CITY OF ANGELS

Giovanni met Marcellin Raphaël near an unfinished construction site in the shell of the night.

And as sketchy as that may sound, two guys near a construction site in the shell of the night, that was the day he probably met one of his closest friends. They were both at a low in their lives. He had recently taken a flight out of his hometown in Australia over to Los Angeles. Six months he spent in the City of Angels and still, he had no money, no food and no home. This was a period in his life when he had to beg.

The first night was the toughest. Transitioning from living in a trailer park in Australia to sleeping in the streets on an entirely different continent was not much of a walk in the park.

He remembered this one night, it was nearing the beginning of December and the weather had significantly plunged into the low digits. It was so fucking cold. He could barely feel his fingers. Sat in a corner in the subway while shivering against the icy air, he hugged his jacket closer up to his chin, hoping to retain as much heat in his body as possible.

He would never forget when this old lady who was carrying her cart around saw his balled up body. She stopped pushing her cart, looked over at him for a long second and then selflessly parted with her quilt. It was a rugged and tethered blanket but still, he reached for it and wrapped it around himself. He thanked her. Before pushing her cart away, she smiled softly.

A few weeks after the aforementioned, he had the pleasure of meeting a person or group by the name of Perque.

To be honest, he did not remember the circumstances that led to their meeting, but looking back, he was glad it happened. Perque offered him an opportunity to work for them, which involved stealing low value vehicles and transporting them to remote locations without raising any suspicion. Although the locations were random and secluded, he never questioned Perque about their purpose. He just did his job to the best of his ability.

During this time, he learned some essential driving skills, such as how to evade the police. This was necessary because transporting stolen vehicles usually attracted the attention of law enforcement. Once he had made the deliveries, Perque would compensate him with cryptocurrency, which was exchangeable in the underground market.

He was initially sceptical about this form of payment, but Perque assured him that it was a safe and reliable way to receive compensation while remaining anonymous to him.

When he received his first payment and exchanged it for cold cash, his scepticism vanished. The process was quick, efficient, and almost effortless. Perque had introduced him to a new and exciting world that he never knew existed.

He met Batuhan during that time.

At that construction site, he and Marcellin Raphaël talked about a lot of things. Giovanni commented on how well kept his strawberry blonde mane was and he commented on the terrible waft which was emitting from his body. When he asked him where he was from, Giovanni recalled making an Aussie joke which he frowned at in perplex. Marcellin Raphaël then told him that he was French Canadian.

At some point, the conversation steered to how they could make money in the city. They spoke for hours and after exhausting all their options, they both jokingly came to the conclusion that the only way they could make money in this climate was to do crime.

They left that day having exchanged numbers.

After a couple of weeks, he introduced Marcellin Raphaël to Batuhan. That was how the three of them started hitting stores, trying to make as much money as possible in as little time as possible.

One day, he and Marcellin Raphaël were robbing a store without Batuhan. Giovanni was waiting in the car as usual, keeping a look out for him whilst he got the money. Something must have happened in the store, a scuffle of sorts and the next thing he knew, Marcellin Raphaël was telling him to drive around the block on the radio. He would apparently run over to the car.

Even though he had an uneasy feeling about the entire situation, he did as he was told and moved the black Subaru WRX, one of which belonged to Batuhan, around the corner.

When he heard the police sirens, his heart started to beat out of his chest in panic. Still, he did not move out of his hiding spot. He was trusting Marcellin Raphaël.

After sitting there for a couple of minutes, nervously playing with his fingers and looking around curiously, a loud cough and some obnoxious sniff emitted from the radio, cracking with static. That instantly alerted him and he slowly steered the car past the store.

In front of it, stood Marcellin Raphaël and a lone officer, questioning him.

To signal him, he started honking his horn.

As inconspicuously as he could, Marcellin glanced over at him. When Giovanni beckoned him over subtly, he took off running. The cop looked stumped for a second before reaching for his taser. Narrowly escaping the taser prong, he managed to jump in the car and immediately a police chase proceeded.

As usual, after a couple of turns, he managed to lose the cop.

Once it was guaranteed that they were away from danger, they both released chuckles of relief. Giovanni asked him where the loot was since he clearly did not have it on him. He told him that he tossed it in a bin behind the store before the cop showed up.

Marcellin Raphaël informed him that he was feeding the cop false information about a red sedan revving away from the scene of the crime so that he could pull in front of the store without instantly getting spotted and cuffed.

Later that night, they went back to the store and surprisingly, the bag of money was still in the bin he threw it in. The cops must have not thought to check there.

And that was the thing. For terrible people, they sure did get awfully lucky. As if someone, some unknown entity was looking over them. Yes, they were all skilled and had mastered their own individual crafts, but there were times when luck really influenced their outcome. There were times when he thought, surely, they were done for.

Tonight though, it seemed that their luck had run out because his closest friend was bleeding out in his arms and he had no fucking idea what to do or how to stop it.

"That is not a fucking flesh wound, Airi," he gritted through his teeth in frustration.

He carefully placed Marcellin Raphaël down on the sofa at the end of the room. His blood stained his hands.

"Yeah, I know. I said that so you could get us out of there."

Giovanni quickly glanced down at his face to check if he was still conscious. Airi walked over to him and continued to apply pressure on his wound. Marcellin winced in pain and rested his head back on the headrest of the sofa, his nails digging into the seat. His eyes were fluttering open and shut and his chest was heaving heavily, indicating that he was struggling to remain conscious.

As he turned to his right, he noticed Mickey casually leaning against the wall, observing them with an air of composure that only served to agitate him further. Despite the tense atmosphere, he remained unfazed and he felt an inexplicable urge to punch him in his perfect face.

Meanwhile, behind him, Batuhan was pacing back and forth anxiously, his fingers coated in blood as he tugged at his hair in frustration. His mind seemed to be racing as he tried to come up with a solution to the problem at hand.

The gravity of the situation hit them all at once and the longer they stood around with their dicks in their hands, the more frustrated he grew at the loss of time. Everyone in the room looked at each other, hesitant to say the one thing that was on all of their minds.

But then, Giovanni took a deep breath and said these eight dreadful little words, "We have to get him to a hospital."

"And tell them what?" Batuhan mused rhetorically, looking at him like he was just a naïve babe who was born yesterday. "Hmm? That Marcellin Raphaël got shot whilst robbing the fucking bank?"

"Well, obviously not. We'll lie. I mean, how would they know that he got shot in a bank robbery? It's not like I'm gonna walk into the hospital and announce it, cunt."

"The police know that one of us got shot at that bank," Mickey added, throwing his suggestion out of the window entirely. "I'm pretty sure they have all the hospitals on lock. They know we are going to need medical. They will probably want to know how a man who has the same height and physique as one of the suspects at the vault got shot."

"Okay, well we have to do something. I cannot just sit here and watch Marc slip away from us," he pleaded, his eyes darting back and forth between his lifeless body and his companions.

Marcellin Raphaël was more than a friend; he was family and he could not lose him. He had already lost enough people.

"Yeah, I think we all know that we can't just sit here and watch him die. Stop acting like you're the only one who cares about him. He's our friend too."

The silence was deafening as they all stood there, frozen in fear.

"But also, I'm not tryna go to jail tonight," Batuhan muttered under his breath, but he was not quiet enough.

He glowered at him venomously.

"You're so fucking selfish," he sneered, his voice shaking with emotion.

"Stop it," Airi interrupted them before an argument could ensue. "It's clear taking him to a hospital is out of the question, but we can call someone down here to tend to his wound." At first, he did not know where she was going with this until she said, "Call your girlfriend, Lloyd."

His eyebrows raised in cold realisation.

Call my girlfriend? How does she—

When he locked eyes with Airi, he could not help but wonder how she knew about Skylar but her gaze back at him was urgent, almost pleading. It was as if she was telling him to drop the subject for now as there were much more pressing matters.

With a determined nod, he clumsily fumbled his phone out of his pocket. As he dialled his girlfriend's number, he made his way out of the group, ignoring the perplexed looks on the faces of the two men. It was clear to him that Airi had not shared any details with them about his secret girlfriend.

Giovanni trusted Sky to help them.

When the line stayed quiet for a long time, he worried that she would not pick up, but after a while she did. She started yelling at him for hanging up on her earlier.

"Sky." He stopped her incessant rambling and earnestly he said to her, "I need you."

She remained quiet for a few seconds and then without even questioning me, she asked, "Where?"

A couple of minutes later, his girlfriend arrived at the warehouse. Mickey let her in. She was carrying her medical kit. When she saw him, query danced around in her beautiful hazels, but she wiped the look and glanced over at Marcellin Raphaël who was now fighting to even keep his eyes open.

Airi was still sitting beside him, holding her jacket against his stomach even after they wrapped a cloth around his abdomen to prevent too much blood loss as per Sky's instructions over the phone.

She immediately went into doctor mode and ordered someone to carry Marcellin to a room where he could lie down comfortably. Airi tried to pick him up, but she struggled with how lanky she was compared to the heavy, toned Marcellin Raphaël. Batuhan then stepped forward and did it instead.

The moment that Marc disappeared into the other room with her, he bit down on the nail on his thumb. He took a seat next to Mickey as they all waited for his girlfriend to tend to Marc.

Batuhan looked like he had calmed down and was now sitting on the table in the room. His head was hanging low and he wondered what was going through his mind at this very moment.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Then thirty.

His anxiety spiked.

What was it taking her so long?

He thought she was good at her job.

Was it supposed to take this long?

"Calm down," Mickey said to him sternly, putting an end to his subconsciously bouncing up and down leg. "He's going to be fine. I swear, you guys worry too much."

"How are you so calm, Mick?"

"There is no point getting riled up over nothing."

"How is Marc getting shot nothing?" he mused a wave of anger attaching itself to his tone as he narrowed his eyes at him. "He could have died."

Mickey looked over at him with an unimpressed gaze. "The fact that you think Marcellin Raphaël could die to a mere bullet is pretty insulting, Lloyd."

Before he could respond to him, Sky came out of the room, pulling her rubber gloves off. Every single one of them hurriedly stood up and looked at her expectantly. Well, all except for Mickey. He merely crossed his leg over the other.

"He's going to be fine," when she said that he could taste the relief which filled the room. "He luckily did not lose too much blood and the bullet did not perforate anything vital. It just went through and through and shaved some skin off."

"Thank you, Skylar," Airi expressed her gratitude though her voice was slightly muffled since she had her mask back on to obscure her face from her.

Sky smiled at her stiffly before respectfully asking, "Can I have a moment alone with Giovanni?"

When they all looked over at him for confirmation, Giovanni nodded at them.

Airi and Batuhan immediately went to the room with Marcellin. Mickey, after sympathetically tapping him on his leg twice, disappeared afterwards too, leaving with a comment about needing something strong to quench his thirst. The room got extremely quiet when he and Sky were the only two recipients left.

She studied him curiously, almost as if she was trying to figure out who he was for the first time again.

Breaking the uncomfortable silence, he gratefully said, "Thank you. For coming down here and saving Marc."

"Well, it is my job."

"Still. I appreciate you doing it. You did not have to come down here after I stood you up… and yet you did."

She cocked her head as if to silently agree with his statement. "That being said, I want to know what's going on, Giovanni. Who are these people and how come you've never spoken to me about them? How come you've never introduced them? They clearly mean an awful lot to you."

"That was never my call to make," he replied truthfully.

"So, your friends didn't want to meet your girlfriend?"

He mulled her question over in his head and then he quietly told her, "I-I did not… I didn't tell them about you."

She narrowed her eyes at him inquisitively and then she crossed her arms over her torso, her body language screaming distrust. "Why not? They're your friends, aren't they?"

"I'm just trying to keep you safe, Sky."

"Safe from what?" she demanded in frustration, looking bemused. "What's actually going on here, Gio? What are you involved in?"

Painfully, he forced out, "I can't tell you."

"Is it illegal? Can you tell me that much after I just literally saved your friend?"

His eyes failed to hold contact with hers. He hated to admit it, but she was right. He owed her that much.

Reluctantly, he nodded his head up and down.

The temperature in the room seemed to drop afterwards. At his response, he could see her mind working a mile per minute. He awaited her next words anxiously. This was the first time that he had admitted to his girlfriend that he did not earn his money as ethically as she previously thought. He just told her that he was a criminal; that he had been lying to her this whole time, throughout their entire relationship.

When she shook her head and rolled her eyes irritably, his tongue swiped across his bottom lip.

He was scared, he realised.

"Don't ever come back to the apartment," she said to him adamantly before grabbing her things and walking over to the door.

When she tried to leave, she realised that she could not get out without him opening the door for her. A sigh of defeat got expelled from her tense body and expectantly, she turned around and arched her eyebrows at him.

Pursing his lips, he reluctantly dragged his feet over to her and gazed into her beautiful hazels once more before entering the password to unlock the door. He did not want to leave things like this. As cliché as this may sound, he wanted to explain.

She slipped through the gap when he held the door open for her and his chest clenched when she didn't even spare him another glance before disappearing into the night.

Solemnly, he dropped his head into his chest. He knew calling her was going to lead to something like this. Skylar was not stupid. She was already asking questions before he called her down here due to being stood up by him on multiple occasions and her apartment getting broken into with nothing being stolen except a photo, must have added to her suspicions.

A part of him regretted bringing her down here but a bigger part of him would rather have Marcellin Raphaël alive. Even if it meant losing someone close to him.

At the thought of Marc, he shut the door and walked over to the room he was recovering in. When he pushed the door open, Marcellin immediately glanced up at him through his heavy hanging eyelids. He closed the mahogany door behind him and rushed to sit down in the chair beside the bed he was in.

"How you doing, mate?" he asked him with a soft look on his face.

"Everything hurts," Marc muttered lowly, looking annoyed.

"Yeah, a gunshot wound tends to do that," he responded, a smirk of amusement tugging onto the corner of his lips.

Marc rolled his eyes with a small smile until his face scrunched up in pain.

His smirk dropped and earnestly, Giovanni mused, "What actually happened in there, mate? I mean, I look away for one second and then all of a sudden everything's gone to shit."

"There was," he took in a deep breath, blinking rapidly, "there was another security guard who tried to hit the panic button. I had my back turned to hack into the security cameras to wipe our presence ever being there and the next thing I knew, I was being tackled. He grabbed his gun and shot me in the gut. Batuhan came out back when he heard the loud noises and luckily knocked him out."

"Shit."

"By the way, you really need to wear a mask while you're out there in the car. The cameras can literally see you."

"So, the security guard is still alive?"

"Yep." He angrily glowered at the opposite side of the room. "And I am gonna find that piece of shit and when I do, I am gonna kill his entire family in front of him in every way I know possible. Then when I'm done with them, I'm gonna take my time with him. He's gonna die a slow and painful death."

The dark look in his eyes scared him, but it did not surprise him. In the two years he had known Marcellin Raphaël, he had come to learn and understand the type of person he was. He was the type of person that you did not want to mess with. No matter how little your actions actually affect him, Marcellin Raphaël's retaliation would make one think one murdered his entire family in front of him.

That was why he was glad he was on his good side. In some way, he was similar to him in that fashion. He had a tendency to overreact over the smallest of things. Perhaps that was why they got along so well.

After wishing him a quick recovery, he made his way over to the office. There, he found a hunched over Batuhan Terzi.

"I should have kept my eyes on him the entire time," he muttered defeatedly and he was surprised by how low he was speaking, he heard him. "If I just made sure he was safe whilst working, Marc wouldn't have gotten hurt."

Giovanni stared at him sympathetically, but when Batuhan raised his gaze to meet his, he made sure to quickly wipe the look off his face. "It wasn't your fault, B. It wasn't anyone's fault. Marc knew what he signed up for, we all did. It was gonna happen eventually. If not him, it would have been the kid or Mick. You or me. That's just the risk that comes with doing the shit we do."

"I'm not talking about that, Giovanni. I cannot do this again. I cannot go through that again. I don't want to lose the only people I care about."

He ran a hand through his hair roughly, and for a second, he caught the sight of tears glistening in his eyes before he buried his chin in his chest.

"I'm done," he ended with conviction.