt, black pants, and a black suit.

Taking off his stealth getup, he changes into his suit.

All is silent, with only the shuffling of clothes as he changes, metronome his calm breath.

Everything would disappear if you just looked into his eyes.

Fury unbound.

He knows that he was dead if not for a miracle. So close to losing what he never realized was more than his life.

Daru stands now with arms to his side, stretched towards the ground, and he looks straight, not registering anything material.

He shuts the gates of hell, tilting his head a little to the top, chest swelling as he takes a deep breath.

Inhaling a cloud of air, pulling it and his tension towards his core.

He lets them spin a brew, for it to pull more of its kind, and then he exhales.

In hope to blow out the current anger.

Open eyes, he takes the new lock he bought on the road.

He crouches out of the warehouse and pulls it down.

Locking and then looking out, he says, "Let's go to Gloria's house."

After taking another set of buses and changing and shuffling, he now stands again in front of Gloria's house.

He doesn't hold the same state as before; he carries a smile this time, knowing the person on the other side of the door will too as soon as she sees him.

Ding

Shortly after the ring, the door is opened.

Daru widens his smile more looking at Gloria.

"Daru! Come in, where were you? I called Claire, and she said you left early. I thought you would come home soon after your yoga lesson."

"Well, I just have some leftover business. Where is Jay?"

Gloria leads towards the hallway as Daru follows behind.

"He went to the club with his buddies, so he will come very late," she said.

After reaching the couch, she turned towards Daru and said, "So it's good you came, or I would have been alone." Gloria smiled.

Daru noticed how she has not spoken about Manny yet. He did know from the Dunphy that Manny is out of town, but not much more.

And neither did he ask much.

Daru took the loveseat, Gloria sitting on the single couch to the left.

He turned towards the TV that was on a Colombian show.

Resting his back into the sofa, he took a hidden deep breath.

Then he turned towards Gloria, "I was never able to say a proper sorry…"

Gloria interrupted before letting him finish, "And it would never be enough."

"I know, but I want to start somewhere…" Daru crinkled his eye in guilt, "I was wrong to just up and leave and not contact any of you…"

"Have you spoken with Mom, Sonia…"

"Not yet, I don't know how to…"

"Don't drag this any longer than it needs to… you don't know Sonia…"

Gloria didn't complete her sentence, but he knew where it was headed.

Closing his eyes, he balled his fist, 'asshole' he said to himself as he let his head down.

Gloria got up from her seat to gently sit next to him.

She placed a hand on his back as she brushed him slowly.

"Forgiveness starts from asking…" she said.

Daru could only nod to it…

They stayed quiet for a minute until Gloria couldn't see him like that anymore.

"Alright, I will leave this up to you… but now tell me everything…" glaring daggers, Gloria repeats, "everything."

Daru sweats not looking up, now for a different reason, but he can still feel the steel in Gloria's glare that puts pressure on him.

"Well… where to start…"

Daru gulped then started his tale, "After that day…" Daru doesn't specify.

"I contacted some friends and smuggled myself into America…"

"Here, I pickpocketed for a while…"

Daru narrated his whole story from smuggling his way into America to his pickpocketing in the beginning, then to saving Hasan's life to then start working in his strip club as a bouncer…

He then hesitated a bit but relenting to Gloria's glare continued; thereafter, he went on to tell that he got to know of a new type of drug that was peddling in the market,

As he came to this, he felt a pressure on his neck, but Gloria hadn't moved from her place at all.

He went on to tell his thought on how profitable it would be to peddle it to high society.

He talked about the coincidence on how one of the people he had worked with before on some protecting job was now a member of the new group that produced this drug.

From then to approach the boss to make a deal and then start peddling by seducing some 3rd rate actresses to get access to exclusive parties. There he met the truly famous people.

From then, it was a climb to bigger, better circles and more; selling drugs to famous stars and big business.

Gloria was furious here, inches away from strangling Daru.

"Daru, you know better than this… you know it is not the world to be a part of… we thought you better… and please tell me you didn't actually start doing drugs…"

"No… not a cinch… I was just high on the thrill of doing the dark that I just kept seeing to propel to bigger and bigger stages… I didn't stop and look at what I had actually done…"

It's true now that he thinks about it, the lives of so many he has seen shift so much after overindulging in drugs…

Well, he never sold to anyone who has not been taking it for a long while but… that doesn't mean he did any less harm…

He knew the addictive nature of the drugs William is famous for… it just made you seek that pure high…

"Daru, this is just… I am very disappointed…"

Daru didn't have any words to defend himself…

"And what now…"

"I am done… done with them…"

"And what have you done to the people you worked for…"

"Nothing…" Gloria raises her eyebrow "yet…" she then nods lightly… you don't just bail out of this side of the world… well, he didn't really have a chance to do that … he was more or so dealt with according to them… and they have all of eternity in hell to think of that … once he is finished with them…

"And how are you going to do it…"

Daru didn't want to discuss any of it with Gloria, and he was thinking how to say that … cause she can be one stubborn woman about stuff…