Gangs Aren't My Style (A Black Death Novel)

Chapter 18 - Distorted

Gangs Aren't My Style

Book I of the Black Death Trilogy

PART ONE: Tears Fall When You See The Truth

Chapter 18 - Distorted

The four walls of a small cell surrounded Ally on all sides. They seemed to have gradually worked their way closer with each passing second since her brother had handed her off for one of his men, instructing him to deposit her into her personal dungeon. The blatant disregard had hurt her, but not as much as the idea that James had not recognized his own sister or at least that, if he had, he had not made any outward notion to suggest such a fact.

Left alone after her first encounter with her brother in four years, Ally was unsure what to feel. Should she be saddened, as was her initial reaction, or relieved by the fact that he had not identified her? One one hand, she would have a much better chance of escaping from him and his gang if he viewed her as any other defenseless girl that came through the halls of his gang. James would place much less security on her and would view her as no great loss should she escape, meaning the hunt for her capture would be much less extensive. However, she was slighted that James had not seen the obvious similarities between her meager disguise -colored contacts and hair extensions- and her true appearance.

Ally could not help but wonder if her brother had even bothered to look for her. Surely, with his standing in Black Death, he would have had the power and resources to locate her. However, she had managed to go four years without even a sighting of either her brother or his men, let alone a close call with them from which she had only barely escaped. Even when she was alone and scared, dealing with an oppressive gang leader for the first time in her life, Ally had held out hope that her older brother would come rescue her like a knight in shining and armor. Those hopes had quickly been dashed when the six months of her imprisonment and constant beatings progressed without pause and he still had not found her.

During those long, torturous months, Ally would have welcomed nothing more than the return of her brother, even knowing who he was. Nevertheless, his absence had shown how much he truly cared about her. It was not James who had held her for the endless nights after as she awoke to terrors, silently comforting her as she sobbed into his shirt.

A door slammed, forcefully drawing her from her musings, and stomping footsteps sounded from the end of the hallway. Ally rolled her lower lip into her mouth in worry, biting down on the sensitive flesh. She stood to her feet slowly, taking hesitant steps to the entrance of the cell.

The man that came into her sight was unfamiliar to her and by the rigid clamp of his jaw and stiff muscles, Ally did not imagine that his presence could be beneficial for her.

"What's going on?" She tried to pose the question kindly, but the man scowled at her all the same as he forced a key into the metal lock keeping her cell door closed.

"Recent events have deemed your current accommodations... unacceptable," he sneered, swinging the door open and entered the hollow cavity.

Ally's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Recent events?"

The man scoffed at her innocent tone of bewilderment, forcefully grabbing her wrists and securing them tightly behind her back. "Don't play innocent with me now, little girl, everyone knows you're in liege with Adam Soverage, the ex-leader of the Silent Assassins, and that he used you to get to Daniil."

Only a few rooms away, James swiped a collection of photographs off his desk in anger, standing to his feet. His chair tumbled to the floor behind him, forgotten in the rage. He had only just received the pictures half an hour before and had only made the call for the slave to be moved into a more fitting location five minutes prior. Liquid rage burned in his veins, only intensifying when he caught sight of an image that had landed upright. Even without the blatant reminder splashed across the hardwood floor of his office, James could not dispel the portrait that had established itself in his mind, piecing together the various angles to create a vivid, all-inclusive image.

The familiar office of Black Death's third in command had been ransacked, with its contents scattered around the room in various states of disarray and mutilation. The countertop of the large, oak desk in the center had been crushed, leaving the expensive piece of furniture in two leaning sections. The computer monitor was cracked with no hopes of repair, and both Daniil's laptop and the external hard drive had gone missing. The few chairs in the room had been knocked over or broken. The files from Daniil's carefully organized filing cabinet looked to have been thrown thoughtlessly in the air as the perpetrator searched through them in a hurry, leaving only gravity to decide the location of their fall. In the very center of the rom, just behind the remnants of the desk, a pool of blood spread across the floor of the office. The surrounding area had been left clear, as if showcasing it as the main attraction within the mass of disorder.

However, despite this deliberate exhibit, the gang member in charge of the crime scene photo record had discovered another focal point of the attack and made sure to include both in his report and photos. On one half of the dilapidated desk -the half most sturdily remaining upright as it leaned on its counterpart- a single file had been left open and otherwise untouched. The information within the documents was scarce and the white pages looked bare due to the lack of knowledge known on Daniil's personal slave.

A single sheet of plain printer paper had been placed on top of the exposed file with the handwritten note: "Softening to a woman makes you vulnerable and predictable. See how easily I can infiltrate your organization? Don't worry though, this isn't over. I'm only getting warmed up."

This message, made to taunt him, had been the breaking point for James.

Even now, the thought of it made his teeth grind. Soverage had not only managed to get someone inside of his gang, but he had also managed to injure and capture -possible even kill- one of his best men, and all directly under his nose. Since he did not have the man himself in custody, James would have to settle for retribution against his accomplice. Gender be cursed, he would make the woman suffer.

Knowing he could not indulge himself in such a task until he dealt with the finalization of the murder investigation concerning Daniil's suspected death and the filling of his position, James settled for a quick trip to the gym that would dispel his pent up anger. With his third in command missing and very possibly dead, he could do with the release.

Storming out of his office, James pulled out his cellphone and quickly dialed the one member within the Black Death headquarters that he knew he could trust with his life.

When the man answered, James wasted no time in getting to the point. "Damon, I need you to make an announcement for me."

There was silence on the other end of the line before a short, "Okay," sounded in understanding.

"Until further notice, Daniil's personal slave is to be treated as an accomplice of Adam Soverage. As soon as this situation has been ironed out, she will be tested. If she does work for him, he will have trained her, and I must know how much of a threat she will pose. I will not allow us to be blindsided again."