PASSIONS OF CRIME

Aftermath

AFTERMATH

Antonio Connor stared out of his jail cell. It was so empty without another person in there that he felt like killing himself. But he couldn't. He had nothing to kill himself with. The events that had happened three months ago had shaken the city to its very core. Things were only starting to get back to normal, with children leaving their houses to go on the playgrounds and parents feeling safe about sending their kids out with their friends.

The war was over. Who won? That's what he asked himself most of the times. Jail was torturous, but he'd gotten used to it. He was scheduled to be out in three years, but he kept wondering how long he could actually survive without any of his friends there to support him.

His mother had not spoken to him since his arrest. Nobody visited him nowadays, not even Jo. She'd lost all her love and all her affection for him when she found out about the truth of affairs. She never imagined him to be a killer, but neither did most other people. She had visited him once after he'd been sent to prison, but that was only to express her disappointment and her shock on how he'd turned out to be.

"You are a monster. I cannot believe I ever loved you." were the last words he'd ever heard her say. And they stung his heart with every single breath he took. He felt like dying. He felt like giving up. He knew nobody was gonna be there waiting for him when he finally got out of prison.

Jennie had never once bothered talking to him after the entire thing. She was the one that could actually be allowed to talk to him, but she still didn't. Maybe she hated him for what he did.

God, he hated himself when she hated him.

All the people he ever cared for had abandoned him without a hope in this world. Everybody's goodbyes had been long said and long forgotten. But Jo's hurt the most. He was never able to erase that look from his mind when she'd come to talk to him for the last time. She was scared, she was angry, she was heartbroken. But the cruellest of all those emotions was the coldness in her voice and the hostility in her eyes. The eyes which once lit up looking at him, the lips which once smiled only for him, the touch of the hand that made him forget everything else, all of that was gone. It was a fool's world now. Nothing but days of loneliness stitched together with the thread of time.

Rictor Sernes was free. His new lawyer had gotten him off the charges. And a heinous misdeed had been covered up with perfection. The drug business had come down, Oliver Sierra was serving thirty two years in prison, and Sarah was living someplace safe and distant with her daughters.

But all of this had left all the characters with one thing. All of the drugs and the killings and the violence and the betrayals had given them one thing to remember for the rest of their lives. And that was something that everybody reminded themselves of when they were drawn once again towards the fame of the mafia.

No good ever came from a life of crime.

THE END