I had been browsing the aisles for over half an hour, keeping one eye on the glittering displays and another on the ebb and flow of people around me. Still, I received no word from Elena. The resultant effect was a faint tension curling between my shoulders. I completely dreaded waiting.When I could take it no more, I decided that I needed a quick break and headed toward the public restrooms. The glossy white tiles gleamed as I moved, the faint scent of rose spray and disinfectant mingling in the air. I pushed through the door into the ladies’ room, my legs slushing softly against the floor in sheer reluctance and annoyance.When I got inside, I noticed I was all by myself, I quickly fished out my phone to remind Elena about my clause of the deal I agreed to. I drew the cover of the toilet close and sat on it as I waited for her to pick it up. Suddenly, I noticed I wasn’t alone. Two men had entered almost as though they had someone whom they were after in here. The shocking thin
“Pimm! Pimmm! Pimmmm!” The driver blared the horn of the car again as a reminder for Clara to hurry up and get going.“You hear that, right?” I asked, peering straight into her face.She still looked like I was leading her to the slaughter house to cut off her precious neck. Her eyes were almost teary and her hands clutched the strap of her bag on her shoulder tightly. “I…really…don’t…”“Save it for later and let’s get going before it gets later than this. I’m sure you wouldn't want my husband to return and not see me,” I grinned with a strange confidence and even the mention of the term ‘my husband’ felt like acid on my lips.I folded my arms immediately and leaned against the doorframe, watching Clara wring her hands behind her as though we were about to march into a warzone instead of a shopping mall.“For God’s sake, stop being dramatic,” I lashed, my tone flat but edged. “I’m going with you to the mall to get my facials and nothing more,” I reiterated.Clara’s eyes darted upward
“What lady is that by the road side?” Antonio asked his driver, making him slow down to have a look.The driver had already gone some distance ahead of where Veronica’s car had broken down, so he carefully reversed on Antoni’s instructions.Antonio’s black Maserati ate up the highway in smooth, calculated speed, the low hum of the engine a steady counterpoint to the thoughts turning in his head. The faint rays from the setting sun played on the asphalt as the driver made a slow reverse.Behind him was a lone car, the bonnet was pulled over to the shoulder, the hood raised and steam coiling into the warm air. At first, he didn’t care because people broke down all the time but something in the set of the figure bent over the engine made him hesitate.It wasn’t even about the hair or the posture, it was about the curve of the shoulders beneath the light fabric. A suspicion sparked up in his mind and even the driver could tell that there was something different with him because he seld
“The men were from the party?” Veronica asked.“You don’t remember anything from yesterday night?” Her mother asked her, looking at her in the type of way that showed she was not impressed with her response.“Oh, spare me mother, stop acting like you care and…”“You will watch your mouth when speaking to me, Veronica,” Her mother cautioned, clearly pissed.“Or what mother?” She scoffed, “You will leave me and cling to your friends like you always did?” Veronica kept talking but her mother said nothing to her again, she just rose up from her bed and walked out of her room.Veronica looked at the door her mother left ajar, one would think that she was already having a sense of remorse for speaking to her in such a manner but there was none of such going through her mind.She sat upright on her bed, her eyes scanning the room as though expecting to find any hidden eyes watching her. The haze that had clouded her mind was gone and was now replaced with a sharp, prickling awareness. Somet
“Roll him over to this place,” Giovanni barked, his forehead brimming with anger as he ordered Dante, his right-hand man standing nearby.“Sir, I can handle this, you just watch me deal with him,” Dante offered quietly.“What in God's name are you talking about?” Giovanni asked him with a new kind of shock smearing all over his face. “Here are a couple of bastards who sought to have my daughter kidnapped for no reason and you ask me to stand aside and watch? Hell no!” He replied bitterly.The warehouse which was usually abuzz with movements of his men taking in parcels upon parcels of wrapped coke was now so still that a drop of pin on the floor could easily be heard. The air was filled with the smell of gun oil and salt from the sea breeze that slipped through the gaps in the walls. Giovanni stood in the center of the concrete floor, his eyes locked on the two men tied to rusted steel chairs. Their faces were already swollen from the earlier ‘warm-up’ his men had given them and sw
“Tell the driver to stop you at the destination in the paper I will hand to you,” I explained.“What am I to do there?” She asked with a shaky voice that pictured the depth of her fears but I wasn’t moved at all by the sound of it.“Wait for my orders,” I answered curtly and quickly moved to the drawer to get something to scribble the address on.Yanking a piece of paper from the insides of one of my fancy jotters on the table, I scrolled through my phone and started writing ceaselessly on the paper in my hand. I even struggled a bit with balancing the paper on my palms but that didn’t deter me at all. Suddenly, as though my hair had been pulled backwards, I shot my head up and glanced at Clara like she had just descended from a realm that had strange inhabitants in it.“No way!” I gasped, chewing on the bottom of my pen pensively. “I got a better idea but I fear that the night will close in on us,” I added looking at Clara with great expectation for a good response.“Errmm…erm…I do