I hadn’t thought about that. Well, I tried not to think about that, anyway. I knew Sabrina was walking a tightrope between me and her job on our best day, and me playing around in a criminal enterprise sandbox didn’t make it any easier. I thought back to a conversation I had a few days ago with Fitzpatrick, when he asked if I was one of the good guys.
I stood up from the couch, walked over to the bar, and poured myself another drink. As I stood there, sipping sweet tea-flavored vodka, a glint of metal caught my eye. I looked down, and at some point in my moving around and getting up, the cross around my neck had fallen out of my shirt and now lay in plain view against my chest. It winked at me, like a beacon from afar. I sighed, tucked the cross back inside of my shirt, and walked back to stand behind Sabrina where she sat sideways on the couch, her legs running the length of the sofa.
She leaned her head back and smiled at me. “That was your ‘I made a decision and it’s going to be hard so I don’t want to do it’ sigh.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“What was the decision?”
I put on a horrible 20s gangster voice and said, “Well, look here, sweets. I guess it’s time. After all these years, and all this money, I guess I’m finally going straight.”
She raised an eyebrow. “This time without the funny voice.”
“I’m going straight. I’ll get William to start shutting down any of my holdings that even touch on illegal activity, and I’ll stop taking tribute from criminals.” I paused for a moment. “Come to think of it, I have a pile of money, and a bunch of real estate with legit tenants. I think I’m going to stop taking tribute, period. Just because I took Tiram’s gig doesn’t mean I have to do the job his way. I can be Master of the City without people having to pay me for the privilege of living here. I’m supposed to work for them, and take care of them, not feed off them like some kind of parasite.”
Sabrina smiled up at me. “Now you’re talking like a superhero.”
“A superhero?”
“You’ve got superpowers, a secret identity, an underground lair, and a super-hot girlfriend. You’re totally a superhero.”
“As long as I don’t have to wear spandex.”
“Sweetie, I love you, but you’re too skinny for spandex. It would just look like pajamas.”
I laughed, then I bent down to kiss my girlfriend, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like I really was one of the good guys.
The End
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About the Author
JOHN G. HARTNESS is a teller of tales, a righter of wrongs, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the best-selling author of the EPIC Award-winning series The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, a comedic urban fantasy. In 2016, Raising Hell, the first book in his dark fantasy Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter series, was awarded the Manly Wade Wellman award by the NC Speculative Fiction Foundation.
A graduate of Winthrop University, John lives in Charlotte with his wife Suzy and a very demanding cat. In other lives, he has been an actor, lighting designer, theatre consultant, salesman, electronics technician, and arts administrator.
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees, and recording new episodes of the podcast “Authors & Dragons,” where he plays Dungeons & Dragons with five other fantasy authors. An avid Magic: the Gathering player, John is strong in his nerd-fu and has sometimes been referred to as “the Kevin Smith of Charlotte, NC.” And not just for his girth.
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