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I HATE FUNERALS

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I HATE FUNERALS

It's not because they make me sad or anything. I don't think I've felt sad during a funeral since my mother's and after going to so many throughout my life I think the depressing feeling had left my body long before I could understand it. So, I'm never really sad at funerals, not even for ones for my men, people who swore under an oath to work for me and died for me. It sounds less like an asshole thing to say in my head but it's the truth — my truth.

The young recruit who died the other day on the table in front of me after getting ambushed trying to get cargo was someone I didn't know all too well. He was young and that's pretty much all I knew about him, but he seemed to be very loved by his family and friends. His burial was held in Jersey, somewhere close to home. Me, my dad and Maurice all watched from afar as his family laid him to rest. The woman who I assumed to be his mother cried out aloud as her people held her tight so she wouldn't jump into the grave with the boy as the gravediggers lowered him in.

The gloomy weather is almost too fitting for the moment. The rain soaked everything it touched, the grass, the tombstones, and his mother's makeup causing the black mascara to run down her face so heavily it looked like blackened tears were coming from her eyes. I looked over at Maurice under his umbrella watching with a stiffened face. My father is the same beside me, even behind his darkened shades I know there's a stone-cold expression behind them and as his son, I match it.

The burial goes on for a while until the only people left in the graveyard are the mother, and a woman who resembles her a bit who I'm guessing is her sister or someone like that. She held on to her so tight, head shaking and tears steadily streaming. When we finally make our way over she's in too much distress to notice our presence at first but once the other woman looks up at us the mother soon follows her stare.

My father is the first to speak. "Our condolences," he reaches out to the woman extending a hand, she stares at him for a moment, her eyes bouncing between his face and his hand. She accepts his hand after a while. Maurice places down a bouquet of red freedom roses on the black casket beside us. I hand the woman an envelope and a brown paper bag which she takes cautiously. She and her sister exchange glances.

"Who are you?" she asks.

My father just sends her a small smile, tilting her black hat at the woman before turning around and making his way back to the car where the driver waited for us. Maurice and I follow behind him. I can hear the woman opening up the bag behind us followed by a loud shriek. I peek behind me to see the woman had fallen to the ground, hands full with the stacks of cash in the bag I handed her — $150k to be exact. It only seemed to make her cry more.

••••

Later into the night, we found ourselves at the warehouse. The second we walked in I could hear the sounds of punches and kicks being thrown echoing off the walls and ceiling of the place. We get closer to the scene and see my men still interrogating that man we kept alive after he and his friends stole our cargo. It's been a few days since the incident and he still hasn't said a thing despite the constant beatings. He's tied up in a chair, legs, and hands bound by wires tied so tight they cut into his skin. He's a bloody mess. His face was so blackened and blue I could barely recognize him anymore and yet he still hasn't talked.

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