The Citadel, Fox City

My flight landed with an echo of my world collapsing, right in the middle of the city, The Citadel —the capital of Fox City, a place that calls to heart-breaking memories of my return, a reality I had fled from.  

Even from the airport terminal, I could feel it; the city's heart was a brooding hum of chaos and vice. 

My memories of Fox City flooded back, bringing a terrifying chill to my soul —I was entering the devil's workshop once again, this was Fox City, and its name wasn’t a mere metaphor. A city controlled by the wealthy, where the biggest crimes were a boastful thing to commit. 

It was a place birthed from greed and run by thieves, smugglers, drug addicts, and human trafficking. I knew its history not from books, but from the spoken words in my home, especially during dinner. 

Fox City also had a civilized world —but it was built on the sins of the gang families, founded in blood of war by my ancestor, Karl Wenston, and the first Shelby, who had founded this place in the blood of war. 

For a century old, the families, the Wenstons and the Shelbys —ruled with a tyrant's fist, the North and East belonging to them, the South and West to us. But when our businesses clashed, the streets ran red with the blood of our homeboys. 

The violence only ended when John Wenston —son of Karl Wenston married a Shelby daughter out of love, forging a fragile peace.

A union that started out of love, gave a momentary peace, but it grew to become our law —a contractual marriage: a decree demanding sons from each family marry daughters from the other. 

I was briefed about the consequences —the stories of daughters who took their own lives rather than be betrothed to monsters. It was a peace built on broken lives, and perhaps if not for my medical knowledge, I would have considered the same fate. 

And so to fine-tune the peace, a new law was forged, a much more cruel one: one chosen son and one chosen daughter would rule together, ensuring peace and succession —So A Wenston rules, after his reign, A Shelby rules

Now, my father, Gerald Wenston, rules with my mother, Alice, by his side. And soon, I will stand beside Michael Shelby.

My mother's brother, Finn Shelby, the uncle I wish I never had, the only male and oldest standing member of the Shelby dynasty, a man with a ruthless ambition and an infamous name, not known for being peaceful, murdered his own brothers and their sons to secure his place as the bloodline to be the next ruler in Fox City. 

He marries his brother's wife, Esme Wenston. The result of that bloody union was Michael Shelby. 

The long flight back home had left me exhausted, but the thought of what awaited me was a different kind of fatigue —a pain to my soul as it screams for divine help. 

It was a "call to duty" and I was summoned for the execution of a free life, to now be a bond slave to another tyrant —Michael Shelby, one who was rumored to be a drug addict and a lover of everything impure. 

My flight had landed at the Citadel region, at 2am. I needed to rest, as I requested the family's driver to come pick me up at the hotel the day after. 

I lodged into the "Truth Hotel" as it offered a bitter irony, no one looked twice at me, the tired lady with heavy bags with an earth beaten face, and with my white hair hidden beneath a hood. 

I was just a ghost checking in for the night, and the anonymity was priceless, head faced down walking down to my lodged room, as I didn't want to catch the crowd of men and women around. 

My poor, baggy eyes couldn't sleep. My mind raced with the cold reality that the city's peace was now my personal prison. I had built a life as a doctor, a profession that healed, a world far away from a legacy of killings and drugs. 

Here, my spotless lab coat was a costume, and my medical skills will be be used for the benefit of the gang.

I decided to take a shower to get the honking smell of the whole place off my nose and perhaps for a moment, in a blink of an eye, I could return back to my sanctuary. 

My shower proved to be no medicine for my turmoil. I laid on the bed, after my shower, but the cold reality that the city’s peace was now my personal prison kept me awake. 

So, in a final act of desperation, I sought another escape. The need to feel anything other than the flames of regret burning in my chest. I made my way to the hotel’s bar, the noise from the music and the lights threw distractions to my thoughts. 

I took some shots of strong whiskey. Before I knew it, my body was on the dance floor, my head was spinning, and my heart was in a desperate rhythm of the music in my ears. 

Suddenly I felt a tap at my back, a tall, black-haired man with dark brown eyes stood before me, asking for a dance, which I gladly permitted, I would agree to anything at that moment to take my mind off my demons.

As we danced, his hand found the skin on my bare back, and a forbidden warmth, a long-forgotten flame of desire, ignited within me, “do you want to get out of this place, to somewhere more private,” he whispered into my ears. 

My head was screaming at me to say no, but my heart was already consumed with this fruit of passion and I looked at his eyes and felt myself fall. 

My feet, as if they had a will of their own, were already leading me out the door, a stranger following another stranger to his villa.

And for a moment, Fox City became an exciting place. After all, I am a Wenston, how long can I run away from my destiny, I said in my heart.