From the Start

Chapter 5

Gael's

It was a Saturday afternoon and I was working with one of my latest cases. I cannot work at home because I might choose to sleep and I cannot go to the office because I will surely have extra cases if I choose to do my readings from there. I decided to work in a café I frequent. The ambiance is peaceful and the coffee is great as well. There are a few students and some who just like to chit-chat.

The case that I'm working on right now is a headache for me. It's a case under 130.20 in the New York Penal Code and sometimes, I do question my life decisions. I started to work at 9 AM and I also had my lunch from there. I will also have a quick meet-up with one of my sources after this and we're scheduled to meet at 5 PM. I swiftly took a look at my pristine schedule for today when I received a text:

Gale:
Party tonight at the Colours and Grey Bar. If I didn't see you or even your shadow, you can already forget that you have a twin brother.

My eyebrows furrowed when I saw my twin brother's message. He's so dramatic. It's just a stupid party. I decided to ignore his message when I received another message from him.

Gale:
Don't you dare ignore me! Pyre and I have been waiting for you for 3 months now and you owe us more than just a dinner, so we expect your presence tonight.

I rolled my eyes at what I read. I took a quick scan of my schedule and my evening schedule is so far a a clear one. I should be sleeping peacefully for tonight besides, I deserve it. With my profession, I'm already lucky enough to get at least 4 to 5 hours of perfect and peaceful sleep. I got rid of the thought of going to my twin brother's foolish party.

Anyway, I carried on continuing my work, and within an hour, I already finalized half of my case readings when Gale called me multiple times. I took a glance at my phone and saw 8 missed calls from him. I also saw a text and a missed call from Pyre. I finally decided to reply to him.

Me:
Yeah, whatever. I'll try to drop by at your futile party.
Hope you're not yet drunk when I come by to say hi.

Since I already completed almost half of my paperwork, I texted one of my sources to meet me at our usual rendezvous and I'm glad that he agreed to meet me at an earlier time. I drove back to my condo to drop by all of my things and quickly took a good shower. I decided to wear a black shirt, dark blue jeans, and a navy green bomber jacket since I will be driving my Ducati Scrambler. I usually use my two-wheel vehicle when I go on a meet-up with my sources. It's better to be safe than sorry since I decided to choose a dangerous path due to my profession. But it's a blessing in disguise since it's the only thing that saved me and my twin brother in the long run right after our parents died in an accident.

I washed off all of the thoughts when I grabbed my Scrambler's key. I looked at the time on my wristwatch and it says 4:08 PM. I texted my source and told him that I'd be on my way. He just replied, "See you there," I went to the parking lot where my vehicles were parked and I gladly started my Ducati's engine. Hearing it roar while I'm starting the engine is always music to my ears.

After a few minutes' drive from my condo, I made it to our rendezvous. It's an abandoned warehouse located in Upper Manhattan. I parked my big bike and I saw him wearing his usual attire. Leather jacket, a black shirt, black jeans, and a simple plain black baseball hat covering his face like he's a secret service agent or something. He quickly approached me when he saw I was done to park my big bike.

"Hey. Nice seeing you again, Visser." he attempted to reach his hand to me and I just took an icy glance at it. I lowered down the black shades that I was wearing and I gave him a blank expression, I fixed my shades and he awkwardly chuckled when he saw my reaction. He quickly reached into his jacket's inside pocket and handed me a C4 envelope. I took it and I opened the envelope to see a few photos and a flash drive.