I:
Dia

There's a saying: happiness is a warm gun. Until I had no other choice, I thought it was a saying that only suicidal and mental people said. I mean, who the fuck finds happiness in a warm gun. A warm gun is one that's been recently fired. I used to think that, before I started working for a man I never saw myself working for.

My name is Dia Banks and this is the story of how I fucked up.

A long, long ass time ago, I was a good woman. I grew up in an orphanage in Titan City and as soon as I got out on the street, I started fighting. It wasn't against cocky little bitches like the Bella's who dunno how to keep their mouths shut. No, my first fight was against a tattooed, pierced asshole who kept hitting on me. That asshole is now my best friend Phil Brooks, who most in the city call Punk. After I caught him in the jaw with a left hook, he apologized and took me to his favorite place in all of Titan City: The Funeral Parlor.

For those of you who've never been, The Funeral Parlor is a tattoo parlor in a part of town most call the bad part. I call it home. The Parlor is run by my pal Punk and a man named Mark Calloway. Mark's easy enough to get along with, don't bother him and he won't bother you. I've gotten many a tattoo from Punk here: from my dragon that goes up my spine to the designs on my arms. That's not the only thing I got from the Parlor. No, I met a very important man here.

The Funeral Parlor is where a little punkette met a nice Jewish boy named Scott Colton.
His buddies called him Colt.

Things between us started out nice and slow. Colt would come around when I was working with the boys in the shop. Never once got a tat, but he would come around and flirt. He was sweet, sometimes he'd even bring me a candy bar and a Mt. Dew. To most, acts like that were simple and not romantic. To me, that was romance. He was giving me attention, time out of his day. It was sweet so we started dating and fooling around.

Things were great until the moment I found out I was pregnant.

I'll admit…I panicked. I had never had a mother so I didn't know how to be one. A lot of things crossed my mind. In the end, with a little nudging from Colt, I decided that we needed a bigger place to live. Since his parents had cut him off, Colt was working as The Funeral Parlor as a secretary and I was a tattoo artist. It was nice but it was still not enough.

That's when I did something that I still regret. I went to take out a loan. My loan shark was a man named Paul Heyman. I didn't like the way he looked and as I signed the paper, I felt like Ariel selling her soul, I'm sorry voice, for a pair of legs. He gave me the money with the provision that I could pay him back within nine months. I thought it would be fine.

I was dead fucking wrong.

When I had my son, Louis, life got even more complicated. Money got tighter and I had to quit my job at The Funeral Parlor. I became a stay at home mother when we really couldn't afford it. We were pulling through though. Until that day. Colt came home beaten and bruised. I was worried when he told me what happened. One of Heyman's goons, Brock, had cornered him and beaten him senseless as a warning.

The next day, as Colt watched our son, I met with Paul. He informed me that Brock, Curtis, and Ryback would break Colt until we paid our bill. When I informed him how badly we were doing and what I thought of his deal, he offered me another deal. I could come work for him, doing odd jobs and he would pay handsomely for our lives. In essence, I would work off our debt.

I became a hit woman.

That was two years ago. I would love to say that Colt, Louis, and I are financially sound now. I would love to say, even, that Colt knows what I do for a living. We aren't and he doesn't. Remember when I said happiness is a warm gun? A warm gun is a gun that has been fired, a fired gun means a job well done. A job well done means I can provide for my son.

As I trudge up the stairs, I make sure to keep my gun in the inside pocket of my leather jacket. I see Colt sitting in his lazy chair, sleeping, and go into the bedroom to change out of my clothes. A manila envelope with my name on it sits on my dresser. That means Paul has decided on my next job.

I sit on the bed and remove the papers inside. My eyes are wide as I'm staring face to face with a familiar picture.

Staring back at me is Phil Brooks. My next target is my best friend.