Hot on the heels of a huge score the day before, Avard was, once again, in the thick of the action. A desperate phone call had drawn him from his bed, but the gravity of the message had woken him faster than any coffee. 10 minutes later he was pushing through the doors of his South Philly hotel and out into the night.

”This is it,” Avard muttered to himself, the culmination of all of his hard work materialising before his eyes. “You got this.” He reassured himself dropping a hand to the piece stuffed firmly into his pants.

A gun. Such a simple thing but the cause of so much tension. He had only recently had one restored to his possession after his new Don had violently removed it from him, when Avard had been dragged across to Philly by Frankie Vazzini during/after the New York families got hit. He didn’t know the details, just that his former sponsor had secured them both (intentionally or otherwise) a ticket to a new life. Avard wasn’t about to give up that opportunity.

“I’m ready to serve, Boss,” he whispered to himself as he walked.

He hadn’t had much time to ask for details when the call came through; he only knew that a Gangster with a white mask and a hell of a lotta protection had fallen foul of the Philly families and he was going to be clipped. Word from the top was that all the family muscle was to descend on him before he could bolt out of town and poor an end to the bastard by any means necessary.

Avard had no idea where to start, but boots on the ground would be better use than feet tucked up in bed, plus he was still flush from the previous night’s heist, so he thought to check the less reputable haunts across the district. Maybe he would start with The Smi... “Ooumpff!!”

“Hey...watch where you’re going, kid!”

“Me?!” Avard said, recovering his breath enough to sound incredulous.

”Doesn’t look there is any other dumb motherfucker daydreaming around here, walking into people, so yeah, you,” replied the man, pulling his mask back firmly over his face, muffling the string of further expletives fired Avard’s way.

“I wasn’t daydreaming!”

”Your head was in the fucking clouds, kid. Nearly knocked me over, you little bitch. Now get outta my way before I get real mad”

Something in Avard snapped with this guy and his cunty little attitude. He hadn’t been daydreaming, he was thinking about what a big shot he was gonna be when he killed this little mook and gave the boss his cut of the loot from the purse snatch the night before. And now this wise ass was giving him grief over nothing. 

​​​​​​​“Fuck this!” He screamed, pulling out his gun and waving it at Masky. 

“Oh shit!” Masks yelled diving forward just as Avard squeezed the trigger. Both men hit the ground in s tangle of limbs that Houdini would struggle to unravel.

”You...fu-“ 

“Gerrofff!”

”..cking piece of shit,” Avard cried desperately trying to pull himself free. He took a blow to the chin from a knee, it might have been his own; stars pirouetted across his eyeline.

Masky had regained his feet and he was clutching his shoulder.

​​​​​​​“You fucking shot me!” He lashed out and caught Avard hard across the cheek, keeping him reeling. Award felt a knife rather than saw Masky reach for it. “I’m gonna carve you up like a fucking turkey, bitch”

“THERE HE IS!!” Came a cry from somewhere near Avard. He didn’t know where from because the world felt like it was spinning in the wrong direction as he lay prone beneath Masky, but he was ridiculously grateful for it. The knife was withdrawn with a curse and footsteps pounded away.

As he lay on his back trying not to be sick, lots of feet went passed him giving chase. Somewhere in the coherent part of his brain he hoped he had given his family a better chance of getting the bastard. After all, he had shot and wounded him. All for the family. 

Long after the running feet had receded, Avard managed to lever himself up on an elbow. He still felt like he was going to shit himself out of his face, but lying on the sidewalk wasn’t going to make him any better. 

He looked around and saw a couple of faces that he recognised, talking to each other and totally ignoring him as if he was already dead. He couldn’t remember their names before he got whacked on the jaw, so he didn’t have a chance of knowing them now. He tried his best to get their attention all the same.

“Hey guys,” Avard drawled, sounding somewhere between drunk and retarded “did I get him?”

”Who?” One of the men asked, looking over without too much enthusiasm. He had a big gut beneath a sweat stained shirt and red braces. “ICU?”

“Yeah, the guy with the mask, right?”

Red Braces laughed. “Oh yeah they got him, but no thanks to you.”

Avard wasn’t sure if it was the riot in his head that was causing his lack of comprehension or he was just missing something obvious, but he didn’t like Red Braces tone, the fat fuck. “Wha..what do you mean, sir?”

”The guy you took a shot at wasn’t ICU!”

”It...it wasn’t? huh.”

”No, it wasn’t” Red Braces sneered, 

You shot at ICU’s bodyguards. You wounded a single bodyguard.

“Shit.” Avard said as Red Braces went back to talking to his pals. At least he had last night’s purse snatch to fall back on...

Hey AvardT - you missed one!!!