EIGHTY-THREE

Things weren't going that well with Mack and Ruby during this time, though...

"What do you mean she's a friend?!"Ruby yelled.

"I mean Rosalind is an old friend of mine, it's not a big deal."

"Oh, you mean Rosalind like your cousin, step sister, former classmate and training partner?! You are a terrible liar and I don't even need ...

"Ruby..."He said, holding her arms,"... you're the only one for me and I never will betray you, besides, I know a lot of girls named Rosalind."

He then walked away while casually whistling with his hands in his pockets, when a frying pan flew into the back of his head.

He yelled in pain but before he could turn back, Ruby had caught the pan, midair and began ramming it into his head by the edge.

He tried to grab her but the heavily pregnant woman was more slippery than a heavily pregnant serpent.

She ended up on his back, still bashing it into his head while repeating all the lame excuses he gave to her for all his ' female relations ', till he grabbed her legs tightly and began to run with her.

She screamed as he asked whether she was having fun, then she grinned and whacked his head into a wall and once he had fallen, she spun the skillet then said,"As a matter of fact, I am."

Holding his head in pain, she was walking away when he did a kip up and pulled her by the hand.

She turned round with her fist ready to punch him when he ducked below her arm and grabbed her from the back, then whispered into her ear,"Come on babe, you know I'm too charming to hog all to yourself."

She frowned then stomped hard on his foot and slipped below his grip, before throwing him over her head and onto the floor.

This may seem quite extreme, but this was the average everyday quarrel, chore splitting, wake-up routine and intercourse ritual, it was brutal.

He landed on his feet, with his back a few inches from the floor and his head closer, then said,"Aww, you look so cute when you're mad, your cheeks turn red."

"I hate you."She said.

"Hmm, but you're still holding my hand."

Bringing a knife from behind her, she said,"That's true, why don't I just keep it then?"

Oh boy...

Now Mack had the incredibly difficult and literally life threatening job of holding his pregnant wife's hand, giving her a dash or two of his natural charm and keeping her from hurting herself... himself, all while keeping his wrist intact.

He then caught her against a wall, with her hands pinned above her head, then spoke,"Why don't we have one more go, shall we?"Unzipping his trousers.

She frowned then said,"In your dreams."

Then she gave him the Knockout groin shot which brought him to his knees, before punching him, hard, to the side of the head and letting out a large breath as he groaned on the floor.

She looked at the kicking baby and asked,"You like it when I beat daddy?"

She kicked him in the belly and felt another kick then squealed and said,"Baby finds amusement in your pain and suffering, isn't that nice?!"

"I'm glad you found out honey."He said in a coarse voice.

"Get up..."She said and kicked him,"...baby wants a banana milkshake with cinnamon, walnuts and whipped cream on top, can you do that honey? Good, I'll be waiting."

She left him smirking as he wiped saliva from his lip, he loved that blazing willpower beneath her, he couldn't get enough of it.

Until, she screamed...

***

Luis looked at the crime marked zone and took a deep breath of the thick, smoke filled air, this may be the closest he could get to starting a clean slate without totally ending his former career.

He walked below the police tape and into the burned remains of the apartment building, where there had been six casualties and seventeen hospitalized, either for extensive carbon monoxide exposure, severe burns or actually being crushed by falling debris.

He looked around, ignoring his colleagues' yells for him to come back.

A small man, probably half his size and definitely unfit to be a police officer, which was much of the reason his old job was so easy in the first place, turned him around and asked,"What the heck are you doing?! There's loads of delicate evidence here, not to mention the place is a death trap and could fall apart at any moment."

"...the fact that..."Luis said.

"What?"

"There's loads of delicate evidence located on the premises, not to mention the fact that the place is a death trap and could fall apart at any moment, grammar and vocabulary are important, especially for an entitled law enforcement personnel like yourself."

The man's face said it all, Luis had just made a new enemy, and Luis' face replied,"I don't give a f-ing sh*t."

The man suddenly said,"Move out."

"As you wish, boss."Luis spoke.

"What did you just say?"The man's asked.

"I'm pretty sure I said, as you wish, boss."

"You said something else, you son of a b..."

Seeing something, Luis had had his fun with the man and just turned to the side, making him fall over the blackened floor, causing an already weakened wall to collapse over him, till he was pulled out.

The man wanted to thank Luis, until the man simply snagged his utility belt and took out a bunch of stuff.

The man was furious and wanted to give this arrogant wannabe a piece of his mind when Luis pointed a screwdriver at him, then stuck it into the ceiling and pulled out a wire, tracing it to a clock camera not far away, then grinned.

"You know that we have external camera feeds right? We could have literally gained access into any of them, from any angle."The man retorted.

"You know that the pyromaniac actually put the fire bomb by the second embedded column by the main door, right?"

"What?"

"Yes, the homicidal lunatic put the device right below the ventilation system, from where the flames could actually be fanned and distributed more evenly, causing the casualty count to increase drastically, it also was a blind spot to your so called all angle surveillance devices and I am pretty sure that you wouldn't find any suspicious activity on any of the external CCTV cameras because the culprit was actually a tenant living within the building, who knew all the blind spots the public cameras left behind, but what could I know? I mean I'm just some random arrogant wannabe who made the naive mistake of trying to join the police force to make a good name for myself."

"How? How could you..."

"There's one thing about people, their thoughts are often reflected by their actions, bodily tension, teeth grinding, you know, that kind of stuff, and if you're smart enough to interpret it, you can read basically anyone's mind, isn't that so, Dmitry?"

Dmitry started hyperventilating as Luis tilted his head, flicked his sunglasses over and took a sip of his cappuccino, then left.

Looking at the video camera feed that took over three hours of repair, retrieval and refining, Luis drank the still unfinished cup of coffee he had brewed five hours ago, looking intently at the feed.

He told the technical team to stop it immediately, then said they should open the feed of the camera placed in a nearby tree from the previous night.

Without hesitation, they did what he asked and seeing the parking lot, he immediately stopped the video, then spoke,"The woman in this car..."

"What about her?"Dmitry asked eagerly.

"...her fuel tank is open."