Far Too Young To Die

Chapter Four

Victor was gone, it seemed.

It had been days, almost a week, since they had last seen Victor, and it was pretty worrying. Victor never did this, he was always there - he was always at the headquarters in the evenings barking out orders at people and organising things. They were always kept busy, and people often complained about it, complained how they never had any free time. However, now that they'd not done anything for so long, they felt like they were going crazy. They needed to something, but didn't know what they could do really. It was a well known fact that a lot of people in the gang weren't the biggest fan of him seeing as he'd been favourited previously, but they needed him. It killed them to admit it to themselves, but they did. The saying 'you don't know what you have until you lose it' seemed to fit this situation perfectly.

After Victor's sudden disappearance, they turned to his best friend, his second in command, and now he was left to pick up the pieces and decide what to do.

James Stone sat in the main meeting room of their headquarters. He leaned his head back against the black leather couch he was sitting on, letting out a loud sigh as he ran his fingers through his blonde hair.

He was tall, not as tall as Victor but not much shorter either. He was equally as pale as Victor, his eyes were a deep blue however, contrary to the leader's dark green. James looked like he hadn't slept in weeks, which wasn't far from the truth. He soon sat up and lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke out slowly as he thought.

He and Victor went way back - if there was anyone that Victor trusted, it was James, and vice versa. Victor was the only one who had ever attempted to protect him, the only one who seemed to care about him. But that's a story for another day.

Despite the fact that James had joined a year or so before Victor and was more experienced with gangs and running one, he didn't want to be the new leader when that issue came up. He wanted to give Victor the opportunity. He wanted it more than James did, and he wanted to give back to him for everything Victor had done for him. Plus, he also wanted to piss a lot of people off. He saw his chance and took it, really.

Even though Victor was the leader, he would often come to James with decisions he had to make if he felt he needed advice. He had been doing it more and more often just before his supposed disappearance, and people knew that, so they were starting to assume that he'd left because of the pressure. However, James knew better than that. He knew that Victor wouldn't leave permanently, not without any prior notice anyway. Not without telling him first.

But then that begged the question - why did he leave? Why has he suddenly abandoned them? He didn't want to believe what everyone was saying, but maybe...just maybe...they were right.

They couldn't be. Victor wouldn't do that to them. He wouldn't do that to him.

It seemed like everyone just expected him to conjure Victor up out of nowhere, seeing as he was his best friend. James wished with every fibre of his being that it was that simple, but it wasn't. To add to his frustration, Victor wasn't answering his work phone. He had tried time and time again, left voicemail after voicemail, but it didn't make any difference. If Victor didn't want to be contacted, he would make it impossible. He would make it so that no one could find him or talk to him, and he was good at it. That was one thing that James hated about him, the fact that it was so easy for him to separate himself from everyone he knew.

James picked his phone up from the table, staring at the contact name on the screen.

'Victor Work'