Chapter 2- Bound to the Bloodroses
11:35- Bloodrose's HQ, Waterfront dist.
Blake finally arrived at the H.Q, grabbing the sack full of jewels from the trunk of his car and heading to the entrance to open the door. Inside, Blake noticed the rather small amount of people today, usually the entire building would be full of criminals desperately seeking for a job to do. He noticed Byron, his contact, calling him by waving his hand and a light smirk on his gritty face. Byron, like any criminal had the distinct clothing and hair to match his faction - he had black hair, a dark leather jacket stained with blood, and loose pants that almost fell off him as he got off the counter to call Blake over. A few criminals in the back noticed the huge sack Blake was carrying and were wondering to themselves what is in there, they whispered to each other while seeing him walking to Byron. Blake didn't care about those guys gossiping on him, he ignored their chatter and continued to carry the heavy sack and deliver it to Byron.
- "So I see you brought what I wanted successfully, is everything in there?" -Byron smirked, looking at the sack and opening it, waiting for Blake to respond.
- "Everything I could carry, there was a shit load of jewels in that store, by the time I would collect every tiny piece of them the cops would have found me already. Also..I got rid of the evidence for you, just in case he would dare to tell this to the SPPD."- Blake smirked, showing Byron the knife covered in blood from his pocket.
- "Good job Blake, though I can't give you the price you wanted, that kind of money can't be just given on such a simple job.. even a rookie could do this crap, so 5k is a little too far, even for you."- Byron frowned, he gave Blake his paycheck for the job, but as expected the amount is rather small, only around 200 dollars.
- "So stop shitting me about getting a raise, prove yourself first..Sure you can shoot with an ALIG, but that doesn't mean a mid-rank like yourself deserves this kind of money yet. You should be thankful for getting an apartment and a car from us, others weren't so lucky and had to live from scratch, even with their low wage they still survived the first few days. If I were you, I would be grateful that the Bloodroses even gave a damn about my financial status that much, that they funded an apartment for me, hell even a fucking functioning car!"- Byron stood up in front of Blake, getting a little angry over of his idea that he would get more money than he really deserves. He pulled out a small pistol from his pocket and aimed it near Blake's face with a threatening look in his eyes.
- "Do what you're told and everything will be alright, don't argue with me Blake..It's not worth your time."- Byron added, placing the pistol back into his pocket.
- "Any more missions I could do? I need more money and this isn't even half of what I need for the rent this month."- Blake asked
- "Well if you would show up two hours ago and taken more than one mission , but unfortunately for you, the others took those missions so you're free to go. I'll call if I receive something from the others, see you later"- Byron replied, giving Blake a slight pat on the back before walking away into his office in the back.
Blake sighed, seeing Byron leave he decided to do the same thing, he got into his car and drove back to his apartment 10 blocks away. Despite feeling tired, he tried to hold on to the wheel before falling asleep from exhaustion, he did all kinds of missions all day, from 5:00 AM till now. It's no wonder that he almost fell asleep during his drive home, luckily the apartment building was only a few meters away from him. During a normal work day, Blake usually had only 2 hours of break time before having to head to do other missions, back when he first joined it was even harder and it was a very stressed time for him. Finally, he arrived to the parking lot of his apartment building, parking the car and walking towards the entrance door to the building. The building itself was rather old yet it was the only home Blake had, same goes to his neighbors who didn't exactly own a gold mine. The elevator was broken like always so Blake had to take the stairs to the 7th floor, that's where he lived. Once he unlocked the door and got in, the strong smell of rotten food and spilt beer floated across his nose and made him cover it. The apartment was very low maintained due to Blake almost never being home, maybe for 3 hours a day if he's lucky enough, but he uses those 3 hours to sleep and nothing else. He discovered that the rotten smell came from the kitchen, the takeaway food he ordered rotted in the fridge and spread the smell around it. The fridge was almost empty, it only had leftovers, half empty beer cans and energy drinks- which made other smells mix in with the rot as well. Blake sighed, taking out a trash bag from the cabinet above him and getting rid of the rotten food from the fridge to prevent the smell from spreading any further.
You might think a criminal like him would have a better meal once in a while, but even mid ranked criminals have the issue of getting food on the table, not having enough time to buy food or ordering something that isn't a cheap meal which only lasts in the stomach for 3 hours. Half of the food Blake ate in his years as a criminal was from parties he attended, he took the scraps with him and saved them for as long as possible before they would spoil. After getting rid of all the nasty stuff in that fridge, Blake took out a can of beer that was still drinkable, placing it on the coffee table in the living room before going to the restroom. Once finishing his business and drinking the can of beer, he immediately jumped in his bed when opening the bedroom door. Unlike the rest of the place, the bedroom was the cleanest and barely had any filth, quite surprising for our criminal friend to keep his room so tidy, but leaving the rest of the place to get dirty with no issue.