The following day, Justin along with twenty other gang members made his way towards the appointed location. They were in separate cars. They were expecting the deal to take place outside some cinema theatre. As they reached they waited outside in their cars.

Minutes later as they saw some Hungarians carrying briefcases making their way towards the cinema house, Justin and five other shooters followed them. To Justin’s surprise, there was no procedure of weapons detecting on the entrance of the theatre. Everyone carrying weapons was easily making their way inside. Justin entered inside but he had a strong feeling that this lack of security, in a city like New York was an entrapment or something suspicious. He however, followed the Hungarians until they stopped. One of the Hungarians walked towards the American Gangsters and handed over the two brief cases that he was holding. While watching them Justin got disturbed by the sound of an alarm. The alarm was too loud and noisy. The Hungarians started to panic and the American gangsters took out their guns ready to fire. Some police officers appeared out of nowhere and aimed their guns towards all the criminals including Justin’s gang.

Vigilante Justin spoke:

“I knew it was an entrapment…”

While the alarm was ringing inside the mall of the cinema theatre, the police officers emerged and aimed their guns towards all the criminals. The American and Hungarian gangsters were running around in chaos. However, Justin’s gang was standing still. Vigilante Justin spoke to himself:

“I knew it was an entrapment.”

“Put your hands up!” Detective Kennedy exclaimed.

Justin looked at him and got even more alert.

The Hungarian criminals however began to fire. The cops fired back. Everyone inside started to fire with their guns and only Justin lied down trying to save himself from getting shot.

A huge cross fire had started between the cops and the criminals. Many criminals were getting shot and so were the cops. Detective Kennedy was also firing hiding behind the wall. Justin looked towards the exit of the mall and saw that the place was locked. It wasn’t easy to escape through the exit. And two police officers were standing there.

Justin’s gang members were quite sharp and each one of them was shooting with two guns each. Justin however made his way towards the exit. The two police officers standing at the exit aimed their pistols towards him. Justin enhanced his speed and they both started to fire. Dodging the bullets through flipping stunts, Justin made his way past them but stopped as the exit door was locked and the glass was not easily breakable. The cops turned around and aimed their guns at him again. Justin was trapped.

“Hands up!” one of them exclaimed.

Justin showed an expression of getting frightened and raised his hands but then immediately took out his pistol and aimed his own forehead. One of the cops yelled out:

“No!”

“I would prefer killing myself rather having myself killed by cops like you.”

“No, don’t you dare!”

Justin closed his eyes showing them as if he was finally about to shoot himself. But surprisingly within three seconds, he changed his gun’s aiming position and shot one bullet on one cop’s leg and shot another bullet on the other’s leg. These were his tricky yet lucky shots. The cops got injured.

Now Justin gained position and shot three bullets on the exit door’s lock. The injured cops tried to stop him despite they had dropped their weapons. Justin kicked the lock twice and as it opened, he pushed it and rushed outside in a flash.

Justin had escaped but the crossfire between the cops and the criminals was still going on.

Later that night at Jackson’s home, Diane was surfing through news channels. Jackson was standing nearby but wasn’t watching T.V. On all the news channels, the crossfire between cops and criminals inside the mall that took place earlier was being shown. Only pictures were being shown and the newscasters were narrating:

“A violent gang war took place earlier today.”

“Heavy firing between criminals and police.”

“Who were these criminals?”

“How many criminals got shot? And how many got arrested?”

Diane was kind of shocked to see this and she spoke to Jackson:

“Honey, do you know about this war between criminals and police?”

“Really?” Jackson gained some interest. “Increase the volume, would you?”

“Sure!” she replied enhancing the volume.

Jackson came closer and paid attention to the news channel’s report.

 Several hours later inside Mr. Gilbert’s room, Linda and Justin had just reached. Mr. Gilbert was very angry at the moment and he asked raising his voice:

“How did this happen? How did the police know about this deal?”

“We have no idea about that,” Linda spoke with concern, “I just picked Justin in my car and we escaped.”

“What about the others?”

“The others died or got arrested,” Justin answered.

“Arrested?” Mr. Gilbert got enraged. “How on earth did you let that happen?”

“Don’t raise your voice on me!” Justin raised his hand and spoke calmly yet bravely. “If you want to me to leave, I’ll leave this gang for good.”

“Don’t talk back with me!” Mr. Gilbert exclaimed taking out his pistol and aiming it towards Justin’s forehead. “My gang members don’t leave my gang, they leave this world!”

“So go ahead,” Justin spoke bravely, “kill me!”

Justin knew Mr. Gilbert would never shoot his best member. Mr. Gilbert’s eyes were filled with rage but he put down his gun eventually.

“Mr. Gilbert,” Linda spoke, “I think it was an entrapment. The cops must have planned the entire deal in order get our men and those American gangsters arrested.”

Justin moved aside and sat on the sofa.

“Look guys, I don’t know who was behind this,” Mr. Gilbert said, “but this gang war between the police and our men is a big loss. Our men who are under arrest might open up about us. The NYPD can extract all the information through their interrogations.”

“What information?” Justin yelled out. “What information are you so worried about? Those members knew nothing. They have nothing to reveal.”

“But they all knew about this location of ours. What if they reveal this?”

“You’re right,” Linda commented. “We must do something. I mean we should leave this building or something.”

Mr. Gilbert looked at Justin waiting for his suggestion but Justin remained silent. There was complete silence for a moment. Afterwards, Justin stood up and before leaving he spoke:

“The traitor is in our gang. It’s someone among us.”

 The very next morning, Detective Kennedy punched some criminal right on his face. They were inside the police station. The angry detective asked:

“Who is your boss? Whom do you work for?”

The terrified criminal replied:

“Gilbert Brown!”

“I knew it. Now tell me why did he send you there? What were you assigned?”

“We had to attack the Hungarians,” he lied.

“And who is this guy?” Detective Kennedy showed some printed photo.

The photo was a captured image that must have been taken through the CCTV camera inside the mall.

The criminal looked at the photo and recognized Justin’s face in the picture.

“Who is he?” the detective asked again.

“His name is Justin McElroy,” the criminal answered while exaggerating. “He was leading us here. He is the closest to Mr. Gilbert. In fact he is his right hand.”

Getting amazed Detective Kennedy looked at the photo himself and spoke after a pause:

“…Is that so?”

Detective Kennedy got an idea and made a decision immediately.

 That same evening while Jackson and Diane were watching television, Jackson received a phone call. He answered his cell phone:

“Hello?”

He heard something from the other line for several seconds and his eyes got wide opened. He got tensed and anxious after what he just heard. He said to Diane with hastiness:

“Turn on the news channel, now!”

Shaken Diane immediately switched to the news channels. As the news channel was on, they saw the picture of Justin’s face right on the screen. The breaking news read:

“The Right Hand of Mob Boss Gilbert Brown is NYPD’s New Suspect.”

The news related to Justin as part of Mr. Gilbert’s gang was being told on different channels. Justin’s face was also perfectly clear in the photo. Jackson was just shocked. And so was Diane.

“That can’t be true,” Diane spoke looking at her husband. “I mean can your brother be involved in such criminal activities?”

Jackson switched off the television and stood up. He didn’t answer Diane. She asked again:

“They are saying that your brother works for Gilbert Brown. Is he capable of such stuff?”

“Unfortunately he is,” he replied walking away slowly, “we both are!”

“What do you mean by that?” she said standing up after him.

“It’s in our blood.”

“Blood?” she got confused.

“My father John McElroy, he was a small time thief. He had one other crime partner and they both used to make their living through serving criminals. They were kind of like servants of some crime lords”

“And your mother?”

“She knew about his works. And she never stopped him.”

“Why?”

“Because we were very poor. We needed money.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“I was afraid,” he said looking at her. “I thought I might lose you.”

“No, I would never have left you on learning this.”

“The story’s not over yet. My father and his partner one day stole a gun from the criminals they were serving. My father’s partner was holding the gun at that moment while they were running away from that place. Unexpectedly, some cop caught them. They got frightened. They were panicked actually. So my father’s partner shot him.”

“Oh, God!”

“And it was that day since when my father became a real criminal. My father and his partner they became serial killers along with thieves.”

“So, what happened then?”

“One day my father’s partner,” Jackson spoke with tender voice, “he betrayed dad. Just for sake of some money, he killed our dad.”

“Oh no, really?”

Jackson closed his eyes and tears fell off his eyes.

“I’m really sorry to hear this. Honey, let’s forget all this and…”

“…There’s something else you need to know. And before I tell you, you must know that it will leave you completely shocked.”

“Okay, what is it?”

 Linda was in the building where Mr. Gilbert’s room was located. She was in the different room. Another female member of their gang was in the same room. Linda was looking outside the window and was talking:

“The cops are looking everywhere for Justin. They now want Justin more than Mr. Gilbert.”

“Why?”

“Because they have a warrant for his arrest. They have some proof that he is a criminal. They actually don’t have any proof to convict Mr. Gilbert as the criminal.”

“Oh!”

“These cops should have killed Justin that day, because that’s what I wanted.”

“What?” she got surprised hearing what Linda just spoke.

“Yes, it was me,” Linda answered like an evil person. “I called the cops with an anonymous number. I told them that Mr. Gilbert Brown’s men were about to get there. My sole purpose was to have Justin arrested or dead. But unfortunately he was too smart and cunning for them.”

“Wait wait, hold on! If you wanted to have him killed then why did you, I mean wasn’t it you who brought him to our gang.”

“Yes, that’s true. But I didn’t know that within such few time, he was going to get so close to Mr. Gilbert. I could not accept that. He was getting a higher position in the gang if that mission would have gone successful. I had to stop that from happening, so I backstabbed them.”

“But Linda didn’t you realise that this could have gotten Mr. Gilbert in trouble. Some of our men who are in police custody might just reveal everything about us after getting interrogated.” “I don’t care. In fact, that’s what I want. I just want to acquire the entire business and run away. If Mr. Gilbert gets arrested or killed in the process I won’t grieve
about it.”