text: Erin Clerity Death Before Dishonor To everyone I know and love! 
   
   
   Part 1: Not Ready To Die  
   
   
  ~1~ 
  	BANG! Was the only sound Camille Dawn had heard the moment she opened the door to her loft. That moment when she opened the door, she didn’t have enough time to react or do anything. She had taken a step back slamming against a wall across the entrance to her loft; she looks down and realized the blood on her hands that came from her chest. She dropped down to her knees and fell over to the right lying on her back, trying to breath but she was choking on blood and tears fell from the corners of her crystal blue eyes to her ears. A man walks out into the hallway and looks down at Camille, who isn’t dead yet. This man was tall, shaved head wearing a black attire of slacks, turtle neck, and leather jacket holding a black .44 magnum Desert Eagle with a silencer in his right hand. Camille had her eyes on the gun as it was pointing at her chest. The man squeezed a few more shots into her and she stopped breathing. Eyes closed and blood coming out of the corner of her mouth, the man looks down at her and then pulls out his cell phone from his jacket and puts it against his ear.  
  	“It’s done.” He says with a heavy gravely Italian accent. “What do you want me to do with the body?” there was a pause while the man was listening to the other line. “The river?................. Will do.” The man hangs up his cell and outs it back in his pocket. “Afferra il corpo e andiamo.” (translation: ‘Grab the body and lets go.’) The man said in Italian to a big burly man wearing an oversized duster who he came out of the loft. The big guy picked up Camille’s lifeless body and throws her over his shoulder and started to follow the guy with the shaved head.  
   
  	At a bridge near the pier, a black mustang had pulled up over it and the man with shaved head and the big guy wear the duster got out of the car and headed to the trunk of the car. The man with shaved head opened the trunk and Camille’s corpse was stuffed in there. “Scrive il suo corpo nel fiume.” (translation: ‘Dump her body into the river’) The shaved headed guy said in Italian.  
  The big guy with the duster grabbed Camille’s dead body by her leather jacket she was wearing and throws her over his shoulder again. The man with shaved head was waiting in the drivers seat of the mustang watching the big guy carrying Camille’s body to the railing of the bridge. When the big guy got to the side of the bridge he plops Camille’s body on the railing and pushes her off the bridge by her legs and she drops into the river. Big guy with the duster walks back to the car, closes the trunk and enters the passenger side of the Mustang and they drive off back the city. 
   
  ~2~ 
  	2:47 a.m., Dt. Marcus Dax pulled up in front of a huge, gated suburban house that was white with a blue door. Blue and red flashes of light from the cop cars illuminated onto the house. He steps out of the car wearing dark blue jeans, a grey t-shirt and a black leather jacket holding a thermo mug with black joe (coffee). He walks up the driveway and into the house, the entry way lead into a long hallway off to one side and a staircase to the upstairs on the other side. He walks down the hall and walks into the dinning room which there was a table set for four poeple with a shandelier over it. He turns to the right and into the living room he went. The living room had white carpeting, a black leather couch against a suken in wall with a matching recliner beside it facing away from the dinning room.  
  	Dt. Dax looks down by the coffee table and there lies the body of a dead man wearing a baby blue shirt and red flannel pijama pants. The body was facing down and blood stains coming from under him from his abdomen.  
  	“What happened here?” Dt. Dax says in a thick boston accent kneeling down to the forensic taking pictures of the male corpse. 
  	“Male around mid thirties, was shot in the abdomen about three times.” The forensic sais to him. 
  	“Any signs of struggle?”  
  	“No, he was caught by surprise.”  
  	“Any other bodies?” 
  	“A female upstairs in the master bedroom.” 
  	“Okay going to check it out.” Dt. Dax stands up and makes his way up the staircase and into the bedroom with all the forensic and cops in it. He didn’t get a good at the female corpse, he puts his thermus down on the dresser that was closest to the entrance of the room. He moves closer to the female body and stopped dead in his tracks when he realized whose dead body was lying on the floor. He got a sudden sick feeling in his gut and wanted to throw up.  
  	“Dt. Dax, are you okay?” he looks over next him and there was a young women with honey comb colored hair wearing a pair of grey slacks and a white blouse. “You look a bit pale,” she points out to him. 
  	“I uh..... I just need to get some air.” He turns around and rushes out of the room with hand covering his mouth leaving this coffee behind. He descended the stairs and exits the house. He walks down the driveway and turns to a corner passing the open gate. Dt. Dax leand over and started to gag but nothing was coming up, he spit onto the ground and stood up straight and was breathing heavily when the young blonde with grey pant suit come up behind him hodling a water bottle and his thermus of black coffee.  
  	“Did you eat something bad for dinner?” She asks in an angelic voice.  
  	“I wish that was all it was.” Dt. Dax leand over again and threw up pretty much what was left of his dinner. 
  	“Did you know her?” she says to him handing him the water bottle. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand takes the water bottle from her.  
  	“Yeah, I did” He opens the bottle and takes a gulp then spits the water onto the pavement.  
  	“Ex girlfriend?”  
  	“Guess you could say that.” He takes a sip of the water and faces the beautiful blonde. “I dated her in high school but it didn’t last long.” 
  	“How come?” 
  	“Mostly complications between are fathers but we remaind friends.” 
  	“What’s her name?”  
  	“Cassandra Martins, formaly known as Cassandra Dawn.” 
  	“Woah, she’s Jack Dawn Sr.’s oldest daughter.” The blonde detective was astonished. 
  	“I’m geussing you’re familiar with him?” Dt. Dax started walking back to his car and the blonde detective followed him.  
  	“He’s one of Bronx’s top five crime mobsters out of twenty-seven in all of New York.” She says aloud. Dt. Dax stopped in front of his car and leans against the trunk with his arms crossed. “I was on a mobster case a couple of months ago and his name popped up on my radar. He illegally sold weapons and even sold some coke here and there back in the late eighties and early ninties. From my understanding he has retired from that but his son, Jack Jr, has taken over the business.”  
  	“Wouldn’t surprise me if he did.” 
  	“Why?” 
  	“Growing up with him and Cassandra,” he gives a little smirk than it faded away from his face. “That was all he talked about was when he was old enough he was gonna go into the family business, I told him that really wasn’t the life for him but he looked up to his father even though he was a big disappoinment to Jack Sr. Jackie’ was the family fuck-up, Cassandra was the “perfect” daughter she was the over achiever, she went to college. Jack Sr. wanted her to go into the business with him but she had other plans for herself, she owns an art museum got married to a doctor and had a kid. And then there was Camille Dawn, the youngest daughter, the outcast in the family.” 
  “There was a third one, I thought Jack sr only had the two?” 
   “She had a different mom than Jackie and Cassandra, she died giving birth to Camille though. But I knew when Camille got older, she was different, she was one real smart kid, even though she dressed all in black all the time and looked like she was a bad kid but she was a good kid she was just a loner. While her brother and father looked down on her, Cassandra looked out for her made sure that she got through school and got into a good college, she even let Camille live with her. Camille’s life was tougher than the other two, didn’t even know her own birth mother.” Dt. Dax finished. 
  	“Jeez, that sucks.” 
  	“How Camille put it was that her life never sucked, it was tough not being able to get any attention from her father, but it never sucked.” 
  	“You’re probably right about her, she is very different.” 
  	“Yeah” Dt. Dax walks to the drivers side and opens the door and then stops before he got in and turns to the female detective. “I never asked what happened here? And if anything happened to her daughter?”  
  	“Well, it looked like her husband was the first to go, he was probably getting something to drink, walked into the living room, saw are suspects and was shot on site. Cassandra looked like she was raped and stabbed about almost twenty times. And I have searched this house top to bottom and I have not seen the little. Right now all we can assume is that she is over at friends or with her grandfather.”  
  	Dt. Dax gets into his car but says something beofore closes the door, “Your priority Saunders, is to find out what happened here and she if you can find out where Sophia is.” He says, he was about to close the door but Saunders grabs it. 
  	“Where are you going?” she says  
  	“Im gonna go talk to the family see if I can find out anything. Keep me posted on anything you find.” Saunders nods her her head up and down and closes the drivers door. Dt. Dax starts the engine and drives off down the street.  
   
  ~3~ 
  	Dt. Dax was walking down the hall of an apartment complex in south Bronx. He turned the cornor and realized the fourth door to the left open and he realized some blood on the wall across from the apartment. Dt. Dax pulled out his standard 9mm handgun with instinct, prepaired for anything. He slowly walks to the apartment with his gun cocked up in front of him 
   
   
   
   Publication Date: November 21st 2012 https://www.bookrix.com/-deadened.hopes