Misery Business

Chapter 1: Bullets with names

'Look, I got a bullet with somebody's name on it'

The lights suddenly cut out in the warehouse. Every man in the room was on high alert, guns pulled, bullets ready to fly.

"Who goes there?" The leader of the meeting yelled out.

"Tsk tsk tsk, Krane. I would've thought you had learned your lesson by now." Her voice travelled through the room, the distinct clicking of heels on concrete echoed around the men.

"What do you want?" Krane yelled back.

"Oh, you know what I'm here for." She chuckled, the tone menacing and cold. "And you know I always get what I want."

His eyes widened in realization. He knew that voice all too well and fear sunk into his bones.

"OPEN FIRE!" He commanded, diving under the table. There was a flurry of shots, the room suddenly bright with ignited gunpowder from pistols firing. A slim figure dressed in all black flipped effortlessly across the room, dodging bullets and sending her own into others. Just as soon as the mayhem had started it was over. Bodies littered the warehouse floor and the clicking of heels returned. Krane huddled under the table and watched as the red bottom stilettos stopped right before him.

"You're time is up, Gideon. The Reaper will see you now." She cackled as she squatted down and snatched the man by the neck. He gasped out in panic and clawed at her fingers as she squeezed his windpipe effortlessly. She threw him onto the tabletop and let go of him. He gasped for air and rolled around like a fish as she walked over to his right-hand man. She pulled the dagger from his back pocket and turned it over slowly in her fingers.

"Do you know something about me, Krane?" She taunted whilst stalking towards him. "I've always preferred knives to guns. There's just something so personal about the blade sinking into the skin and taking a life, but not just one life like a bullet no, it can take as many as the blade can withstand. Do you know how many lives this blade has taken?"

The man shook his head quickly and remained cautious of her movements. "Well, we know it has taken at least one."

His brow furrowed at her comment. A wicked grin crept onto her face as she leaned over him and stopped inches from his face. "And that life is yours."

He coughed and tasted blood as she swiftly sunk the dagger into his throat. His dead body dropped as she walked out of the room. She pulled her hair out of the high ponytail and shook out the light brown locks. Before vacating the premise she turned and observed the destruction she had left in her wake and sighed. Ten more bodies to the count. With a deep breath, she slammed the rolling metal door shut and pulled off of the property in her black Audi R8.

~

"I thought I said not to start a war with the other mobs!"

"Sir, no one from Sicily initiated-"

"Well someone did! There is a dead Israeli gangster on my territory which means it was someone in this room who called the attack. Who killed Gideon Krane?"

The mobsters looked around the room at each other and shrugged. The leader sank into his chair and placed his head in his hands. "This is useless, they're all so stupid."

"Sir."

"WHAT?" He screamed, head snapping up and glaring at the doorway. The mob boss's right-hand man held up a manila folder.