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Dante's Fire The Bird: Chapter Seventy Three
The BirdLast thing you saw before you died was not the person who shot you, people liked to say. The last thing you saw before you died was a replay of all the things you had done in your life, good or bad, unwinding like a story before your eyes. Very often, it was people who had never taken a bullet, people who had never been held in the jaws of death that happened to think that. Ayo had not once believed any of that fake shit. There was nothing metaphysical about death. There was nothing spiritual about bolts ripping through flesh in a robbery gone wrong. It was all just science. And art.Ayo's mother was an immigrant. Nigerian-born, with sticks for fingers and a rib cage for a waist. She had her own peculiar beliefs about death, came carrying them across the Atlantic ocean like luggage, with him curled in her pregnant belly. Ayo had never seen the shores of Nigeria, but he heard its chatter in his mother tongue, and he had tasted its soil in her overly spiced food. The woman u
Dante's Fire The Bird: Chapter Seventy Four
It was night. The silvery sort that held in it more moonlight than darkness, that was more indigo than it was soot. Ayo hung at the corner, his hands deep in the pockets of his hoodie. Like every other night, he watched the people passing with an intensity that was to be expected of him. You did not slack off when you were working hours as a corner boy. One moment slackin’ could cost you your head in the streets, he used to hear grownups say when he was littler. One moment was all it took.So Ayo kept a good grip on his piece and stayed on the look out for trouble. For him, trouble could show up in the bodies of two white officers in a car, wanting to know what a boy his age was doing on the streets at that time of the day. It could show up in the bodies of other trigger-eager black boys, with clothes just like his—a concealing hoodie, loose jeans and good sneakers for running—and staged swagger, just like his. Trouble sometimes showed up coiled tight in
Dante's Fire Dante: Chapter Seventy Five
DANTEIf he was being honest to himself, Dante thought, the contract killer was more likely to be a server at an Italian restaurant than he was to be a man who killed other men. But Dante did not say that. He had seen the man's work. It was clean and efficient work. Had none of that gangster, reckless brutality going on for him, and that, in Dante's books, was next to perfect.So instead when Dante shook the man's hand, he said, 'Dante Bianchi. It is a pleasure.''The man's grip was stronger than he had expected for a man who gave off an air of such fragility.'The pleasure is mine.'They were in what had become his office. Dante had taken up his father's former work station, a room at the top floor of Bianchi Enterprise, so wide that it could fit the entire bulk of most of the houses Dante had seen in downtown New York. He had done some renovating, which mostly involved him taking out majority of his father's things. None of it was useful to him. They were mostly memorabilia from wha
Dante's Fire Dante: Chapter Seventy Six
The news was late in reaching them.It had happened a full night after the party, so, understandably, Dante had been a bit distracted. An RWD had been shot to death by the police. It might have started a protest if he had not been identified as a known dealer, if the gun had not been found on him. That doused the movement with immediate effect.Natasha came storming into his office, eyes flashing. Imani was right behind her.'Have you seen the news?' Natasha demanded.He eyed her. 'No.''You need to.'The RWD's face was all over the news. A blown out photo of him was trending on social media.DEALER SHOT DEAD BY POLICE.Dante grimaced. 'Are you sure he was one of ours?''He was. I put him up to this job. They say the cops tried to buy from him. He would not sell, so they followed him when he tried to leave. They tried to have him arrested. He ran. And they put an end to him.'Dante decided that he did not like her tone, but see
Dante's Fire Big Jack: Chapter Seventy Seven
BIG JACKOne would think that since Big Jack had danced with death so often, the knowledge that it was coming for him would not faze him even a little. Yet, when Neil called to say that he was sure Dante had ordered a hit on him he nearly had a heart attack.The killer's name was The Marksman, and Big Jack knew him well enough to know just how efficient he was. This firsthand knowledge came from the fact that, on previous occasions, he had employed the man's services himself. The Marksman did not do his work like other contract killers, people who tended to leave a mess in their wake. People like Rat. The Marksman was the sort of man you called when you needed a job done so cleanly, the police would not have a case. His job, he treated like an art. He left no traces. No clues to be found. Only dead bodies.But if Big Jack was going to die, he did not wish to die an unremarkable death. He did not wish to be the dead man in an elevator, eyes rolled ceiling
Dante's Fire Spears: Chapter Seventy Eight
SPEARSChaos had a way of rearing its head at the oddest of times, and Coleman Spears had made a talent of recognizing it when it came roaring.This time it came with the shooting of the RWD, Ayobami Bamidele, a Nigerian-American. Black Twitter was stirring from its comatose slumber. The young man's mother was all over the news, an aggrieved immigrant parent, trying to stir up the country to action with speeches and Twitter hashtags. He understood her. He recognized her pain, went as far as being sympathetic to her cause. Nick Noah had said, losing a child was like losing a fucking limb. Expletives aside, Spears thought that the old man must have been absolutely correct. He had lived it, so he could tell. Spears could not imagine the sharp pain of losing a limb. He was sorry. He truly was. But the one thing that Spears could not let the man's mother do was the sabotage the work he was to begin in the city's boroughs. It was bad enough that the people did not trust the police on an ord
Dante's Fire Jackie: Chapter Seventy Nine
JACKIEFlowers?Roses in the winter?Roses so crimson that they are redder than wine. Who sent roses so red in the winter?The question was answered very quickly. It was Dante. It could only be Dante. She had only gotten involved with the mafia boss to edge further into the organization. This is what she told herself when the bouquet and the note written in scrawled writing, saying, For Jackie, was delivered at her job.This was what she told herself when her heart leapt, a bird whose eager wings she fought to clip with these reminders.Caution was the better part of any emprise.Yaw, her colleague at work, had saucers for eyes when he saw the flowers.'What?'He raised both hands in immediate capitulation. 'I did not know you had a secret admirer.'His accent was heavy with that unusual sweetness she had not quite gotten used to. Saccharine, because every word he uttered sounded like seduction.
Dante's Fire Dante: Chapter Eighty
DANTEThere was an appeal to the restaurant that would have said a lot, especially to a woman who works shifts at a bar. Yet Jackie seemed impressed by none of it.Who was this woman? Dante wondered.She did not seem to have come from an affluent background if anything—the rich did not work in bars for one—and the fact that she did not seem consumed and in awe of this new world that she seemed to have been dragged into increased her appeal. Since his ex, Kath, Dante had not been this captivated.Where did Neil find this one, and why the heck was he so willing to let her go?He made a silent pact with himself to take all necessary caution until he knew what her deal was exactly. 'So, this is a date?' Dante asked before starting with his meal. 'This is just a meal, Dante.' She lifted one shoulder and the sides of her mouth ever so attractively. 'That's all.'That was fine. Just fine. The only problem being that dinner with this woman, Jackie Torres, could never be ‘just a meal’ for hi
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