To a bull, everyone looks like they’re shopping for China. Craig “Bull” Rudzewicz, the Central City Police Department’s top cop, reached into the bottom drawer of his desk, and his fingers brushed the ice pick he kept next to the bottle of bourbon hidden beneath an empty manilla folder. As he poured himself two fingers, …
Give yourself to fate and forever struggle against restraint. The last time Cassandra had been high, she’d dreamed of her mother. She remembered it well. She’d been in her living room one early morning, shortly after arriving home from work with a fix. She’d sat in her bean bag, held a lighter beneath a spoon, …
Violence smolders beneath an amiable appearance. Seth wiped the sweat from his forehead and sipped his beer before leaning back on the inclined bench and pumping through a final set of twelve. His living room consisted of a secondhand couch, a television sitting on a board balanced between cinder blocks, a power rack, a bench, …
Few beasts can match the ferocity of a mother protecting her young. As Karla Buchelli wiped down the bar on a slow night at The Side Saddle, she counted six patrons sitting at low tops near the stage. Four of her girls chatted near the end of the bar, one danced on stage, and one …
Only the chosen few can stand at the center and pull people together. Vincent Bayonne sat in his favorite booth in Book ‘Em’s and nursed a drink he hoped would heal his mind. He ground a cigarette into the ashtray with his right hand while sliding a fresh nail out of the pack with his …
Some things must end before anything new begins. In the midst of a peaceful night in a violent city, Kane Kulpa smoked a cigarette on the rooftop of a building he owned in St. Patrick’s Diocese. He didn’t own the building outright, of course. According to the state, Kane Kulpa made minimum wage plus tips …
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