Criminal Dynasties: The Faulkner Syndicate

Chapter Six

Claire Richter's POV

As I walked around mindlessly, all I could think of was is he really that assuming and overreacting? Come on, who orders someone to take off their shoes? Granted, you could definitely hide a pocket knife in there or something but did he have to say it as if he were asking how I was or something?

Suddenly, a noise interrupted me from my thoughts. The noise sounded like...cheers? I looked around and realized I was in a wide street full of bars with blaring music.

Way to go, Claire.

There were a lot of bars but one specifically caught my attention-the nearest one-because of the cheers emitting from it. As I watched, the door suddenly swung open and a bouncer thrusting a man forward came into view. 

"I told you not to come here anymore!" the bouncer was yelling. "This isn't a fucking fight club-" 

"I never said it was!" the man yelled back even though they were almost standing next to each other. "And you just broke the first two rules!" 

The bouncer growled loudly and I could hear it across the street. "You're not welcome here anymore, Adelstein! And keep your filthy money away from me. I'm never touching it again!" The bouncer had basically just admitted to taking bribes. Nice. 

The bouncer shoved the man down then walked back in the bar, talking rapidly on a black walkie-talkie. 

The man just stood there, watching the bouncer go back in. I noticed that there were drops of blood dripping from his nose. He removed a thickly starched piece of cloth from his pocket and started wiping it off. Suddenly his face went pale-sickly pale. 

Before I realized what I was doing, I was rushing up to him. "Hey, do you need to go to the um...hospital or something?" 

"Hospital?" he started laughing a bit, but color didn't rush back to his face. "What for?" 

I stared at him, taking in his brown hair in the light of the bars. "Well, for one, you're bleeding your nose off-literally. Second, you're paler than a corpse. Plus you look like you're about to faint. Is that good enough for you?" 

He frowned. "It's that bad?" 

I rolled my eyes and pointed to a nearby window, where our reflection could be seen. 

The man nodded, causing blood to spatter on his blue and white sneakers. "Oops." 

Wincing slightly, I produced my own handkerchief though I have to say, it wasn't as clean and starched as his. I handed it to him and he took it without comment, wiping off blood carefully from his shoes. 

"What are you doing here, Adelstein?" someone suddenly yelled, causing us both to look up. "This is de Wilde territory!" 

A tall black guy was walking hurriedly towards us. He was carrying a familiar-looking package. The package I had delivered earlier. 

"Hey, isn't that-?" I started to ask before stopping myself. 

Adelstein, or whatever his name was, looked at me again with a new light. "Are you the new messenger for the Worthingtons?" 

"No," I lied. 

"Mark, you might want to try introducing yourself before you start asking business matters," the African-American guy said. "And you'd better do it fast 'cause I'm not so sure we're allowed here." He turned to me. "By the way, I'm Sean. Sean Russell." 

He didn't put out his hand, and for that I was grateful. I didn't know who these people were. 

"My name is Mark," the man said. "Mark Adelstein."