Chapter 9 - Discovery

As Adrian, Martin, and the rest of the fighters enjoy themselves at the Barstools Pizza. Sophia knocked on the door and was let in.

"I think I saw your friend left a while ago," Sophia asked as she looked at the group. "I think it was your boss or something like that. I was told by Jeffery, the old man that works upfront."

"He probably wanted to talk to him or something, it is a professional business so I don't really care," Jeremy said nonchalantly. He looks at the group and sees that the energy seems to die down a lot since the beginning. "I think it is time for the check, Sophia, thank you for your services."

"No problem, I will get it right away," Sophia said as she walked out of the door. Tyson kept a hard glare at Sophia as she exited the door. Adrian began to snicker a little bit.

"Dude, just talks to her," Adrian said looking at Tyson. Tyson looked a bit nervous.

"Dude, I would man, like I really would, she has an amazing-looking body but I have a girlfriend," Tyson said trying to think. "I don't think I can get away with cheating this time around."

"My guy, then just break up with your girl if you want to get your entertainment with other women," Martin said disgusted with what he was hearing.

"But she can cook really good food, Martin," Tyson said, trying to defend what he said. "It is just that the sex is bad. That's all."

"Whatever," Adrian said, kinda bored of the conversation. "Go crazy, then say some desperate shit to win her back if you get caught."

"You right Adrian," Tyson said as Sophia entered back into the room with a check and a bunch of coupons.

"This is how much would have paid," Sophia said as she showed the bill to the group. "But since you are fighters and me already putting all of these coupons in," Sophia crumbled up all the papers. "That shit is for free. I just wanted to show you what it will cost if you are not fighters,"

"Ok, I will give you a good tip though," Jeremy said before getting interrupted by Tyson still sitting down.

"I can get you a better tip, baby," Tyson said as he looked at Sophia trying to look appealing to her with his right hand in his pocket. Sophia walked up to Tyson as other people already got up and placed a tip on the table to leave the lovers to do what they wanted to do.

As Martin and Adrian walked out of the restaurant with some leftovers saying goodbye to their fellow fighters and that they will see each other tomorrow. They heard a police car siren going off blazing down the road as if it was in a race. It was heading right from the street where the gym is.

"That is towards a similar direction to our apartment building, Martin," Adrian said as he turned to face the direction. "Do you think our women are fine?"

"They probably are fine but just to check that it is not our apartment building," Martin said as they began to walk down the street.

"That was a fun night, right Martin?" Adrian asked as he caught back up to Martin as they began to walk to follow the police car.

"Yeah it was fun," Martin said before looking like he was in a little pain. "Just wished you guys didn't convince me to play with you guys in poker, I lost one hundred dollars in total, you bitches."

Adrian begins to laugh as he pulls out a lot of bills from his shorts pockets. "I don't even know how my ass won three hundred dollars." Adrian began to show off his money in front of Martin to annoy him.

"Man, fuck you, Adrian," Martin said messing with Adrian. "That one hand you got was complete bullshit, a royal flush like come on."

"You just mad that I took your money, motherfucker," Adrian said, taunting Martin. "I think we found the police car, Martin."

Adrian points to the police car that is in front of an apartment complex, not like the one that they live in. Martin looked relaxed a bit. Martin claps his hands together and begins to do a little prayer. After a while of Martin mumbling to himself a prayer for the people that got affected that a police car showed up, he unclamped his hands, gave Adrian a nod, and continued on their way to their apartment. The friends arrived at their apartment building. It looked like a solid building, better quality than the one with a police car in front of it, but not like a grand one that richer people would live in. They walked to the front desk to check into their apartment, after the check-in process they went into the elevator. When they exited the elevator when it was on their floor, they went straight to their apartment, they unlocked the door to find their girlfriends safe and seemed to be having fun talking to each other on the couch eating chips and drinking water. The Mexican woman with the beige highlights got out from the couch and ran to jump into Adrian's arms with small tears in her eyes.

"What's the matter, Emma?" Adrian said as he was holding his girlfriend up trying to comfort her.

"I heard sirens outside and I thought something bad happened to you and Martin," Emma said as she was still holding onto Adrian.

"It is fine, I am here now," Adrian said as Martin walked over to his girlfriend, she was a shorter white woman with very light brown colored hair, and sat down next to each other.

"So how was eating pizza?" Martin's girlfriend asked as she got up to get more water.

"Ana," Martin said, already sounding irritated. He points directly at Adrian, "that motherfucker got me to lose a hundred dollars while his big ass won three fucking hundred."

"You should have just been better," Adrian said as he pulled out the bills from his pockets and began to rain them over Emma.

"Yes, baby!" Emma said as she got money thrown on top of her. She grabbed it and put it into a neat stack to place into a jar. The jar was labeled "Family Expense".

"Yo Adrian, look at the news," Martin said, getting Adrian's attention from his girlfriend. He walked over to see it was the news with a breaking news report.

"We bring you, people, a breaking news report that just happened an hour ago" the newscaster began with. "There was a murder of an entire family within the Saint Vicent apartment complex. Well, take it down to the scene of this grizzly crime with our report Laura." The cuts to see the apartment that Adrian and Martin passed to get back to their own apartment. Police cars were everywhere. People outside looking at the police going around talking to people and moving people out of the building. Then an average-looking black woman appeared on screen with a blue dress and a microphone in her hand.

"Oh you are definitely right, Carl, this moment is downright awful for the people of our city," Laura began as she looked directly into the camera. "We have confirmation that five people have been killed, and the robbery of their apartment." Then the screen cut to show the photo of five people, two white older looking parents, about their middle forty's. Then the three children, it was two girls one was older and one younger, but the son was recognizable.

"HOLY SHIT!" Adrian yelled out. "MYKOLA WAS KILLED."

"That's awful," Anna said looking toward her fellow roommates. "I hope the killers are found."

"Guys be quiet please?" Martin said as he looks very focused on the screen. "I am trying to listen." Everyone else became quiet and focused on the screen to hear what was happening.

When they looked back at the television, the screen with the photos of the deceased was gone and the news reporter Laura seemed to begin talking to an older woman. The woman was wearing a thinner sweater and on the screen, her name appeared. It said "Stephannie Lee", and underneath it was "Resident and family friend of the Chernys".

"It was a great misfortunate event to happen to the Chernys, they were such great people," Stephannie said with tears rolling down her eyes. "Especially the little one, she would help me with cooking and chores. She reminded me of my own granddaughter."

"Ma'am do you and are you willing to explain what did you see during the event?" Laura asked the older woman, trying to comfort and calm her down.

"I will try," Stephannie said as she is trying to breathe to calm herself down. "All I remember is me being awakened to the sound of pandemonium, and then the sounds of gunshots. I kept quiet till it sounded like there was no one there. Then I slowly walked in and entered the room to see such gruesome death and theft," Stephannie said progressively slowly starting to lose her cool and beginning to cry. Laura hugged the woman and comforted her. Then it cuts to Carl, the news analysts sitting there disgusted by the scope of the news. "Again another misfortunate death happened in our city, it is the tenth this week, violence has increased rapidly and this needs to be taken care of, for the sake of the people and the future of our city. This ends to be stopped!" Carl said delivering his words with passion and power within each syllable and articulation. "This is channel seven news signing out and will continue to inform people reports of this case."

"That's horrible," Emma said as she was hugging Adrian. "Isn't that one of the fighters at the gym you two go to?"

"He is," Adrian said as he looked down to see Emma's eyes. "We did not really know him that well, all we know is that personality-wise, not the most compatible, but still it is awful to hear someone has died."

"This is coming from the same guy that also knocked him out for him calling your girlfriend ugly," Martin said, trying to sneak the comment in.

"True but that is not important Martin," Adrian said trying to move along to his main point. "What I am saying is that I am grateful that, we have better security in this apartment complex and that none of us are hurt. We should take this as a lesson to be careful in our city. Anyone in this city would kill you for a better opportunity, so Martin let's make sure we do excellent in our fights to hopefully make a better situation for the people that we care about." Adrian said as he walked up to Martin with his hand out.

"I could not have said that any better myself, big fella," Martin said he slapped Adrian's hand for a manly grip.

"Do you guys think that the killer is going to be caught?" Ana said as she turns off the television.

"Given how good the other owners treats us fighters," Martin began. "Probably mean we produce a lot of income for this block to be maintained in business and my guess is that even if they lost a fighter no matter if he or she sucked or not should be enough for people to want to find the killer to get back at losing a possible income source."

"I mean you are correct," Adrian said. "Besides given how Mr. Syvone seems to be the type of person that wants to make better situation for other people, he would want to figure out who killed one of his OWN fighters."

Emma and Ana seem to have calmed down and have been reassured from their lovers. They stood up for a bit, enjoyed some of the leftover pizza and then take a shower. The two different lovers went into their own rooms in their apartment and went to sleep prepared to see what exactly is going to happen tomorrow.