Beware The Water

Cigarettes

The order spread throughout Chinatown in minutes. No one was to leave. No one was to come in. Every storefront under the mafia's protection closed early. The base was more packed than usual. The guys had their girlfriends over; some had little ones around the ages of two and three running around in one of the rooms in the back of the building where it was the most protected. Phones rang endlessly as Sing's order trickled down through every sub gang beneath him. Stay off the streets and if you had nowhere to go, come to the base and be armed.

A line was crossed. And to ensure something like this would never happen again, every border belonged to the Chinese Mafia. Every low-level thug with a gun in his waistband would suffer as collateral damage if he refused to step aside and allow business to be handled. The message was sent in blood and bodies. If chaos threatened an eruption in Chinatown, they'd all be forced to remember what happened on the day Sing Soo Ling wore his crown and spared no mercy for the sake of a warning.

Shorter tried to keep the peace and all of the bloodshed contained to avoid ruffling the enemies and being on police radar. It wasn't cowardice. It was his way of keeping his guys safe. Doing so made him feel like he was saving young lives instead of sending them to their demise. Sing decided that this called for a different approach. One that needed to be a statement. Something catastrophic that would make the mafia feared once again. A killing that would mark him as worthy of being The King of Chinatown. The title wasn't worn lightly on his head. It weighed him down and made him feel sick until his body froze into numbness. Feeling nothing meant he could protect who he was responsible for. Blades and bullets meant nothing when he knew how to absorb every threatening motion that tried to get in between him and Chinatown.

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The order had been made, and Kairi was already halfway through stuffing clothes into her duffle bag when she heard a knock. Her head jerked up from the stuck zipper and the front door opened slow before she could answer.

Viper stood in the doorway and gently shut the door behind him. She gasped when he took a step towards her. Her heel caught the edge of the rug, nearly sending her backwards into the wall before she caught herself. "Fuck." her hand hovered over her chest and pulse thundered in her ears.

Fang told him, she thought for a moment until her shoulders relaxed down. Kairi planned to slip out of the base during all of the chaos until things settled and when she was in the clear of any accusations. If she got questioned on running, she could play the anxious role and claim to be scared, when in reality she couldn't handle being so close to the violence that she created. If word about her secrets got out, then she'd at least be a step ahead, although she was clinging onto the fact of learning how Sing operated.

She watched him a lot at the base. Listened to the things he'd be saying over his burner as he passed by. He liked to get things done fast and not dwell to avoid any guilt. If there were confessions, it would seem like passing the blame onto a mafia acquaintance and wouldn't change the fact that Fang's still guilty of sicking her crew onto the mafia in order to keep her secret. And if Viper knew about the drugs, he wouldn't be dumb enough to kill her in Chinatown, or even in the entire city. Kairi convinced herself that Shorter was still her looming protector like back then. Or like that moment they shared at the dog fights. She still saw him as a driving force even without his crown. Little did she know, with Sing in charge and with something to prove, the pull that Shorter once had now meant nothing.

The shield that once protected her was now in the hands of another, one who wielded a blade behind her back.

Vipers gaze drifted from the sloppily stuffed backpack leaning against the bed to the half-zipped duffle at Kairi's fingertips, "There's a lockdown. You know the rules."