The fumes cleared to reveal a dead, unreadable expression.
"You know about us?" the lead man asked, his voice a low rumble.
Rommel glanced away with a weary sigh, as if recalling an old, unpleasant memory.
"Yeah. Long story."
The lead man hummed, a non-committal sound from deep in his chest, then blew out a thin stream of smoke.
"Well, shorten it."
Rommel looked back at him, a frown etching his features.
"I'm half-gypsy." He revealed.
At that, one of the lieutenants allowed a slow, knowing smile to spread across his face.
"Aha! I knew I sensed something unique about you."
The other tilted his head slightly, his gaze intensifying.
"Looks like kin, Mr Orson. He's got those accursed dark eyes..."
The lead man, Orson, took a closer look, drawing deeply on his cigarette. He then took it from his lips and handed it to the man beside him without a word.
"Kin, eh? Well, pardon my bad manners."
He gestured for the lieutenant to offer the cigarette to Rommel.
Furrowed brows tense, Rommel watched the lieutenant approach and extend the glowing stub toward him.
"Have a smoke. Kin," Orson offered lightly, both hands now resting on the head of his golden cane.
Rommel glanced at that dead expression, searching for a trap and finding nothing but an impenetrable mask. He then glanced at Rainer, who wore a faint, unreadable smile, his attention fixed entirely on Orson.
Finally, Rommel sighed and took the cigarette, taking a slow, deliberate draw.
For the first time, a small, cold smile grew across Orson's face.
However, without preamble, he suddenly drew a handgun from inside his suit with practiced ease, the click of the safety disengaging echoing in the quiet street as he pointed it at Rainer.
Rommel turned livid, and his body tensed, about to charge.
"Rommel," Rainer called, his voice preternaturally calm.
He paused, throwing a sharp glance Rainer's way.
Rainer didn't take his eyes off Orson.
"I got this."
At those words, Rommel eased back, letting out a tense breath he'd been holding.
Orson watched this interaction with keen interest, then locked his gaze with Rainer's.
What he found was a pair of mud-brown eyes so calm, so deeply settled, that they seemed to swirl, gently pulling him into their depths.
"My kin lives," Orson stated, his voice flat.
"You, however, have to die for trespassing."
He informed Rainer as easily as one might comment on the weather, the concept of killing seemingly as mundane to him as a round of golf.
With a sigh, Rainer gently lowered Maple from his shoulder, and Esmeralda quickly snatched her into her arms, clutching her daughter tightly.
Standing to his full height, Rainer looked down the barrel of the gun.
"Go ahead," he goaded lightly.
Everyone was taken aback, and Orson squinted, his gaze hardening like flint.
"You do not value your life?"
Rainer shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips.
"Not quite. It's just that I enjoy taking lives more than I love preserving mine."
Orson tilted his head, genuinely perplexed by the statement.
Rainer continued, his voice dropping to a conversational, yet deadly, tone.
"You pull that trigger, you better make sure you hit. Because if you miss..." He squinted ominously. "I'll be taking as many of you baker boys down with me."
Orson's frown deepened at the threat.
Smiling now, Rainer reached out to Rommel and took the cigarette back. He brought it back to his face, taking a final look at the glowing ember as he spoke.
"You're looking at a dead man, you see. The young man ambushed by the Beach Boys died back at that cafe. What resulted was me, and the beast of chaos chained within my heart."
His eyes, now glinting with an otherworldly light, drifted up to meet Orson's.
"And trust me, you don't want that monster breaking out."
The cigarette dropped to the ground and Rainer crushed it under his heel.
"One last thing." He glanced between the trio.
"Rommel's not your kin. He's an enforcer of the GBGs. And if you stand in the way of our enforcement of vengeance," he coolly widened his stance into a more combat-ready position, smirking sharply, "don't cry when you are forced to bleed for your hubris."
Watching this, the look in Rommel's eyes changed from tension to a fierce pride, and a sharp smile cut across his face as he turned toward Orson.
"I probably couldn't have said it better."
Esmeralda looked around, confused and afraid, but she shifted closer to Rainer and Rommel, choosing her protectors in the face of the unknown.
Witnessing this defiant unity, a haze fell over Orson's eyes as calculations and contingencies swirled within.
Suddenly, one of his lieutenants placed a gloved hand to an earpiece. He listened for a moment, his body stiffening almost imperceptibly, then at once he strode to Orson's side and whispered something urgent into his ear.
Orson's eyes twitched.
He immediately glanced toward the alleyways and gave a sharp, subtle hand signal.
Immediately, several silhouettes melted back into the darkness, their threatening presence fading.
Orson gave Rainer and Rommel a long, inscrutable look and calmly holstered his gun within his suit.
Before they could figure out this sudden shift, a bright light flashed, alongside the familiar blue and red flicker of police lights from a street down the road. Soon, a police cruiser appeared and turned toward them, its harsh light washing over the scene, illuminating the standoff in stark, public relief.
*KquUO!* *KwoOOOo!*
Its siren gave two short, authoritative blasts.
It drove up and stopped on the road, killing its bright spotlight but leaving the pulsating red and blue lights on, painting their faces in rhythmic strokes of color.
In a synchronized action, two police officers got out of the cruiser. They were both young, with the senior officer seemingly in his early thirties and the junior in her mid twenties.
The junior officer stood on the other side of the cruiser with a hand on her holstered handgun. She was dressed in the standard khaki brown police uniform of Grayhaven with a bulletproof vest over it, and a light brown pair of gloves and a ball cap to match her uniform.
Her eyes partly glanced at them, but her attention seemed to be focused more on the dark alleyways behind.
The senior officer, however, didn't have that problem. His attention was fully on them as he approached, calm and confident in his gait.
He had sun-worn skin and a rugged jawline shadowed by stubble. With a red bandana at his neck, and a cowboy hat over his head, his hand rested easily on his holstered handgun.
He soon came to a stop a reasonable distance away; piercing, sharp eyes observing with a mix of grit and warmth.
"Gentlemen." He tipped his hat, his eyes shifting from the men, to the woman and child, and back to the men.
"A little too late for an idle stroll, no?"
Orson looked at him, a spark of cold curiosity in his gaze.
"I haven't seen you around here before."
The officer rubbed his nose and nodded.
"Right. I didn't introduce myself. I'm Officer Randy." He glanced back. "And my partner over there is Officer Mia."
Mia offered a tight, nervous nod, and Randy went on, his tone deceptively casual.
"We got temporarily transferred here after it was discovered the previous officers... frequently indulged in the local hospitality from outlaws."
His gaze sharpened, scanning the darkened windows and dead streetlights.
"They were also sloppy, letting the power grid in this entire neighborhood get knocked out so some hoodlums could launch a surprise attack on a rival gang and have a take over..."
His gaze narrowed, returning to Orson with a small, knowing smile.
"Anything to say regarding that, gentlemen?"
Before Orson could formulate a response, Randy spoke again, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.
"Right. Pardon me. I never asked for your name?"
Orson watched him with a withering gaze, the silence stretching for a beat too long before he replied, his voice dripping with condescension.
"Orson. Orson Strickland."