A Gangster's Gospel

Chapter 8: A Righteous Sin

Trigger Warning: Torture, Violence

The night Thaddaeus dropped Jeremiah off at home the smaller man asked a single question: "How long will you be gone?"

Thaddaeus answered honestly and told him he wasn't sure. He had yet to receive the details of his hit so he couldn't give a definite answer. That answer clearly wasn't good enough for Jeremiah who sat unmoving in the passenger seat of the Maybach.

Jeremiah clearly had a stubborn childish side as he seemed to pout at the idea of Thaddaeus being away for an unknown period of time. It seemed that time away really does make the heart grow fonder.

Not wanting to make his sweet Jeremiah worry, Thaddaeus handed the smaller man his second phone and told him to put his information in the device and to expect a call from him when he returned.

The way Jeremiah's face lit up as he quickly typed his information into the device and sent himself a text so he knew what number Thaddaeus would contact him from made the gangster chuckle. It made him want to take the smaller man right there in his Maybach.

Thaddaeus watched Jeremiah jog up the steps of his home and past the front door when he received a text from Yohan with the information on his target.

Not wanting to sour his mood, the gangster didn't bother going over the text just yet as he wanted to drive home in peace.

Once home Thaddaeus took a long cold shower.

The entire drive home Thaddaeus thought of only Jeremiah. He regretted not taking the smaller man back to his place rather than actually taking him home.

Thaddaeus thought that meeting up with Jeremiah would help placate his curiosity and rid him of the feelings he'd felt after their last reunion at St. Clementia.

He thought that deep down Jeremiah would be like everyone else. In fact, he was hoping he'd be like everyone else, that he would finally see Thaddaeus for who he was and realize that he didn't want anything to do with the gangster.

That Jeremiah would see the invisible cloak of the grim reaper that enveloped Thaddaeus and be too afraid to face him. That would make it easier to sleep with the man and let him go, pretending he never existed in the first place.

It was one thing to listen to a disembodied voice confess to murder and a completely different thing to be face to face with the murderer themselves.

However, the way Jeremiah's eyes seemed to light up when he finally got to put a face to the shadow of a man he'd encountered twice made Thaddaeus's feeling grow.

It made him feel hope and a calming presence he could only think of as peace. Feelings he thought he'd forgotten a long time ago. Feeling he never dared try to hold onto.

After dressing in simple sweatpants Thaddaeus left his bedroom to go to the guest bedroom in his condo.

He switched on the light gazing around the slightly crowded room that had a bed, two bedside tables. Half finished paintings hung on the walls and half finished canvases lining the walls. An easel with an unfinished painting of the sun rising over the ocean was set up in front of the large radius window in the room.

The gangster sat on the stool in front of the easel picking up the paint palette with dried blues, purples, reds, and yellows. He never had time to finish any paintings, but that was merely an excuse the gangster told himself to cope with the anxiety he felt about completing a piece. Yet he continued to buy paint and blank canvases so he could repeat the process of beginning a painting that he knew he'd never complete in the end.

It was getting tiresome. Everything was becoming tiresome.

He squeezed white and blue paint onto the palette before mixing the colors to get a soft blue. He picked up his brush and began painting his pastel sky. A sky that was the same colors of the clothes Jeremiah wore.