Illustrious Sin

Aiden holds a .45ACP against his left temple, smirking and looking towards the night which was still weary for him. The smugness in his smirk displayed one's attainment. A tear rolled down his fragile cheek while he gave away his last breath as he pulled the trigger. The body of the most wanted criminal in Memphis and several states of the United States of America was lying on the rooftop of Circuit Court of Memphis in the dead of winter.

4 YEARS BACK

A lethargic night, Aiden was driving with his wife and adolescent named Elizabeth and Nadine. They were driving to East Texas to enjoy the breaks of sweet Christmas. They took off on a highway in their firebrick-red Sedan with fields on both sides of the road.

"Hey, you little devil. Stop using your phone, at least on this trip that we have been planning for months now", Aiden asked Nadine to stop using her phone as they all were on a family vacation. And made her utter the family's rules for their vacations.

Rolling her eyes, Nadine told her parents that she remembers that there should be no cell phones or me-time when they all are together. And she was furious with her network as well, as there was no service in the area. She could not believe that there could be a place on the Earth with network issues. Giving a sigh of disappointment, Nadine laid back in her seat.

Feeling the signs of tedium in this journey, Elizabeth turned up the radio and Aiden started crooning a duet with her:

They sye that time 'eals all things,
They sye you can always forget;
But the smiles 'nd tears across the years,
They twist my 'eart-strings yet!

Their voices floated upward with the sweet winter breeze, very tuneful, charged with a sort of happy melancholy. "The bleakness of winter sometimes give cause for melancholy", effusively speaks Aiden widening his pale blue eyes.

A sudden hit on the brakes imbalanced the car, made it ran off the track, and they landed right into the fields. Elizabeth impassively yelled, "What the hell just happened?" Aiden, in a bewildered way, answered her that he thinks that a gazelle might have come in front of their car which got them derailed.

She berated that his "thinks" and "mights" could have killed them in the middle of nowhere.
The smoke was rising from the hood and front wheels as the car hit a boulder. The forlorn family was moving to and fro miserably in this bleakness of winter now. The area was already devoid of phone service as well. There was even no sign of any residence. They were in a feeble position.

Luckily, the night which was being so impertinent sent a blessing in disguise as a fallowed Rover P6 just pulled aside. Two men and a woman in their late 30s came out, offering their help to the stranded family. 

Aiden asked them for a lift to Memphis which was just 17.3 miles away from where their car broke down. They told Aiden that they are already on their way to Dallas and would love to drop them at the Memphis' motors.

Aiden was a bit chary about their mannerism but was left with no other choice than taking his family to ease and somewhere safe. He and his family loaded their car with their stuff and continued their journey. Hosts introduced themselves as Sasha, Daryl, and Rasheed.

This stodgy ride for Nadine took a turn to a fun time as she bonded with Sasha in no time. But, who knew that it was not going to be as fun as she expected when Sasha took a look at Elizabeth's wedding ring which was a beautiful display of ruby infused in the original rhodium. Sasha, a mid-30, psychotic lady, tried to snatch it from her and got brutally refused and this was the moment when this whole ride turned its way to hell instead of Memphis.