The music played off the jukebox as each of us took a seat around the table. The old watering hole, known to all as the Crow’s Nest, was deserted with the old bartender as the only guest. The old geezer, Moe, as he was widely known, wiped down a glass tumbler like most bartenders did. He just wanted this to be over like all the rest of us did.

We were all here for a purpose. That purpose being control. Control over the ports, control over the cops, control over the politics, control of the drugs, and control over the skin. Basically control over this beat down city was the idea. But with six of us, each wanting what the other had, made a peaceful alliance out of the question. So here we were, doing it the old fashion way — six men, five bullets, one gun, and a game of chance and luck were all that stood between one of us getting everything.

I stared around the table as did the others. Everyone sizing up the other, the game of intimidation had begun.

Kiernan O’Connell, the Irishman, rubbed his hideously red beard as he tried to stare me down with his one good eye.

Simon “Snake” Salazarri, was looking all sorts of fishy as his eyes darted around the table, his fingers rubbing the collar of his green jacket.

Maximilian Masterson, Max to his friends, picked his teeth, his snobbery and entitlement ever apparent.

Jacob Jakobi, also known as the Jackal, was a stone wall, impenetrable to read as his body language spoke for him.

Frederick Killanger, the old man of the group, was silent and calculating and as always was looking menacing and almost evil.

And me, well, as the new kid, I was much to look at, but I was very smart which I how managed to get here in the first place.

Max pulled out the revolver, and we the rest of us pulled out a single bullet. Max pushed the gun to Killanger, who put in his bullet, spun the chamber, pushed it in and placed it back on the table. It had begun.

“Let’s get his over with,” Killanger spoke bluntly.

“Agreed,” Snake said.

Killanger spun the gun around. It landed on Max. He picked it up, pointed it at his head and…click. He passed it to his right, to which Kiernan picked it and repeated the same movements and… BANG! The Irishman was dead. First one down, four more to go. And so it repeated.

Click. Click. Click. BANG! Three.

Click. Click. BANG! Two.

Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. BANG! One.

Now it was just me and the one person I was hoping not to survive, Jakobi. As I pushed in my bullet, I couldn’t help but think about death. As I spun the chamber, I tremble at the fact that this could be the end. I placed the gun on the table and passed it to Jakobi. He picked it up and BANG! As he slumped to ground as I blinked in disbelief.

There’s was no way my plan worked. I smiled as I rose from my chair, the new king of the underworld. I walked to the door but before I left , a one called out.

“You are one lucky sonofabitch, you know that.”

I smiled as I opened the door. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it, old man. I knew all along that this was how it would end.”