The next day, a crew was dispatched by Lady Jade to handle the problem that was the late Mr. Dogwood's fiancée. The ensemble of grunts was not terribly impressive, but one man stood out in the center of the group: Jade's personal assistant, a man who went by the name Mathieu. Mathieu had been miss Jade's friend since her father ran the underground operations in town, many years ago. Apart from the occasional street thug, things were rather peaceful in the nameless green city that backed up to the mountains. Well, at least until the town's first visit by aircraft.
Three years before, a Cessna flew in carrying a very rich Japanese man by the name of Nashi, whom at first seemed to be just another of the privileged class seeking secluded real estate on the temperate mountains. Shopkeepers and tradesmen in the city had no qualms about the new man, as organized crime kept the rivalry between social classes at a minimum. He also bought many elaborate and expensive wood and stone carvings from artisans, and managed to pump a decent amount of money into the rather isolated economy. But before the townspeople had time to celebrate the new man, the cash flow abruptly stopped, shop keepers began disappearing or committing what detectives determined to be suicide, and more foreigners began to move in. Crime rates rose, and action was needed from Jade before the levee broke.
Jade's enterprises mainly concerned smuggling illegal items across the mountains to neighboring towns and cities; factions in the deep wooded areas of the mountains produced all sorts of illegal drugs in the guise of regulated painkillers. Masters of the craft could even falsify producers' signatures down to the type of ink used. Many young men not entrapped by the local religious faction defaulted to Jade's cartel and moved to the mountains, as the pay was excellent and there were very few people who could say that an occasional snowstorm would put them off of the priceless view of the city from beyond the foothills. The main problem with working with drugs was the fact that most of the substances that were produced were not only addictive but also toxic. Lives tended to be shortened, and anyone who managed to finish their term as a producer became hopelessly addicted and spent their retirement check almost immediately on drugs. Those who escaped addiction usually left the green city to start fresh somewhere else. The organized crime that ran the town was certainly not table talk for more reputable characters, but was inevitable for most of the youth in the area.
Joseph had been a son to a wealthier land owner, never having to face life as a medicine man; for the first portion of his adulthood, he had kept his nose pretty clean. He did get mixed up in the mob as he grew older, and spent the rest of his life hunted down for it. His fiancée Camilla found it surprisingly easy to ignore his dangerous lifestyle and even began to treat the child that once tugged at her lover's shirt at awkward moments as her own. There was a strong resemblance between her daughter from a previous marriage and Joseph's son, enough to fool any passerby that they could be related. Despite the illusion of perfection that the would-be bride was living under, Camilla's ease of living was about to become terribly upset.
At approximately 6:45 that evening, there was a knock on Camilla's door. She reset the three deadbolts that Joseph had installed and swung the door open to find two foreigners on her welcome mat; both dressed in suits with their hands neatly folded in front of them. Camilla's instincts began to scream but she calmed them, as she knew that Joseph never meddled with Nashi or any of his subordinates.
"Come in," she said hastily and gestured to a coffee table in the small living space with a few nice looking chairs around it. They complied and after a couple of awkward minutes of silence, she began to speak but was cut off by the taller of the two men. He began to speak in Japanese, and the shorter of the two men translated as he talked.
"We would appreciate if you came with us," the short man said swiftly with a thick accent, as if it had all been rehearsed. "We have a business proposal for you."
"I'm afraid I don't have many qualifications-," she started timidly, but was cut off again. This time, there was another knock to the door. She excused herself before her guests could object and got away from the coffee table as fast as she could, thankful for the distraction. As she opened the door, she felt as though she were hit with a ton of bricks. They were men from Jade, and neither Liam nor Joseph was with them.
Stirred by the sudden commotion, Camille's daughter tiptoed into the hallway across from the cramped coffee room and watched as two muscular men and the assistant crossed the threshold into the room. The foreigners immediately stood and reached into their inner suit pockets, presumably grabbing for their guns. Camille began to panic.
"Easy there, boys," said one of the burly men. "We're not here to make a scene." The foreigners kept their hands in their suits. "We just want to talk to this woman and tell her some bad news, is all." He smiled and revealed his broken front teeth. While attention wasn't focused on Mathieu, he reached into his pocket and quickly downed a few red pills.
"I'm afraid she has… other plans." The taller of the two foreigners took an adamant stance, obviously aware of the situation.
Camille cut the conversation right there. "They're dead, aren't they?" She kept her eyes glued to the floor; her face displaying only an empty, wide-eyed look. The burly man stammered but she pulled her revolver on him before he could produce any intelligible syllables. The sudden action caused the foreigners to pull out their concealed handguns, but Camille was not concerned with them. She was still unaware of her child watching the scene unfold.
Suddenly, Mathieu began to chuckle, then he burst out into uncontrollable laughter that made it hard for him to breathe. All in the room turned their eyes to him. Once he could control himself, only after he was nearly in tears, he spoke. "I just think it's funny-" with another outburst of a laughing, "That a man like Joseph would get involved with the detective with the golden tongue!" Camille fired a shot at him, but he saw her actions before they happened and dodged, giggling gleefully. The shot hit the less talkative burly man in the bicep, who went down screaming loudly. Mathieu launched himself at her and tore the gun out of her hands. His uninjured ally stood next to the door in awe. What he had witnessed was a modern day Jekyll-and-Hyde; he had never seen this side of Mathieu before. In fact, he and the guards used to poke fun at him for being such a timid little nerd. The truth was, Mathieu was the lead chemist for Jade; his constant fear and love for order was instated as a side effect of the many substances from which he partook in daily. Indeed, this violent, fearless side of him was also chemical. Camille knew this man from his record; he was the man with no personality of his own. He could make himself anything he wanted to be with some of the most powerful narcotics and antidepressants known to man. And he personally serviced Jade to whatever she needed. Mathieu was one of the true masterminds behind the booming drug business.
The little girl suddenly screamed and ran for her mother on the ground. Mathieu grabbed a fancy engraved letter opener off of a nearby side table and slashed at the girl, catching her across the face and slicing her upper eyelid. Blood spilled all over the ground as she fell.
"Iris!" Her mother screamed and struggled but could not fight the drug-laden body of Mathieu in his frenzy. The two foreigners opened fire on the chaotic scene, with Mathieu and the remaining guard returning lead. Iris passed out from the trauma of her injury.
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When iris regained consciousness, the tall foreigner was standing over her. Her mother was piled in a corner with the two guards that had entered with Mathieu and the short foreigner, and all were dead. The throbbing pain from her wound and the bloody sight before her made her start to cry. Her tears stung her wound.
The tall man noticed the bloody tears that streamed down her face. He pulled a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and used it as a bandage to cover the wound. He then stooped down to her level and began speaking educated but broken English.
"Iris, my name is Jin. You should not cry. Your mother… she happier now." He gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. She looked up at him, sniveling behind her soiled blonde hair. The makeshift bandage was already soaked with blood. Jin walked over to the revolver that lay on the bloody tile, picked it up, and emptied the spent shells and one remaining bullet from the cylinder. He then handed it to Iris without a word, and took her hand to lead her away from the gruesome scene.