Slowly, Elijah and Hank lowered Gusto on the floor, searching all over his body for where the cell phone could be at, but could not find it. “Roll him over,” Hank said, as he stood away from Elijah in order to secure the door, although he feared what might happen if Gusto clawed himself out of consciousness.Elijah grunted, pushing over the heavy pound man. As he stuck his hand into Gusto’s backpocket, he found the cell phone and his wallet, however, the worst happened.Gust pulled Elijah from behind and tossed him forward, springing up to his feet. He fought through the foggy blurriness in his eyes, making a mental picture of Elijha, and paid no attention to his aching head.Who would have thought a sleeping pill could make one feel like the weight of the whole world was hoisted o the person’s head? Gusto has always been a man who showed no affiliation to pain, and that was the very reason Elijah refused at first to get back the cell phone. He staggered a while on his feet
The aura of death that lingered on in the warehouse finally manifested, spearheaded by Gusto’s death. Hank was still unable to recover from the shock of having to shoot one of his men. He tossed the gun away immediately, his eyes wide open like a man who had been shot with a thousand jolts of electricity. “I-I killed, not again,” he muttered to himself and then yelled loudly. It was a moment of uncertainty about where to go from here.The gunshot spurred up the other men sleeping. They held Elijah and Hank at gunpoint after snaking around them, beholding the atrocity that had been committed by their captor and their former leader. “You don’t want to do this,” Elijah said, touching back with Hank. He raised his hand in surrender, but deep down within him, he refused to go down without a fight.Hank remained speechless for a long while, before finally pointing the gun to his head, “I am done for. It is over,” he kept on saying, like a bewitched man. It was a moment where h
They remained mute as Hank’s words crept subtly into their minds. They weren’t convinced, as their minds raced with a dozen possibilities of Hank being truthful with them. “Lies,” Alex said in a low tone, his voice barely escaping his mouth, “they are all lies. Gusto would not do such a thing, you are lying.”He was right. Gusto, although a criminal, was as pious and honest as a selfless man could be. He had his morals judging him between the wrong things that could be a disruption to his state of mind, and betraying the people he called his friends was one of those things.They knew it. However, Hank’s persuasive voice raised a second doubt in their hearts thinking better of Hank’s words. Elijah ran out of time as reality slipped from his hands every passing moment. He knew Daniel approached faster than he could imagine, and had a faint imagination of what Daniel had on his mind.His corpse was supposed to be laying cold on the floor. However, the reverse was the case, and he n
“Is this what you truly are?” Elijah charged at Hank, gripping his neck firmly like a Lion holding on to the jugular of its prey.Before Hank could say anything in his defense, Elijah almost choked the life out of him. His fear would not let him let go of Hank’s neck, even though his body strength was declining rapidly. “Let go of me, you crazy dimwit,” Hank said, yanking Elijah’s massive hold on his neck away from him.It was a moment Elijah had to decide on whether to return to being a captive or die as a freeman. He wasn’t scared of death, not by a single bit. What scared him the most was his inability to make the most of the time he had to reach out to Richard.His guilt bummed him, not able to give his friend, his father, and his brother, the kind of justice they deserved.His failure smacked around him.He was immediately restrained by Hank’s minions, and he could not shake them off regardless of how much he tried. “You backstabbing ingrate, you would sell out any man
“Trust me? After all, we have been through,” he said with a slight rise in his voice. He gave little thought to his words before uttering them.Hank’s eyebrows creased into confusion, “We been through? What have we been through? I find it difficult to understand people like you who barely get out of their shells. Just because we planned an escape does not verify the existence of a ‘we’. It is only Me.” He took his legs off the table and walked toward Elijah, coming down to his ear level to drop a whisper, “There is no ‘we’, it is either the money or nothing.” A cold breath seethed through Elijah’s neck, as Hank’s whispers resonated like a church bell’ He’d thought Hank showed some kind of interest in becoming partners with him, rather than just the money he offered. His conscience forewarned him of the dangers of having to trust Hank a little, and at that point, he had to choose between trusting him again and taking his life in his hand. It was a matter of what next to do. Elija
“The cops… for what?” “You ask too many questions, just do as I say. You have two minutes and it starts now.”Elijah wished he’d asked too much questions before taking the cup of wine that turned his life into a miserable one. He wished he asked too much questions when he was with the Greene family, it would have come in handy, rather than having to do everything they asked him to do like he was a freaking zombie.He was not, and now he had the awareness of who he was, and refused to be tossed around by anyone. He was an heir and not any man’s salve. He picked the phone, and dialed the only number on it, Bishop Leo’s line. He was ready to hazard a truth. He put his life on the line that Leo’s phone would be in the possession of Richard. He dialed the number the first time, and there was no response on the other end. “Is your magic man not picking? I will blow your brains off before Daniel discover I have tricked him again,” Hank yelled at Elijah fiddling with the p
“I have asked the wrong questions all theses while, thinking it was the right thing to do,” Daniel began his questioning, after noticing Elijah’s reluctance to bend to his wishes, “a wise man said, ‘only a fool will do the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result’, is it right or wrong?”Elijah remained silent, unsure of where Daniel was driving at. Just like before, he chose stealth over hastiness. “Am I a fool or what?” “If you call yourself one, then you definitely are,” Elijah muttered, letting the cat out of the bagDaniel responded with a light chuckle, and took another sip from his beer, “well, I am definitely one, I guess.”Elijah shrugged, making no comment on Daniel’s following words. Daniel rose to his feet, and traversed the four corners of the warehouse, and finally settled at the only window that provided illumination to the warehouse, aside from the light bulb hanging down the ceiling. As the rays of sunshine splashed on Daniel’s fa
“I don’t care what you choose to believe,” Hank returned Daniel’s tricks with one of his own making, “it is left to you to believe what I tell you.”Daniel squinted his eyes and scanned around with a quizzical look, watching Alex and the other members of the group standing behind Hank like giant oak trees, except that they were in no way looking like giants. “Why?” “Excuse me?” Hank raised the corner of his eyebrow. “Why then did you choose to offer him back to me? You could just have made the same deal you claim Gusto tried to make, and run away with it, in exchange for you sparing his life”Daniel took short steps toward Hank, but was still a reasonable distance away from him. he scrutinized vividly the scenery, and hoped everything Hank talked about was the truth. He knew Gusto to be pious, and was not ready to choose Hank’s words even though the story seemed convincing and perfect to the core. “Don’t tell me you no longer have a price.” Hank’s lips curled into a short