1 Prologue

It was another cold night in Beacon. The winter was already starting to swarm the sprawling capital city, and a fresh layer of snow covered the ground. It was only half past five, but the sun had long since gone down. A long, white car puttered down 31st street, spitting exhaust out into the frozen air.

A man in his mid-twenties, with jet-black hair and a black suit to match, cracked the window and lit a cigarette. It had been a long day, and he knew that it was heading into a much longer night that he was dreading. It wasn't the job itself. Jobs like those hadn't weighed on him for a long time. The first one is the hardest, after all. Eventually, things like these just got to be second nature. It was the grind of it all that was getting to him.

"Sweet Empress, Luke. Do you have smoke now? It's freezing out," his passenger asked.

Luke turned to the passenger with a scowl, and the passenger quickly looked away. He sighed, tossed the cigarette out of the window and rolled it back up. He really needed it, but he figured he could at least give his passenger that. Al wasn't a bad guy, well, at least not any worse than Luke or any of his friends, but he never liked him. He always thought Lisa could do better, and he was going to make sure that she did better next time.

"Thanks again for the drinks, especially after the biz with Sunny," Al said, avoiding eye contact with Luke.

"Times have been tough for me and Lisa lately. We only had three people in the shop last week. Sometimes I wish we would have stayed in Endlane and not have gotten involved with Sunny in the first place."

Al stopped for a second and looked at Luke, waiting for a reaction. When he didn't get one, he gave a nervous chuckle and continued.

"It's not that we don't appreciate everything she's done for us, but I'm just not sure if it's all been worth it. Lisa doesn't even know about the extra loans I've had to take from her and she'd lose her shit if she found out. These things take time, and I'm glad that I have you guys to talk about this with. Empress knows we need friends now more than ever. Thanks for hearing me out, even if it is kind of a conflict of interest."

Luke kept his eyes forward and plastered on a fake smile.

"Don't worry about it," he said calmly, "It's the least we could do. Right, Vicky?"

He turned to look at his best friend and business partner in the backseat behind Al. She was about the same age as Luke, was wearing a dark red shirt and white pants, and the one blue streak in her otherwise blonde hair was covering her bloodshot eyes.

Vicky nodded slowly. "Yep, it's no problem, Al," she said, a devious smile growing on her lips. "I know she's my aunt or whatever, but shit with Sunny is just business. We're friends, you can talk to us about anything."

Vicky gave a small nod, and when Luke picked up on it, he turned the car off of the main road into an alleyway.

Al looked around for a second, confused. "Are we taking a detour or something?"

Luke didn't answer, and before Al had a chance for a follow-up question, he felt something tight wrap around his throat. He couldn't breathe and started to panic, flailing his arms around and trying to grab at his neck. His eyes went wide as he realized what was happening, and he started thrashing around as hard as he could, trying to break free. It wasn't working, and things were starting to go dark. As the world went black around him, all he could picture was Lisa, his beloved wife, and how badly he'd failed her. Then as that thought slipped away, so did he.

When Vicky finally released the wire from his bleeding throat, Luke stopped and put the car in park. He sighed, lit another cigarette and turned back to Vicky.

"I thought we said ice pick for this one? You're lucky he was so drunk, that could have been a mess."

Vicky scoffed, brushing the blue hair from her face and opening her door. "Relax, dude. I didn't want to bloody-up the upholstery. And besides, Al was weak. I could have handled him sober just fine."

Luke shook his head. "Just help me get him in the trunk."

They got out into the bitter chill and as Luke popped the trunk, Vicky pulled Al's slumped body out of the passenger seat and drug him around to the back. They both grabbed an end of him and heaved him into the trunk. Luke took one last look down at him. His lifeless eyes still bulged in shock and fear. He shook his head and mumbled under his breath before shutting the trunk.

"Fucking idiot."

Vicky laughed as they got back in the car. "I know, right? Anyway, do you think you can drop me off at the club and take care of him? I've gotta open up in like an hour and then head to Sunny's to tell her the job's done."

Luke wanted to say no. He hated getting rid of bodies. He wanted more than anything to make Vicky deal with it. She probably didn't even get up until at least noon and had most likely done fuck-all with her day besides getting high and jamming out new tracks. However, when he looked over at Vicky to tell her this, he got a full blast of her trademarked pleading eyes that Luke knew he could never resist.

He sighed again. "Fine, but you get to deal with Lisa tomorrow when she comes looking for Al and I'm taking the rest of the night off and going to bed."

Vicky smiled and shook Luke's hand. "You got a deal."

With their job done, they drove off into the night towards the club that had been running together as a front for Vicky's aunt, Sunday Morella (Sunny to anyone who didn't have a death wish) for a little over a year. After dropping Vicky off at the front, Luke took his cargo out to the edge of the district, where Sunny owned a small, discrete warehouse. He slipped a few hundred credits to the guard at the gate like always, and pulled into the warehouse, ready to start the long process of disposing of his former friend. He had a long and messy night ahead of him, but it was nothing new. It was just another cold night in Beacon; as cold as it gets.