Sankara parks her car in front of the house of Jewel Williamson. He is one of the most notorious criminals in recent history. In Sanctuary County, his criminal mastery is legendary. He has taken many other crime houses down to become the kingpin, but has managed to aggregate those houses with his own, by properly rewarding his former enemies and their crew.

Now he is a target. Jewel knows the people are in favor of dismantling his organization. He is paranoid about being assassinated or imprisoned. Taking all necessary precautions with security detail; cameras, guards, weapons, and law enforcement pay-offs. Jewel is extremely guarded with his hormonal explosions; in other words he does not even rest his suspicions for pretty women and his urges to have sex with them.

Sankara piquing his interest has been a surprise to many of his close associates. She has been in his life for a whopping six months this evening and things are going strong. She could be the one; the one to capture his heart, and the one to take his life.

She is the perfect assassin because she is unsuspecting. She is not classically beautiful, full-figured, and is personable but coy. With her afro and casual style of dress, Sankara is seen as just another girl from around the way. Jewel’s enemies are hoping she will be able to disarm him enough to damage his empire and at best kill him.

Tonight Sankara has been ordered to kill him, but she is feeling conflicted. Besides building his wealth through illegal business and political loopholes, she has no concrete reason to despise him and kill him in cold blood. He is sending underprivileged children to school, buying every child an I-pad, protecting women from being raped, pays cops extra income to ensure that neighborhoods were safe at wee hours for working mothers coming home during those times, and providing investment capital to local upstart businesses. Except for having a slight temper in a business dealing gone haywire, she hasn’t seen evidence of him being the evil person the national law enforcement agencies or his local enemies has painted him to be.

A gentleman with that street SWAG he possesses has her impressed. He stands in the doorway and welcomes her into his bachelor pad, which is everything she expects from a single man; simple and plain furnishings. She smiles. “You know for a wealthy man you have terrible decorating skills,” she says with a grin.

“Well maybe it’s time I find a beautiful lady like yourself to make it complete, ya know? With all the necessary stylish décor and whatnot.”

“Perhaps.”

“I think it’s about time I start to focus on retiring from this crazy racket and leave a successor to handle things from here. What you think baby girl?”

“That sounds great. What you plan to do in retirement?”

“Relax. I don’t know. Go see something different in the world. Maybe spend the rest of my days with you.”

Her heart rate begins to accelerate. Her thoughts begin to spin in a chaotic orbit. “That sounds inviting,” she finally lets the words escape from her.

“We should toast to our future together baby,” he says as he goes to grab a bottle of expensive wine he had imported from Argentina.

“Yes we should,” she says with a smile.

He pops the cork and pours the wine into two decorative wine glasses. “Wow. Nice glasses. Okay so there is some hope for you and achieving style,” she says with a smile.

Jewel offers a shy grin and hands her the glass of wine. He places the glass to his lips but doesn’t sip. He watches her take a couple sips then set the glass on the nearest table. It only takes a minute before she begins to feel queasy and falls onto the sofa. Sankara cannot speak. She struggles as Jewel steps to her.

“Amazing what a little succinylcholine can do, huh? I’m sorry Sankara,” Jewel says, “I hate to see this happen to you. I hate to have to do this to you. I really did like you, but in this savage jungle no one can be trusted. I knew you were working for the Feds and Kayo. He’s really got it in for me, huh? So I will send your body to him with the message.”

As she draws her final breath, Jewel says aloud, “The message: the war is back on Kayo.”

by GAIYAIOBI XZANDIS-ZAEVAN
© All rights reserved 2016