Epilogue
Somewhere in Illinois
Sometime in 2014
He has spent months in the tiny cell by himself. The whole process was surprisingly short, considering how often shit like that could go on for months or years. But with him the judge only needed a few weeks before he was sentenced to a life behind bars.
His ever present smirk vanished as soon as he heard the judge speaking those words. His lawyer only sighed and shook his head, before leaning closer to one of his colleagues. They talked in quiet voices, non of which he understood, not that he listened. His eyes and overall attention were still fixed on the old man in front of him, who swung the hammer down and closed the court for the very last time.
That day they brought him to Chicago, where he would begin his life behind bars, more figuratively than literally, since his cell doesn't have any bars. It's all solid stone walls and steel doors.
At least he has no one to share his nine square feet room, or however small it is. They thought him too dangerous to put him with anybody else, so solitary confinement it was.
It's his ninth month behind bars now, and he has enough of it. He had enough of it after the first second, but by now all he wants is to get out of here. He still has stuff to do, after all. He has a revenge to plot, can't do that properly behind bars.
He talked to his lawyer in private, and asked him to deliver a message.
There's one good thing about being the leader of a worldwide drug cartel. It doesn't matter how much they try, they'll never destroy all of it. A cartel with a good leader and great organization is like a hydra. You can hurt it, you can cut off its head. But someday, somewhere, a new head will simply pop up and bite you in the ass, even stronger than before. And that day has come.
As planned, the bus that is supposed to bring him and a couple of fellow inmates to another facility halts in the middle of the woods.
"Why are stopping?", one of the officers calls to the front, where the driver rants some curses at the engine.
"Fucking thing just broke." Just as planned, he smirks to himself and nods to the officer, who nods back and slowly makes his way over to him.
Of course it also help if the cartel doesn't just have connections within and to its members, but also on the outside. And there's nothing more useful than people who are simply… corrupt.
The officer drops a small key in his lap as he walks past him and to the front to help the driver with whatever problem he's having. "Pop up the hood, I'll have a look at it."
"What, you're a mechanic now?", the driver huffs but does as he's told nonetheless.
"Let's just say I fix problems", he shrugs and gets off the bus, leaving the driver and a second officer in the front with seven prisoners in the back.
A little bit of fidgeting later, Kubra has opened his cuffs and rubs his sore wrists, before handing the key to the man closest to him. He stares at him in shock and opens his mouth, but Kubra shushes him before he can say anything.
It takes a few minutes, but after a while every single prisoner in the bus has freed hands and feet. Slowly he rises from his seat and stalks up to the front. He does three large steps before the officer notices his approach.
"Hey, sit your ass back down!", he shouts with a raised shotgun, but all he earns is a smirk. And a hit with another shotgun's barrel against the back of his head.
"What the fuck?!", the driver screams.
The corrupt officer hits him next and then lets the prisoners pass him and get out of the bus, before following them. "Two miles down that track there's a hut with everything you need", he whispers in his ear and earns himself a smirk.
"Pleasure making business with you."
"Always."
A curt handshake is shared before he walks down the field road in the direction of the hut, whereat everyone else blindly flees into the woods or runs down the road. But he doesn't care about them. They were never more to the plan than a simple distraction, just a means to an end.
Two hundred yards later he hears a shotgun go off twice, a couple of seconds later a third shot rings out.
I love when plans work out.
His name is Kubra Balik. And it's time for his revenge.
A/N Ladies and Gentlemen, we are done. Quite the ending, huh? I know, some of you probably hoped for some happy fluff for our lunatic couple, but I'm just not the person for that kind of stuff. I love to read it, but I can't write it. Instead I decided to give you something I'm very good at.
CLIFFHANGERS! *ducks flying objects*
Yeah, I'm evil, I know. Especially since I'm not sure if I'll ever write a sequel. *ducks more flying objects* Just consider the epilogue as a Schrödinger's Epilogue. As long as I don't write a sequel, the epilogue both exists and doesn't.
If there'll ever be a sequel (which will be named Drugs and Order by the way - creative, I know), the epilogue will be the necessary bridge to it. And you can already guess the plot, eh?
Anyway, let's get to the real stuff.
I repeat; We are done! After two years of writing and hoping that you like what I write, and letting you sweat and wait for new chapters, I finished this long ass story that was planned to be oh-so-much shorter. But the more I wrote and the more you liked it, the more I realized that what I originally planned, just wasn't good enough. So, thank you for your continuous support! It really means a whole fucking lot to me.
Now to the future:
As I said, I don't know if I'll do the sequel, but I will do more writing! Right now my priority for long stories shifts more towards The 100 or Original Stories and away from OITNB, but that doesn't mean that there won't be any more OITNB stories. In fact, I've already got a few ideas for some short stories I want to share.
I'd be happy to see you in the reviews of my other stories as well, and if some of you would be ready to beta read some of it, please contact me!
I plan on either starting with Destiny, Cat Eyes or Once Upon A War first. You can read what those stories will be about on my profile. If you're interested in one of those ideas, please say so, too. It'll help with my decision.
And that's it. Thank you all again for you mamazing support, you're fan-fucking-tastic! And I hope to see you again.
EDIT:/ Leaving the story as I did, left me very conflicted, especially after I read so many of the reviews. Although the response has been mostly positive, there have been few who called the ending not worthy of the story, or just plain bad.
I agree with those reviewers in some way, because I too would've liked an ending where Alex and Piper live happily ever after, but that's just not my style. Not just because I'm not very good at writing sappy fluff, but because I don't ever think of that as a good ending.
Nothing I ever write ends happy. It just ends.
I get inspired a lot by my favorite authors; George R.R. Martin, John Scalzi, Sebastian Fitzek. I devoured The Hunger Games, Sharp Objects, Dark Places. I love TV-Shows like The 100, Orphan Black, OITNB. Those are rather different settings; fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, dramedy. But they have one thing in common: There are no happy endings.
It's never a bad ending either, but you won't see the protagonists riding off into the sunset in any of those, because that's just not the style of the authors. And in my opinion, that's just how a good story should end. After the characters overcome whatever fate decided to throw in their paths, there's no need to give them everything. Instead the ending should leave you thinking, hoping, expecting. It should end in a way that there might always be something more.
Apart from that it's also very hard to think of a good ending of a story that you love, that you've spent so much time with.
Believe me, I would've loved a happy ending for Alex and Piper, but for me it's just the other way around: a happy ending wouldn't have been worthy of the story.
Now you might argue that the ending wasn't bad because it's not a happy ending, but because it was so rushed. Suddenly it just stopped. Well, I could've stretched it for dozens of more chapters, but what good would that have done?
Law and Drugs was never going to be about them being together, it was about them getting together despite all the conflicts it created.
If I ever write the sequel Drugs and Order, you will get a story that will be about them being together despite everything. But the focus will still not be on sappy fluff. Instead it will be, just like Law and Drugs, on the conflicts.
After all, that is just my style and how I write. This is not a romance novel. It's not made to tell you a perfect love story. It's made to make your heart ache, to let you want more, to have you feel pain for them and their situation.
If I've accomplished that, then I'm truly happy.
And if you say that you don't like that, then I respect that, too. Not everyone can like a story that makes your heart bleed instead of beat. But let me also tell you that you'll never find what you're searching for in my stories. Nevertheless I'm thankful for your criticism!
For the last time in this story;
Sincerely, your roman soldier
Mindoir, out.
