AllFreeNovel
Share Us
12
Avraam
Pulling this off is going to be easier than I thought. Not only did Robert sell his business for just over half of the money I had from selling my gold, but Kimberly took out a mortgage on the house instead of paying cash so she’s not going to be able to leave without a buyer.
Now, I could offer to buy it from here again, but that wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying as making her fall in love with me and moving in. It would give me time to reconnect with people in the organized crime industry and put together some contacts before I obtained the funds to hire them.
Not a bad idea for a Monday afternoon, and I’m only on my first drink.
As it turns out, there isn’t much to do in this town but drink, smoke, and hit the strip club. I’m not keen on having women dancing on my lap after having experienced Kimberly, so I opt for the first two.
With a drink in one hand and a cigar in the other, I lounge in the back of a dingy bar a few miles south of the apartment I’m renting. I don’t plan on spending much time there, but I need it to make my story more believable.
Kimberly doesn’t trust me, and she won’t until I prove to her that I’m just a normal guy.
Well, I’ll never really be normal, but I can pretend.
I swirl a sip of whiskey in my mouth, reveling in the complex flavor before swallowing. You couldn’t get alcohol like this in prison. We made our own out of oranges, ketchup, and sugar.
It got you drunk, but the hangovers were brutal.
I still have trouble believing that I’m really out. It’s like a dream, especially since I met Kimberly. She’s really something else. Something special, but she has no idea. She thinks I just want to screw her brains out. The truth is far more extreme.
But I’m good at hiding my hand. I played enough cards behind bars to know how and when to bluff, so I don’t view this as any more difficult than starting a hand with a pair of aces.
There aren’t many ways for her to win, but it’s still possible. I have to keep my wits about me.
My eyes follow the patrons of the bar as they walk in and out. I’m keeping an eye out for someone who looks like they have connections to the underworld. For me, they’ll be easy to spot. Anyone affiliated with organized crime has a sharp gaze and a confident demeanor. Money comes easily, but death is always just around the corner.
An hour and three drinks later, I spot my first prospect. He’s younger than me by about ten years, but he clearly has influence here. Everyone in the room stiffens when he walks in, and the bartender doesn’t charge him for his drink.
Plus, he takes a whiskey. I’ve never seen a crime lord drink a strawberry cocktail.
I get up when he sits down, walking over to him with my drink like we’ve known each other our whole life, but he would’ve been ten years old when they locked me up. There’s no way we’ve brushed shoulders.
“Avraam,” I grunt, sticking out my hand as I sit down across him at a wobbly square table against the wall.
He frowns at me, but he senses my power and shakes my hand. The last thing anyone wants to do is get on my bad side. “Bartek,” he replies.
“Ah, you’re from Poland.”
He nods. “But I’ve been here long enough not to sound like it.”
I can tell he’s proud of that, so I won’t tell him I can still hear his accent through his attempts to hide it. I’ve never seen the sense in trying to sound like an American, but everyone has their reasons.
“Just passing through, or…?”
I shrug. “I’m here for a while. I figure you’d know where I could meet the right kind of people.”
“The right kind?”
“The ones who know what this means,” I reply, pulling back my sleeve and showing him a tattoo of a cathedral with twenty-five domes.
Bartek moves a crop of blonde hair away from his eyes and counts the domes quickly, his eyebrows rising with the number. “Twenty-five years...”
“Got out a couple days ago,” I say, feeling a glimmer of pride at my accomplishment. Finally, I get to tell someone who won’t freak out about it. In fact, I expect my new friend Bartek to be impressed.
And he is. He leans back in his chair, taking a sip of his whiskey with his eyebrows high on his forehead. “I just want to know what pulled you back into it so quickly. Most people are looking for a way out of this business.”
