“W-what!” Gilda squawked, clearly taken off balance by his Webly’s request. He could only give a forlorn smile before nodding slowly.

“Yeah… I need somebody dead.” He said, before rummaging in one of the desk drawers behind him, before pulling out a tan folder and splashing a collection of images of the desk.

I walked up to get a good look, and was surprised at who the picture contained. It was our old boss, Hector. The old bastard had given up the goat a while ago, or so I thought. The bad quality pictures showed him inspecting several large crates.

“Why exactly do you want me to kill Hector? I thought he retired after I left?” I asked.

“You know this guy?” Gilda asked, clearly mythed about being left out.

“He used to be one rung up the ladder from us, we reported to him.” I continued.

“Ah yes! But the bastard has been cutting into my business. Selling my product to my customers!” Webly exclaimed, rage cutting through his sorrow. “I don’t care if he is an old friend, nobody fucks with Webly!” He yelled, slamming his fist onto his desk; startling a bewildered Gilda.

I leant over and quickly whispered “Drug dealer.” She exhaled in confirmation before interrupting.

“So, if we shut down the old man’s business. I get my friend back?”

“Yes, without Hectors influence, I would have no need to sell your friend.” He bit his bottom lip for a moment before handing me the rest of the folder. “Here, this has all the information I have on him and his current operation. I’ll hold of the buyer until either you die, or Hector dies.”

I absentmindedly scratched a strange itch that had formed at the base of my spine; it almost felt like it was starting to protrude slightly; but I chose to ignore it and get back to the matter at hand.

“It’ll be done; remember Webley, do not abuse my trust.” I warned gravely, causing him to nod rapidly. I walked out back into the club with Gilda behind me, the bouncer sneering at us with his bloody nose as we left.

We both stood quietly outside the club as I shoved the folder into my other pocket, Gilda found the ground to be very interesting.

“Something up G?” I asked casually. She looked at me for several seconds before sighing.

“Are we really gonna’ kill somebody?  I mean, if it’s to rescue Rainbow sure… but I don’t like killing.”

“If it makes you feel any better, everybody involved is a massive scumbag. Including me.” I added placing a hopefully comforting hand on her shoulder. “I’ve worked with these guys before; they’ll be no hard feelings here. We all know what we were getting into when we joined together.”

“You used to work with them?” She asked.

“Yeah, a couple of years ago. I left after it stopped being about survival and started being about greed. We all came from poor backgrounds, so we thought “Why shouldn’t we break the rules? We deserve better!” So we did.”

“And then?”

“Then we grew, we get more and more members. Hell we even had some rich guys working for us. We did nearly everything, flogging drugs, prostitution all that stuff.” I chuckled at the memories for a moment, before being overcome with a sense of melancholy.  “Some things aren’t meant to be, I wasn’t meant to spend my entire life as a criminal. So I left. Especially after Webly opened that fucking club, and Hector got cut loose. They were just taking the piss by then.”

Gilda seemed to be enthralled by my tales of the past, despite the questionable content.

“Do you miss it?” She asked.

“Fuck no.” I sneered, before setting off down the street, Gilda seemingly unsatisfied with my answer decided to continue.

“But what about all that time with your friends?” She ignorantly asked.

“They were more liable to shoot me than befriend me.” I snorted before turning around causing her to come to a sudden halt. “You might think working for a gang is all fighting, and fucking and fun time with your best gangster buddies. But it isn’t! You spend the entire fuckin’ time paranoid that some cunt was going to shoot you in the back! You spend years of your life dodging police, arguing with dangerous people, and what do you get for it? Fuck all!” I yelled, anger and malice seeping into my words, Gilda was taken aback by my sudden anger.

“I worked with Webly for 5 cunting years! So what’s the first thing he does?  He blackmails me! He asks me to kill the only man I trusted, before threatening to sell somebody into fucking sex slavery; and you know what. I’m pissed!” I screamed, breathing heavily from my little rant.

I was surprised when Gilda hugged me, even more so when she started asking for forgiveness.

“G, it’s not your fault.” I said, calmly pushing her away; finding small solace in the relief that burned in her eyes. I was silent for several minutes, gradually calming down. Our little moment was interrupted when Gilda’s stomach rumbled like a car engine; causing me to roll my eyes.

“You just love to ruin the moment don’t you G?” I asked teasingly, causing her to huff and cross her arms.

“Hey, we haven’t eaten anything in like 15 hours, can ya’ blame me?”

“Ever had fish and chips before?” I asked, smiling widely when Gilda gave me a negative. “You are missing out.” I cooed, before practically dragging her to my favourite shop in the city.

We both stood under the awning of the chip shop as the heavy rain pounded the empty streets. I stood idly, munching on some of the chips from the grease stained newspaper in my hand.

Gilda had taken an extreme liking to the fish, practically swallowing the thing in one go; before devastating the chips. Can’t blame her, to be honest.

It was nice to have some thinking time though; I was worried about the repercussions of my outburst earlier. It was strange, Gilda didn’t care about my dodgy past, or my criminal record; it was… nice. Even so, she could have been hiding her feelings; until I rescued her friend and ran off again.

What was truly strange was the last part, where would they run to? They have no I.D., they practically don’t exist.

But most of all, why did I care?

It rained heavily that night.