*
Arianna took another pill and handed one to Lane. They both lay down on the soft, damp grass, taking in the quiet of the night, and for a long time neither of them said anything.
“You know I love you, right?” Arianna said.
“I know.”
She sat up and stared at him with deep dark eyes. “Will you marry me, Lane?”
“What?”
“I know it sounds dumb,” she said. “But I’m not that high, trust me.”
“Arianna,” Lane said. “You think this is the right time to think about this?”
“So it’s a ‘no’ then?”
“Can we please talk about something else?”
“Listen to me,” Arianna said. “I just want to know if you can imagine us together forever. Is that so hard to believe?”
Lane looked at her, and for a second he couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe how much he wanted her, how much he wanted their love to be a real thing. So far, he had never been sure if she felt that way, but he was certain he had never felt this way for anyone before. “No,” he said. “It’s not that hard. And yes, I would love to spend my life with you, I have no doubts whatsoever about it.”
Arianna stared at him. “You mean that?”
“Of course I do,” Lane said, reaching a hand up to touch her face. “I’d love to just leave everything behind and be with you.”
Arianna stood up. “Let’s do it then,” she said, looking down at him. “You and me, Lane. Let’s get married.”
As much as Lane wanted for that to happen, the reality of the situation wasn’t something he could ignore. “Listen to me,” he said, sitting up on the wet grass and reaching for her hand. “I’m nothing. I’m less than nothing. I don’t have a house, or a car. I don’t even have a job! I can’t support a family.”
“But I’ll always be there,” she said. “I’ll be part of it, you’re not going to do it alone. I do have a job, and we’ll have a home too, maybe not now, but someday.”
All Lane could think was how difficult it was going to be to explain that to Connor. His brother would never in a million years approve of it, so the only option left would be to just take off with Arianna and never look back. He could barely believe he was actually thinking about it—just leaving and starting fresh with a person he knew could give him happiness. He got up and dropped to his knees. I can’t be that high. But he found himself going through with it anyway. He took Arianna’s hand and kissed it. It tasted a little of sweat and of the hand lotion she always carried around in her purse. “Arianna Williams,” he said. “Will you, in your right mind, marry someone who can offer you pretty much nothing in return?”
Arianna started to laugh. “Oh God Lane, please stop!”
“Hurry up and make a decision will you? My knees are starting to hurt!”
“You know they don’t go down on two knees, right?” she was still laughing. “Yeah, I think we’re both a little high!”
Lane gripped her hands firmly in his own. “Hey,” he said. “Look at me.”
“Lane—”
“I know I’m hardly the perfect person, and this is hardly the perfect proposal. But there’s nothing imperfect about the way I feel. There’s nothing more I want in this world, than to be with you. Imperfect life, imperfect house, imperfect kids and quite possibly an imperfect little dog.”
Arianna listened to him without a word. He couldn’t tell what was going on in her mind, and he wondered if she was going to back off now that it was real. “Well?” he urged. “Will you accept this imperfect, two-knee proposal and allow me this happiness?”
Arianna dropped to her knees. She kissed Lane, and Lane kissed her back and they were like this for a long time, just kissing until things started to heat up and Arianna was pushing Lane back to the ground and getting on top of him.
“Of course I’ll marry you,” she said. “I’ll marry you, Laison Volze. Even if your brother hates me for it.”
“My brother’s not going to hate you,” Lane said and knew that he was lying.
“Either way,” Arianna said, bending to his ear, a lock of her dark hair falling against Lane’s face. “Consider yourself engaged.”
*
The sound of a gunshot was piercing in the dead of the night. Lane got up, worried, put his clothes back on. “What was that?” Arianna asked, straightening her blouse.
“Dominic!” Lane called out.
No reply.
The few birds unsettled now because of the gunshot were still flitting about and squealing at the top of their voices, but nothing else.
“I’ll go check it out,” Lane said, walking in the direction of the sound.
“I’ll go with you,” Arianna said and followed him.
“Dominic!”
“Mackenzie! Where the hell are you guys?”
They kept walking.
“Dominic if this is your idea of a joke, it’s not funny!” Arianna yelled.
They passed the expanse of green lawn and the children’s playground, but there was still no sign of their friends.
“Something’s wrong,” Lane said. “I can feel it.”
“This is the Zyron Force, put your hands where we can see them!”
Lane stopped dead in his tracks. He stood protectively in front of Arianna, purely out of instinct when he saw the cops approaching them with their standard-issue guns and batons.
They weren’t alone.
Dominic and Mackenzie were with them too, and they looked terrified. Lane noticed the blood seeping through Dominic’s shirt right along his arm. The sight of that made him a little fearful. It was obvious The Force was taking out their anger, they weren’t really here to help. The Force was the most corrupt organization in Zyron and people avoided them for as long as they could instead of taking their problems to them. Their being here couldn’t have been a good sign.
“You shot him,” Lane said to the cop in charge.
The cop swung his gun hand across Lane’s face in response. “Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to,” he said.
The cop’s gaze went straight to Arianna. The way he was ogling her, was enough to make Lane angry but he did everything to keep his anger in check. You couldn’t sue people for looking at you a certain way. But when the cop started touching her, that tiny bit of control was lost, and Lane found himself lunging for the cop, knocking the weapon out of his hand and swinging his fist in the man’s face. He felt his knuckles grazing the cop’s cheekbone and was about to swing again, when two of the four Force officers got hold of him.
Then the one on the floor stood up and walked over to Lane, while Lane was still struggling. “You just attacked an officer of The Force,” said the cop. “Bet you’re high too, aren’t you? The blood test will reveal whatever illegal substances you’re on. You’ll pay for this, I’ll make sure of it.” He turned to the uniformed officers holding Mackenzie and Dominic. “Let them go,” he said, and gestured to Lane. “Take this one to the Holding Cells.”
“Holding cells?” Lane said, stunned. “What exactly are you charging me with?”
“So this one comes with brains,” the cop said. “Well, then. I’m charging you with murder.” He said this and pointed his weapon in Mackenzie’s direction and took a shot. Arianna screamed and Mackenzie dropped to the floor, and dark blood began pooling around her body, yet neither of them said a word, except for Arianna, Lane could still hear her crying. Too afraid to speak or too shaken, they weren’t sure. Dominic dropped to his knees on the floor, still not crying but his eyes glued to Mackenzie’s back, and his hand hovered over her body, as though he was afraid to touch it.
“Well there you go,” the cop said. He stuck the weapon in Lane’s hand, then dropped it in an evidence bag. “Four witnesses, excluding your friends who’ll come around eventually, and your fingerprints on the murder weapon. Any other questions I can answer for you today, Mr. Volze?”
CHAPTER 2
THE TRAP
Kerch Square,
Zyron Region-One
All the while he was climbing the steps of the precinct, Connor felt his legs going weak. He was afraid to know what was happening, afraid to even find out that they had done something horrible to his brother. Everyone knew that getting entangled with The Force was suicide. The person on the phone had been very vague, hadn’t told him exactly what had happened, but that Connor was Lane’s emergency contact and they had to inform him of the arrest. He saw a female cop at the desk where there was a short line of people, and he had to wait for his turn. When finally Connor had the chance to speak, he took out his ID just in case. “I just got a call that my brother was arrested,” he said to the cop at the desk. “I need to see him.”
“You’ll have to be more specific.”
Connor showed her his ID. “Volze,” Connor spelled it out for her.
“Yes,” the cop said, checking a tablet in front of her. “Volze, Laison. I’m afraid you won’t be able to see your brother at the moment.”
“What?” Connor couldn’t believe what she was saying. “What do you mean?”
“He’s been taken to the Holding Cells,” the cop explained. “Murder of a Zyre is level-one crime. Not our jurisdiction.”
The word ‘murder’ rang in Connor’s ears for a long time and all he wanted was to rattle that cop until she told him what was really going on, but he had to keep it together for the sake of his brother. “You can’t hold him there without a trial,” he said, hoping he could reason with her. “I know the law, alright? You charge him, get him a lawyer, send his case to a judge that’s how this works!”
“Don’t teach me the workings of the legal system Mr. Volze,” the cop said, indifferent, the words like a rehearsed speech spewing from her mouth without any emotion at all. “This is a high priority case. I’m not allowed to give you any more information. If you wish to stay updated, you should watch Chanel 6. That’s where the new information gets released.”
Connor had always known what The Force was like, he had heard all those stories just like everyone else on the planet, but now that he was involved and needed help, that kind of coldness came as a shock. “You want me to find out about my brother’s case by watching the news?”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you any further,” the cop said, dismissively. “Now please step aside.”
*
Connor got in his car, still trying to wrap his mind around what the cop at the precinct had just told him. He had spent his entire life being a criminal, conning people out of their money doing his best to stay under the radar. That’s the life he and Kevin lived and they’d never been in lock-up for more than two days. They had a system. Still the fear had always been there in the back of mind, every time he did a score. If it wasn’t for Kevin, he wouldn’t be doing it at all, but Kevin was there and he kept them both safe, he was the one who had devised the system.
But Lane was supposed to be different, he was supposed to stay out of that world, Connor had done everything in his power to ensure that his brother was never under any pressure to earn money, so what the hell was this? Two days ago his brother was talking about Arianna and asking for extra money because he said he spent his allowance on buying her something for her birthday, and he had been hanging out with that Dominic kid—
Connor pressed the ignition and the car came to life. He typed in Dominic’s street address in the navigator and sped off, hoping to find out everything the cops weren’t telling him.
*
Apartment Building
Zyron Region-One
Dominic’s apartment building was quiet. It was the middle of the night and most people were in bed. Connor went upstairs and knocked twice. He heard the sound of feet shuffling and then someone opened the door and it was Dominic. He stared at Connor, probably couldn’t even place him at first because he was either high or mid-sleep, and when Dominic realized who it was, he was about to slam the door shut, but Connor got in and grabbed Dominic’s collar, shoved him into the wall. “Stay still,” he said.
Dominic stared at him. “W—what do you want?”
“I just want to talk.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Dominic said quickly. “It wasn’t my fault, you have to believe me!”
“Okay, just shut up, alright?” Connor said. “Listen to what I’m saying. Can you do that?”
Dominic gave a nod of his head.
“Good boy,” Connor said. “Now. You’re going to tell me exactly what happened, and why my brother’s in the Holding Cells rather than the usual lock-up?”
“He—he came out of nowhere!”
“You’re high, aren’t you?” Connor said. Lane’s friends had a way of pushing his buttons in the best of times. It was like he was drawn to the most messed up people he could find. It made him wonder how messed up Lane was, if he could only find solace in these types. “Are you fucking high, Dominic?”
“We were…we were in that park,” Dominic said, without answering him. “Just hanging out.”
“What were you doing in some park that late?”
“You really want to know?”
Connor shoved him into the wall again to make his point. “Yes, I do Dominic!”
“The four of us, we were…just hanging out, you know.”
“You mean doing drugs and making out?”
“I guess.”
And then something occurred to him. “Was Lane using?”
Dominic didn’t answer, probably afraid what was going to happen to him if he gave the wrong response, but Connor wasn’t about to let it go. “Was Lane using?” he raised his voice.
“Yes, okay!” Dominic said. “Yes, but that wasn’t the reason we got in trouble.”
Connor tried to lower his anger to a level where he could hear what Dominic was trying to say. “Go on,” he said. “What happened next?”
“So well, I was with Mackenzie and Lane was with Arianna, you know we were…you want to know what we were doing?”
“No,” Connor said. “Jesus, just tell me what happened next!”
“These cops came out of nowhere,” Dominic said. “They shot me, and Lane must have heard it. When he and Arianna came looking for us, the cops started harassing them. One cop especially, the one who had a different code on his face, he starts touching Arianna, I mean he’s basically raping her in front of us, so Lane gets angry and starts mouthing off to the cop and he hits the guy. Of course the others catch him, but the cop he hit, he starts telling Lane how he’s going to be in trouble. Next, the cop takes his automatic and he just, he shoots Mackenzie, right in front of our eyes and no one says anything! The cop takes that same automatic and he has Lane hold it to get his fingerprints on it. He lets me and Arianna go, but Lane—”
The anger that Connor had felt building inside him ever since what happened to him at the precinct was worse now. “I told you not to hang out with him, I told you to leave him alone!” In that minute, he was angry at Dominic, he wanted to blame it all on him.
That would have been so easy.
Having someone real to hate, and not an entire Force or the Zyre government, but something more tangible that he could shove into a wall and threaten into doing things.
He was expecting Dominic to be defiant, and that would have been expected, but instead Dominic started to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry!”
Connor’s first instinct had been to punch Dominic in the face and tell him how useless his apologies were, but the crying and the heartfelt regret changed everything. Dominic was barely a few years older than Lane and Lane was old enough to make his own decisions, Connor was aware of that. Still, it was probably easier to hate someone other than your own brother.
“Do you know the name of the cop who did this?”
“No,” Dominic said. “I don’t remember much, it all happened in a kind of blur.”
Unable to stand any more of this, Connor let him go. “Anything else?” Connor asked, not really expecting much.
“There was
one thing,” Dominic said. “I don’t know if it’s important.”
“Just tell me.”
“The cop,” Dominic said. “The one who did all this, he called Lane by his name.”
“Are you sure?”
“They never took any of our names,” Dominic said. “When they saw us and shot me in the arm, it wasn’t to hurt me, it was to lure Lane to the scene.”
His brother heard random gunfire and instead of bailing out on his friends, he had stayed behind to help them, to find out where they were. Connor couldn’t decide if he was supposed to be proud or terrified to his core. But what Dominic was telling him seemed a little strange. Why would his brother be of that much importance to those people? And what were they gaining by putting him in jail?
“And you’re absolutely positive about this?” he asked.
“I con cops for a living,” Dominic said. “I notice these things.”
Connor knew it was time to leave. “I’ll see you Dominic,” he said and headed downstairs.
*
Everything Dominic had said just made Connor feel more helpless than before. If the cops were trying to get someone to pin that murder on, his brother might never make it out. Even though Connor worked with the Mob, he wasn’t the one who had the real contacts, his boss Easton did. And Easton only kept Connor and Kevin out of jail for a reason—because he got something in return, namely two grown men for their ‘jobs.’ But Lane, the only way their boss would help Lane was if he was on their payroll, and Connor wasn’t about to do that anytime soon. Everything he had done for Lane over the years, was to protect him from that life, he had no intention of shoving him into that world now. It was a cruel life, and he knew Lane wasn’t capable of fitting in. Connor hadn’t come all this way to force this on him.
But what if the choice came down to Lane living the Mob life and Lane living his life in prison, or worse still, living no life at all? No, he wasn’t even going to think about that.
He drove with all the concentration he could muster, and when he got home, Kevin was already there, pacing about the room, looking completely awake as if it was morning instead of being a few hours past midnight. “I heard Lane got arrested,” Kevin said the minute he saw Connor. “What’s going on?”
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