Pink Walls

The Carmosinos [Part I]✓

“I made the trip all the way up here just to see your beautiful face.”

Alexiares Lestrange was not the sort of person you would expect to be in the running for the position of right-hand man in any gang, not to talk of one run by the infamous Cisco family.

He was the most proper man you would ever meet. He didn't curse. He never raised his voice. He was always in a suit, always had gloves on his hands and never disrespected women.

He was the sort of man that people on this half of the country hoped to have as a son; the sort that had unlimited potential; the sort that lived in the wealthier parts of the city. But this was where you would find him, three floors above Saffron's office in his own private world, clicking away on his laptop and doing things I knew were borderline illegal.

His skills and proficiency made him an invaluable asset to the gang, no matter what Ron said. I knew that without him, business would get a lot harder. Most of the streets respected him more than they feared Ron. His presence was enough to keep most gangs in check and the reason was simple.

Unlike Saffron, Alex was cold-blooded; he didn't mind putting a slug into the brain of anyone he thought deserved it; he didn't laugh or smile; he didn't seem to have emotions at all. And maybe that was the reason we got along.

No one outside the gang knew what he looked like. Alex preferred to show his face to people who he knew wouldn't live to talk about it and now there were legends going round about him being a ghost. If there was someone that needed to disappear, he made it happen. He was clean about it and he was never seen.

Alex didn't make messes.

He ranked just below Saffron in terms of authority and was the only other person I talked to with when I came around.

The rest of Ron's 'staff' only knew me as her favorite. They all thought I was sleeping with her to get ahead and that alone overshadowed all the contributions I had ever made for the sake of the Cisco family.

In their eyes, I was reduced to nothing but a pretty lap dog. . . and I was okay with that allusion. It saved me the trouble of pretending to be friendly or trying to prove myself just to fit in.

Working here didn't mean I had to make friends with cold-blooded killers, yet Alex and Ron were the two people closest to me. It was hard to explain what made them different from the rest of the men in this building but what I knew was that there was a difference. As aware as I was of how much of a hypocrite that made me, there was little I could do to change how I felt.

I couldn't help who I formed a connection with, I could only choose how it affected me. And I knew that without Ron and Alex, I would have been dead a long time ago.

It took me less than a minute to make my way to the top floor of the building. I ignored the other doors lining the hallway and made my way to Alex's office, knocking once on the heavy oak door with the knuckle of my index finger.

"Come in," a deep voice barked from behind the door, reminding me of the fact that I had just awakened a beast.

Alex didn't enjoy being disturbed while he worked.

Then again, I was the exception.

I took a deep breath before turning the door knob and stepping into the brightly lit office. The first difference between Alex and Ron. She lived on the ground floor and preferred her office dim while he managed to transform the third floor of this shabby building into something of a penthouse.

From floor to ceiling, the walls were made of transparent glass. With nothing but the brick walls of taller buildings around us, I knew that there was no such thing as a view but 3D fishes flashed in and out of the blue tinted glass giving the impression that we were under the sea.