Scammers MxM (Staten Krown)

4

"Welcome to Venice."

His voice is cool and collected. Bashir literally has me on a gondola right now. We took a private jet out of the country. I didn't even have a passport for godsakes, but then again I just literally robbed a museum so I didn't think being in another country illegally was that much further out of the scope of the shit I've gotten myself into.

"It's beautiful," I state.

It's an understatement. We were on a gondola! A gondola in fucking Venice. I didn't ask any questions about why we were here. It wasn't that I wasn't curious, but I just didn't want to look like that one kid who never got out.

Roger looks over at me. The All American boy sees right through my disguise, "I take it you don't get out much."

I'm looking around like an idiot and he catches me. Venice was beautiful to say the least. It's made up of all these land masses in a lagoon. We are on the lagoon at the end of Venice's signature waterways. The city seemed to be made of beautiful marble palaces. Golden domes towered over the city. All of these foreign people looking like little invaders of my reality lined the streets reflecting the teal shade of the waters we rode on.

I had to admit it, even to a dick like Roger, "No. Never been out of the country."

"Never?" he asks.

You would think I was telling him that I never saw snow or something common like that. Maybe he's rich or something. Or maybe he's been around Bashir long enough to have gotten used to this kind of fast paced lifestyle. One day in one country, the next day in another with no sense of appreciation of moving.

The city was magical, to say the least and I couldn't hold back my wonder.

"Maybe I'll take you out when we have some time," Bashir states, "Show you the city. Maybe show you the garden islands, or the Basilica of San Marco or the Palazzo Ducale."

At this point I didn't even know if he was speaking English. At this point I didn't even think I really cared. I shrug, pretending like it's nothing and mutter a, "That's would be dope."

"We don't have the time," Destiny adds in.

"What are you...the Clock Nazi?" Bashir asks her sighing before leaning back as though he was in a lounge chair on a lazy Sunday. Then he quickly adds, "We make time for the things we want."

It goes over my head when he says it but Bashir makes sure that I don't forget. He looks over at me and gives me a wink. A steady acknowledgment that he's talking about me in case I doubted it or in case my straight mentality didn't register. It registered alright.

I adjust myself in the gondola. I'm in a strange country with an even stranger man and for some reason, for some odd, odd reason...my heart can't stop racing.

~

We arrive at the port where the gondola stops. A small island in Venice right off the canals holds a small cottage house that seemed to be from another time. Bashir gets off and opens the door to the ancient structure. The outside of the building looks like a Shakespeare play but the inside has a modern feel to it. It looks like a loft in Manhattan.

It's empty, barren with no sort of decoration but a real industry feel to it. The windows are large and they overlook the canals.

"I know it's not much," he tells me as we walk in, "But it's our hideout for now. Roger, do you mind?"

I'm not sure what he means but I see that Bashir is immediately getting to work on something and Destiny seems like she is helping out with whatever it is. He looks over at me when he talks to Roger. A signal that I don't understand happens. It's relatively quickly and I don't know for sure what it means but I think he wants Roger to show me to where I'm going to be staying. I just have a hunch. What else happens when you walk into a place you don't know?