Framed For Blood

As they slid into the taxi, Kevin glanced at Lydia, her face illuminated by the passing streetlights. The concern he'd been suppressing finally surfaced.

"As much as I love having this time alone with you," Kevin said, his voice low as he took her hand in his, "I'd be more at ease if your bodyguards were around."

Lydia rolled her eyes, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Not this again."

"I'm serious, Lydia. Someone with your status isn't safe moving around like this. You could be targeted by a rival gang, or maybe someone who has a beef with your family."

She shifted to face him, her eyes meeting his in the dim light. "You worry too much. Besides, isn't that why I have you?" Her fingers traced the line of his jaw. "I know you'd protect me if anything happened. You're Scorpion, remember? The dangerous one."

Kevin sighed, pulling her closer. "That doesn't make you bulletproof, princess."

The taxi pulled up to a modest hostel on the edge of downtown – nondescript enough to avoid attention, but clean. Kevin paid the driver while Lydia stumbled slightly on the curb, her heels unsteady beneath her.

Inside their room, Lydia immediately kicked off her shoes and stretched. "I need a shower," she announced, already unzipping her dress. "Care to join me?"

Kevin's phone buzzed with a message. He glanced at it briefly, then set it aside. "You go ahead. I need to make a quick call."

While Lydia showered, Kevin placed his gun on the bedside table – always within reach, a habit he couldn't break. He took a moment to check that the silencer was properly attached; he always kept it fixed to avoid any unwanted attention in case he ever needed to use it. The call he made was brief, keeping his voice low.

When Lydia emerged wrapped in a towel, her blonde hair dark with water, Kevin was just ending his call. "Business?" she asked, approaching him with a playful smile.

"Always," he replied, pulling her close. "My turn to shower?"

Ten minutes later, Kevin stepped out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist. Lydia lay on the bed, her body barely covered by the sheet. She beckoned him with a finger, but just as he moved toward her, a sharp knock at the door stopped them both.

Kevin immediately tensed, his hand reaching for the gun on the table. He moved silently to the door, positioning himself against the wall beside it.

"Who's there?" he called out, his voice casual despite the gun now gripped firmly in his hand. He avoided looking through the peephole – an amateur mistake that could get you shot through the door.

"It's room service," a male voice answered from the other side.

Kevin looked back at Lydia, who had pulled the sheet up to cover herself. "Did you ask for room service when I was in the shower?" he asked quietly.

"No," Lydia answered confidently, her eyes now alert despite the alcohol still in her system.

Kevin turned back toward the door. "We didn't order room service. You can leave now."

"Okay, my bad. Sorry for the inconvenience. Have a good night," the voice replied.

"It's cool," Kevin said, letting his guard down slightly. What he didn't notice was the silenced barrel pressed against the door lock from the outside. There was a nearly inaudible pfft as the lock mechanism shattered internally.

The door opened silently as the damaged lock gave way.

Then everything happened at once.

Three men in black slipped in with practiced efficiency. Kevin fired twice, the silencer muffling the shots to little more than soft thuds, but he was immediately tackled by two of them. The third man entered behind them. The struggle was brief but violent – Kevin managed to hit one attacker in the face with the butt of his gun before another caught him with a stun gun. His body convulsed, the gun falling from his grip.

Lydia screamed, scrambling off the bed, but the third man caught her easily, clamping a hand over her mouth.

"You should have kept the bodyguards, princess," he whispered in her ear.

Through blurred vision, Kevin saw Lydia struggling, saw the flash of a blade, heard her muffled scream cut short. He fought against the paralysis of the stun gun, managed to get to his knees just in time to see the third man drive the knife into Lydia's throat with surgical precision.

Blood sprayed across the white sheets. Her body crumpled to the floor.

"No!" Kevin roared, lunging forward only to be forced back down.

The third man calmly wiped the blade on the bed sheet, then turned to Kevin with a cold smile. He picked up Kevin's gun from the floor, examining it with appreciation.

"Nice piece," he remarked, then aimed it at Lydia's lifeless body and fired twice. Thanks to the silencer, the shots made only dull thudding sounds that wouldn't alert anyone outside the room.

He turned to Kevin, who was still struggling against his captors. "The Black Wolf's daughter, killed by her boyfriend, Scorpion. A crime of passion." He pressed the gun into Kevin's hand, wrapping his fingers around it, ensuring his prints were all over it. "They'll find you with the murder weapon, your gun, with only your prints. Maybe you'll try to claim it was an intruder, but... who would believe the notorious Scorpion?"

One of the men holding Kevin down produced a syringe, its contents a murky liquid that caught the dim light. Kevin thrashed wildly, but the grip on him was too strong.

"A little something to keep you quiet until someone finds you," the third man said, nodding to his companion. "By then, the scene will be perfectly set. The gun in your hand, the knife by the bed... a lovers' quarrel gone wrong."

The needle pierced Kevin's neck, the burning sensation spreading instantly through his veins. He fought against the encroaching darkness, but his muscles went slack, his vision blurring at the edges.

"Sweet dreams, Scorpion," the man whispered, placing the gun in Kevin's limp hand and carefully arranging his fingers around it. Another accomplice positioned the knife on the bedside table, making sure Kevin's fingerprints were smeared across the handle.

The last thing Kevin saw before unconsciousness claimed him was Lydia's lifeless eyes staring back at him, her blood still pooling on the white sheets.

The attackers left as silently as they had arrived, closing the damaged door behind them, confident their plan would unfold exactly as intended.

Twenty minutes later,

Kevin's eyes fluttered open, his consciousness fighting through the chemical fog. Years of building tolerance to various street drugs had finally paid off—what should have knocked him out for hours had barely lasted a fraction of that time.

His body felt like lead, his thoughts swimming through molasses. His enhanced metabolism from years of having drugs injected into him during initiations and tests within the gang had given him an unexpected advantage. But even this partial immunity couldn't fully counteract the potent cocktail they'd used.

The room spun as he tried to sit up, his limbs responding sluggishly to his commands. Lydia's body came into focus, the reality of the situation crashing down on him with sickening clarity.

"Ly...Lydia," he slurred, reaching out with a hand that felt disconnected from his body. The gun clattered to the floor, startling him. His fingers had been wrapped around it, just as they'd planned.

With enormous effort, Kevin fumbled for his phone, nearly dropping it twice before managing to unlock it. His first instinct was to call 911, but as his thumb hovered over the keypad, clarity sliced through the drug-induced haze.

'If I call for help now... with her blood everywhere... gun with my prints... knife by the bed...'

He glanced down at the fallen weapon, then at Lydia's body.

"Oh man, I'm fucked," he whispered, the words catching in his throat.

He scrolled through his recent calls, vision still doubling and blurring. The last number he'd called stood out—Marco, the handler, the connection to his network of contacts. An idea formed in his clouded mind, desperate but possibly his only way out.

With trembling fingers, he composed an email to an anonymous drop account, the words coming slowly through the fog. An order for a pickup—with payment that was ten times the usual rate. Marco would know exactly who to send.

'If I play this right,' Kevin thought as he hit send, 'I might just survive the night.' But even as hope flickered, he knew that come morning, the Wolf Gang would be hunting him for Lydia's murder. He'd be dead before sunset unless he could find a way to prove his innocence.

Somewhere across town,

Marco's phone buzzed. He scanned the message, eyebrows rising at the amount offered.

"Who the hell needs this so urgently?" he muttered.

'Or maybe it's the Cops...' His thoughts raced, wondering if this might be a setup.

'It can't be,' his mind finally settled. Let me find someone for the job.

He thought of Alex, who had just asked for bigger jobs. This was well beyond what he'd planned to give him, but the kid had proven reliable. And hungry.

Marco fired off the instructions, including the location and room number, with a simple message: "Drop the package and leave immediately."

---

Alex's sleep was cut short by the buzz of his phone. Groggily, he reached for it, then sat bolt upright when he saw the amount attached to the job.

'This can't be right,' he thought, checking the message again. But there it was—a sum that would cover Iris's treatments for months.

As he hurried up from bed, he grabbed his old work bag, knowing quite well that the package couldn't be something he could just carry by hand. He moved quickly to get the package from the drop point and then toward the hotel, his mind racing. 'Why is the money so much? Maybe because it's outside Phoenix territory? Either way, this could be the break we've been waiting for to finally stop this job and actually look for a better job that pays well.'

The hotel was quiet when he arrived, seemingly deserted at this late hour. He found the room number and noticed immediately that something was wrong—the door lock had been shot out, the door slightly ajar.

"Hello?" Alex called cautiously, pushing the door open further. "Is anybody in? I got your package here."

The room was dimly lit, and a figure lay motionless on the bed.

"Oh... sorry, I wasn't aware you were in a towel. I knocked and you weren't answering," Alex said, hesitant.

There was no response.

Alex took a step closer, then froze as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Blood—there was blood everywhere. And the still form on the bed—it was her. The blonde from the club. Kevin's girl.

'Damn! I'm fucked,' panic rising in his mind.

"I need to get out of here now," he whispered, turning to flee. But as he reached the doorway, he spotted two familiar figures striding purposefully down the hallway—the bodyguards from the club.

"Hey!" one of them shouted, breaking into a run.

Alex slammed the door shut, adrenaline surging through his system. His eyes darted around the room, seeking an escape route.

'I need to get out of here,' he thought, mind racing. 'This is the second floor. I should be able to jump down from here... and if I get injured, it won't be so bad that I can't get away.'

Decision made, Alex dropped the bag loaded with goods, sprinted across the room, and launched himself through the window. Glass shattered around him as he plummeted to the ground below, landing with a jarring impact that sent pain shooting up his legs.

Ignoring the pain, he scrambled to his feet and ran, disappearing into the night just as the bodyguards burst into the room.

"We lost him," one security guard said, peering out the broken window.

The second guard had moved to check on Lydia's corpse. "The miss is dead," he reported grimly. "And we let the killer escape."

"Maybe not," the first guard replied, bending to pick up something that had fallen from Alex's bag.