Page 2 of Shai

It wasn’t a decision I’d taken lightly, even after a past associate of mine

had flashed his gold watch around the pub and boasted about how much money he’d made in just a few weeks. Eventually though, I‘d caved. Wasn’t I due a bit of a luck? Wasn’t I due a rest from the constant scrimping and making do that had dominated the majority of my adult life so far?

After all, I’d reasoned that I was tough. If everything went pear-shaped

and I found myself under the scrutiny of one of the crime lords, I could handle myself. That would be my cue to get the hell out of Deadwood and return home.

I got on a train the next day, giving myself a limit of four weeks to fill

my pockets. Then, I’d be the one flashing the gold watch in the pub.

For two weeks everything had gone like clockwork. I’d robbed and

dealt everything from cocaine to GHB, always careful not to get too greedy, and keeping my operation on the downlow. I’d made more money in those two weeks than I would have done in six months back in my hometown. In fact, I was making so much I hadn’t been able to stomach the shitty bed and breakfast I’d been staying in anymore, moving to a posh hotel instead. I’d started dressing better, started believing that the world owed me, that I was just taking what was owed to me. Four weeks came and went. Just one more week, I kept telling myself, and then I’d go home.

That one more week had proved my downfall, McIntyre getting wind of

my activities and snapping his fingers to bring an end to them. One minute I’d been happily walking the streets and metaphorically patting myself on the back for making a shitload of money, and the next I’d been knocked unconscious, stripped of everything I owned, and brought back here to his fortress-like compound close to the river.

In retrospect, I’d been so fucking naïve. McIntyre was everything

everyone said he was, and more. And that’s where I’d been ever since—a chew toy for the henchmen he surrounded himself with, a bunch of lawless thugs who answered to nobody and no one except McIntyre himself.

I’d had illusions of escaping at the beginning, of getting the fuck out of the city and not looking back. Sometimes the basement door was locked and sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes I was left to my own devices as if I’d ceased to exist. At those times, it felt like I could just walk straight out. Only, I’d soon discovered that with every corner of the converted warehouse heavily guarded, that wasn’t going to happen. The façade of freedom was just that—a façade. Therefore, I was stuck there, subject to the whims of a man who made the worst of the historical dictators seem like nothing more than a kindly uncle.

The corridor came to an end, the wooden door at its end filling me with the same sense of dread it always did. Jones pushed it open with his free hand, keeping a tight grip on me with the other. Dragging me through it, they continued their progress until they brought me to a stop in front of McIntyre. I lifted my head to scrutinize him, struck as I always was by his sheer size. McIntyre was overweight. Not just the slight bulkiness you might expect from a man in his mid-fifties either, but the excess weight of a man who didn’t know the meaning of the word stop.

His gaze met mine, a cruel smile appearing on his lips as I was deposited in front of him, my knees giving way as Harris and Jones let go and stepped away, leaving me in a pathetic and crumpled heap on the floor.

McIntyre shuffled forward on his throne. Yes, he had a goddamn throne. A huge red plush, velvet affair that somehow managed to contain his bulk without buckling. Multiple chins wobbled as he peered down his nose at me. “Elijah, you don’t look so good. I’m beginning to think you’re not taking care of yourself.”

A guffaw went up around the room. I ignored it, focusing all of my attention on the organ grinder rather than the room full of monkeys. “Fuck you!” I’d said those words to him numerous times since our first meeting, managing to repeat them no matter what he did to me. It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction to stick to my guns. And while I still had breath in my body, I’d keep saying them. Again, and again, and again.

McIntyre let out a weary sigh. “How long have you been here now, Elijah?”

I had to push my answer out through gritted teeth. “No fucking idea.”

He looked surprised at that, his head cocking to one side. “Is that so. Want me to tell you?”

I did, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of confirming it, so

all I did was stare resolutely at him. McIntyre looked away first. “What date was it, Harris? You know, the day when we found Elijah peddling his inferior products in our territory, money lining his pockets that should rightfully have been mine.”

Harris pretended to think about it, even though it was obvious he

already knew the answer. “October eighth, Boss.”

McIntyre nodded. “And what date is it today?” No pause this time. “January eighteenth.”

Shit! The piece of information may as well have been a sledgehammer

for the emotional impact it rendered, which was probably precisely what McIntyre had intended. I really had lost track of time.

McIntyre leaned forward even farther, the look in his eye distinctly

malicious. “Three months, Elijah, and yet you still fight me at every turn. I can’t even have a civilized conversation with you without you muttering under your breath.” He waved a hand down the length of my body. “You leave us with very little choice but to treat you this way.”

If I didn’t know how much it would hurt, I would have laughed. That’s