His Scars

29. The Godfather

It's been a hot minute. I had a plan for this chapter and now that I'm writing it, it's turning on its head. God save me. 

Anyway, do comment and let me know what you think. <3 Enjoy!

Also, this is unedited. I will edit it when I have time so please ignore the typos. Thank you!

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Caleb

My plans of getting home as soon as I was done with work were delayed. I stood now in the basement of Gabriel 'Gabe' Clarke. I looked around as discreetly as possible. 

It was lavish for a basement. The walls were a sort of blood red and the floors were polished wood. The ceiling was white with flush lights, that hurt to look at directly. There was a white, rustic, heavy desk. Behind it was a cozy fireplace with a beautiful white frame. Off to the corner was a medium-sized portable bar which made me somewhat envious of how classy it looked. Behind me, at the centre of the room was a pool table. 

Our own basement, though well-maintained and clean, still looked like something out of The Conjuring. It was used mostly for storage. I had at one point thought about turning it into my own space but never got around to doing it. Sage still refused to go in there alone. 

I now studied the man who sat behind the desk. He looked like an old-school gangster. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt with a black tie and a waistcoat. His hair had been gelled back and his facial hair was cropped close to his skin. He must have been in his mid-forties. He tapped his chin with his fingers as he studied me, an expensive watch glistening on his wrist. Around the finger that tapped away at his chin was coiled a thick gold ring with a black oval in the centre. On the oval was the simple insignia of a wolf. A family crest. 

Everything about him screamed class. Although my own family was affluent, I felt small in front of this man. He radiated confidence. 

Gabriel Clarke had always been someone of repute. Everyone knew who he was. Growing up, we would hear whispers of the illegal dealings of his family. However, when he came into power, they began to clean things up. The drug business and whatever else they dealt in was put to an end. No evidence was ever found. He was still known as a bit of a loan shark though. That was how I knew to come to him. A friend at work had told me about him. He had borrowed money from him and was stressing about paying him back. The conversation then went into him being a gangster. 

Would he be what I needed? After Sage had come home nearly black and blue, she told me the story. She told our parents she was mugged, but she had opened up to me. I knew this Grubb fellow would be back for her. Knowing her, she would not stay away from Kane. And whatever I heard about this Eric kid made my stomach churn. Neither she nor Kane was safe as long as these two were out to get them. If I could catch at least one, I'd figure out how to catch the other. Eric wasn't really a threat. Grubb was. 

I had begged and pleaded to meet with Gabriel until he had decided to give me the time of day. I explained all that had happened to my sister and the little she told me about Kane's past. That he was someone Kane had spent time around as a kid and he had given him those scars he now wore. It wasn't hard to tell that he was adopted. He looked nothing like his family, and they didn't seem the abusive type. There was not much else to go on, but why would someone with a background like the one Grubb had come here? Sage refused to say much else except that he had been involved with drugs. Did he come here just for Kane? 

I had asked Gabriel to look into it. As I told him the story, something sparked in his eyes, but he was too practised to really give anything away. He said he didn't have time to go solving everyone's problems but that he would look into Grubb and if he deemed it worth his time, he would help me. And that I should wait for his call.