Page 1 of The First Seal

Chapter one

Ember

May Twenty-fourth. This day has approached ever so quickly.I have been dreading this day for the past week. I never thought at twenty-four I would be burying my parents and saying my final goodbyes.

One week ago.

I sped through the streets on my all black 2024 Kawasaki Ninja 650 with my backpack full of extra weapons. I always bring more since the ones at the jobs Papa assigns me are never enough. The job he gave me while he enjoyed dinner with his colleagues. I was to torture information out of one of the lackeys we use. It was rumored he was siphoning information to our rivals, and I'd find out who. Being the daughter of the head of the Mafia, there is always someone who wants to kill me or my Papa because they want his position. Just like my Papa’s consigliere, which is his right hand man Damien Orlov. Orlov has been wanting my father's position since before I was born.

I pull up to the entrance of the warehouse, which doubles as our headquarters. Dismounting my bike, I walk through the entrance, go to the back door in the corner, and head down the stairs to go to the basement or “the dungeon,” as I call it. I can hear his muffled cries and pleas as I reach the last step. Walking through the first door on the left, the room is dark, save for theLED lights above my victim. There is a collection of torture weapons on a table to the right with a speaker in the corner. The smell of urine fills the air. He must have pissed himself when they knocked him out. The open wound on the top of his head is making his greasy black hair stick to his face from the blood running down. I can see the track marks up and down his arm. The one thing we don't allow the lackeys is drugs. They need a clean system so their judgment isn’t clouded. Dad would always give people second chances, so he must be one that went through recovery but relapsed.

He's crying and struggling against his bindings. His shoulder length, black hair was slick with grease, and his eyes were sunken in from the drug use. I could smell the stench of sweet sweat, a surefire sign he was high, and car oil mixed with his BO. He was wearing a tattered, stretched-out black t-shirt and ripped dirty jeans covered with finger wipes of black heroin. His arms were covered with track marks bulging from his skin, at the crease of his arms. He looked every bit the worn-out junkie I had expected coming into this room. I start walking closer to him so he knows it's me. As I step into the light, I notice the color leaves his face as he instantly pales and panic sets in his eyes. He understands why I'm here, to torture him.

“Do you know why you’re here?” I ask the sobbing man, who shakes his head violently. I walk over to the table and grab my favorite knife, a standard kitchen paring knife I use to get good, precise cuts. Connecting my phone to the Bluetooth speaker in the room on the table, I hit play on my “Torture” playlist, and Voices by Skitz Kraven starts playing. Walking over to the lackey, I ripped the tape off of his mouth, making him cry out in pain.

“Who are you working for?” I walk around him, making sure to swing my knife in his line of sight.

“The Chertanov’s," he whimpers.

I stop in front of him and point my knife at his chest, repeating myself, “Who do you work for?”

“The Chertanov’s! ” He says again, a little more confident. I cut a diagonal line from his left shoulder to his right hip. He screams out in pain, his body convulsing as he pulls on his restraints.

“Ha! Come on now, we both know that's not the truth. Don't lie to me. The sooner you tell me who you're working for, the sooner this all ends and you can go,” I say to the sad looking junkie, and stab my knife into his left inner thigh.

He grunts in pain, “I told you the truth!”

“Bred sivoy kobyly.” (Bullshit.) I twist my knife and start dragging it through his muscle tissue, towards his dick. It is taking a lot of my strength to get the blade to where I want it. As I watch the blood running out of the wound in his thigh, flowing between his legs and pooling on the floor at my feet. He grits his teeth, suppressing a scream of agony. “Okay, let's try this again. Who else do you work for?” I hiss out,anger laced in my question,

Getting my knife closer and closer to my target, he spits out, “Orlov!”

I pull the knife out, rubbing the blunt end down his face, and stare at him. “What does he want?” Before he can answer, my phone rings. My eyes flick down to the screen, taking note that the number is from a hospital. “Hold that thought, and don’t make a sound,” I tell him and answer the call. My heart drops in my chest, hearing the words the Doctor speaks, but I’m unable to react.My chest tightens, my gut telling me the next statement isn’t one I want to hear.

"Your parents were in a fatal car accident.” The words echoed in my head, as he rattled off the location of the hospital.

I hang up and walk towards the table, trailing my fingers along the various torture weapons. “What does Orlov want?” Needing to speed this particular session along.

“Information on you and your father so he can take over.” He blurted out.

I place the knife on the table. Turning toward him, I pick up Papa’s favorite gun.An all black Smith and Wesson Equalizer, nine millimeter, with a custom threaded barrel. When I pointed the gun at his head, he started pleading, “You……. you said if I told you, I could go.”

“Yes, I did say you could go, but I never said what state you would be leaving in.” Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger and hit him right between the eyes. Replacing the gun on the table, I walk out of the dungeon and head to my bike. I sent a text to my "cleaners" to have them come take care of the mess, a job they are paid handsomely to do.

As I finally reached my bike, I texted my best friend, Vee, and told her that she needed to meet me at the hospital. We got there at the same time. As soon as, we walked in my heart thundered in my ears, a roar blocking out everything but those words. Pronounced dead at the scene? My... my parents were... gone? They continued with the grisly details. My Papa was driving and veered into the opposite lane and then wrapped the car around a tree.

After about an hour I finally calmed down enough to go outside and call Iris, my twenty-one year old sister attending college overseas. She has long, straight brown hair and ocean blue eyes, like our mother.With it being the middle of the night here, I was hoping she wasn’t in the middle of class.

Iris never answered my phone calls. I'm not surprised that she didn’t answer. We aren't on good terms and we never really got along with each other. Then I got a text message five minutes later from Iris.

Iris

I'm In the middle of class. What do you want, Ember?

Ember

Can you call me? I don't want to talk about this over text……

Iris

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