You ever have one of those days that you know you'll never forget it, no matter how old you get or how hard dementia hits you it'll never leave your memory? For most that day is when they marry the love of their life or the birth of their first child, real sentimental shit. The day burned into my mind is a little different than most's.

It had been a few years since I took up the offer to do some jobs for Philly's resident Don, Argyle. It quickly turned from a few minor jobs here and there to being of the highest-ranking associates in Philadelphia. The plan was to make a couple of dollars to pay rent here and there, but it quickly evolved to me getting involved in more serious matters, the type of stuff that put you behind bars never seeing freedom until you were too old to enjoy it.

Before I knew it, there were whispers that the management of Philly was considering me as a full-fledged member of their organization but there was a slight problem. I was not a violent man, still aren't but if you were to become apart of the inner circle, you had to be ready to take another's life. That's where most of the hold up was, I was accustomed to getting things done with pure intimidation. Rarely did things escalate further than that in my short time as a businessman.

I understand their point of view, why trust a man that isn't willing to do everything he can to protect the business? Don't get me wrong I'm no pushover, you try to take my life I'll take yours but putting a bullet into the skull of a man that doesn't see it coming. That's just cold-blooded murder, and I was still coming to terms with that part of the life.

Time passed and the day came. I expected a man who deserved it, real scum that the world would have been better with him no longer around but that wasn't the case. His name was Franklin Niles, a young man with a future ahead of him. Decent grades but he was a hell of an athlete, they said he was good enough to make the minors. We'll never know how far he would have gotten, who knows maybe he would have been of the best pitchers in the world. The kid made a mistake as we all did when we were young. He knocked up a nice girl, and he was willing to provide for them both, but he wasn't ready to settle down.

The father of the young lady was a low ranking soldato but a soldato nonetheless. Mean son of a bitch he was, always rubbed people the wrong way and eventually, it came back to bite him in the ass, but that's a story for another time. The version of events that transpired were never clear to me, but the gist of it was that when the father confronted Franklin about marrying his daughter, he declined but ensured the father that he would care for them both and that his child would not grow up without a father in their life. That wasn't good enough for Ol' Papa dickhead though, he became enraged and put his hands on young Franklin, he got spooked and threw a wild right hook that connected well enough to drop the old man wondering where he was.

When the father came too, he noticed his nose was a little more than just crooked. He could have passed for a different person with how badly his broken nose looked. As you can guess he didn't take being struck by a "disrespectful little shit", as he put it, so he pulled some serious strings just to get back at the kid. That's where I, unfortunately, came in.

No warning or heads up was given, I was just handed the information one morning and told if it weren't done by dawn tomorrow they would send someone for me too. Not much of choice was given but here's the way I thought of it. If I didn't do it someone else would have and the only thing I would have accomplished by refusing the bosses' order was putting my life at risk. That's the rationale I used to convince myself I had to go through with it. Looking back, it was some stupid reasoning. I could have changed things, I could have saved him.