Gangster Cinderella

Chapter Forty Eight: Every Cinderella Needs Her Shoes

The girl everyone calls Cinderella stares at me with utter confusion painted across her face as she slowly turns red. I can hardly blame her for having this reaction to someone other than her significant other wanting to buy her a pair of high heels; hell, even I can't wrap my head around why I want to see her in heels so badly. I guess I want to know what the Cinderella standing before me would look like in a pair of glass slippers; how her calves will look when she's walking in twelve inch heels; if her legs would look longer and more slimming and if she'll step on-...shit, am I pervert? Can someone even be perverted about high heels? Is this woman turning me into a total degenerate?

"Why?" Her question snaps me out of my perverse fantasies.

I wrack my brain for the most plausible excuse but end up saying, "What kind of Cinderella doesn't have a pair of glass slippers?"

"Uh huh..." I could practically see the wheels turning in her brain as she weighs the options of having some rando buy her a pair of shoes for information or just leaving. "Ok, fine. But you better actually give me information or else I'll tase you." She climbs on her motorcycle and looks back at me expectantly, "Well, are ya gonna get on?"

I climb on the back of her Suzuki Hayabusa and awkwardly wrap my arms around her waist. Within seconds- no milliseconds we're flying down the street. She dodges cars and trucks with speed and near perfect precision; her only true opponent being the wind whipping pass us. While riding like this is terrifying, it's also the most alive I've felt in a long time. Strangely I don't think I'd mind dying like this.

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We make it to a department store in record time before closing. I take my time looking at each and every high heel they have, but so far none of them screamed Cinderella to me. I go to look for her to find her holding a pair of clear high heels decorated with little rhinestones and silver spikes. It's not exactly what I think a classic Cinderella would've worn to the dance, but I think it's what the Cinderella standing before me would wear.

"Try them on." I tell her. "The store is gonna close soon and I'd like to buy them for you." 

"Uh ok." I follow her over to one of the chairs in the store and watch her intently as she bends over to take off her shoes. My breath catches in my throat as she slides one of the elegant clear shoes on her foot. I watch her in awe as she stands up in her glass slippers and walks over to a mirror to admire the high heels. A whole new side to this wild child emerges and for a moment she seems like your average girl. Not someone who'd you find racing thugs or going after gangsters for revenge; yet somehow that made me fall harder for her. "So how do they look?"

Her question snaps me from my meandering thoughts and what slips out of my mouth is, "Beautiful." 

"Well, you got what you wanted. Hurry and pay for them so you can tell me who the fucker is that helped with hurting my mom." Within seconds the mirage of an average teenage girl dissipates before my eyes and in its place is the hardened street racer Cinderella.

Her phone's ringer goes off and I take that as my chance to go pay for the shoes. While I'm at the cash register, I can't help but watch her as she smiles and twirls a curly brown strand of hair around her finger. Then she says, "Mikey" in the most loving and softest tone I have ever heard. My heart throbs and aches with jealousy towards Mikey for being able to elicit such cute reactions from Cinderella.

"Um...sir your signature?"

I look down and notice the store receipt that needs my signature. My face heats up from embarrassment as I quickly scrawl my name on the dotted line and take the shoes. I go over to Cinderella with her glass slippers and say, "Before I tell you about the guy who was involved, I want to know your real name Cinderella."

"It's Chieko Hori, what about you Inupi?"

I hand over the shoe box and say, "Seishu Inui, now let's go somewhere no one can hear us and I'll tell you all about the guy who helped Kita Yashido."

We leave the store and go down the alley where she had left her motorcycle parked. She turns to me and simply says, "Ok, talk."

"The guy who helped your step mother is a guy in the gang named Goro. He usually takes up jobs like following people around and transporting people and objects. He's basically the get away driver to put it simply. Before you go after him, you should know that there's a way to take down both him and your step mother at the same time."

She stares at me in amazement and quietly asks, "How?"

"They're going to be meeting up at an abandoned tobacco factory on the edge of town to discuss the payment since the job was incomplete at around seven pm on Christmas Eve. Get the cops over there and you'll be able to kill two birds with one stone."

She puts the shoe box in her backpack before saying, "Thank you...I mean it, thank you so much."

My heart thuds against my chest. "I just hope that's enough to not see you on Christmas."

Chieko looks away guiltily, "Sadly I can't make any promises. See ya around Inui!"

I silently watch her from the dark alley way as she speeds off under the cover of the neon glow of the Tokyo fashion district. A part of me was stolen by that clumsy thief yet again and I'm left alone to ponder why I yearn for a woman who's already in bed with the enemy.

A/N: As of today we have 69 parts in this story with 420 votes. The stars truly aligned on this one.