Christmas Downfall: Don, You Shouldn't Harass A Mafia Princess

Plane tree leaves, whirled by the wind, slammed against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, making a faint, crackling sound-exactly like the tap of Daniel's frost-numbed, red fingertips on my window lattice that snowy six years ago.

"Have you heard? Daniel. he's working for Grizzly on the South Side now."

The silver spoon I was stirring my black tea with clinked sharply against the porcelain.

Scalding steam billowed up against my face.

Grizzly- a household name in the city's underworld, who controlled half of the port's smuggling routes, his rackets ranging from casinos to dockside warehouses, so powerful that even the police department gave him a wide berth. How could Daniel have gotten mixed up with someone like that?

"It's more than just working for him," my best friend leaned in closer, her voice tinged with unmistakable gossip and wariness.

"Word is he's Grizzly's right-hand man now. Last month, he took a bullet for Grizzly from a rival-three ribs broken, and he didn't even groan. Oh, and that tattoo artist Lola-"

She paused, a note of disgust in her tone.

"Lola had a son with him, but the kid has a congenital heart disease. The surgery costs a million US dollars."

A million.

I lowered my eyes to the tea leaves settled at the bottom of the cup, and suddenly I remembered three years ago, before Daniel had been completely sucked into that mess, he'd taken me to the Night Leopard Club, owned by Grizzly.

That day, he'd worn a crisp black suit, a matte gold bear-head badge pinned to his lapel-the symbol of Grizzly's inner circle. He'd popped open a bottle of 1982 Lafite at random, the number on the label searing my eyes like a red-hot iron. That bottle of wine had cost exactly a million US dollars.

To raise money for the surgery, Daniel took on the riskiest job from Grizzly: intercept a shipment of arms belonging to his rival Cobra at the docks. He sneaked into the warehouse with three of his brothers, only to walk into an ambush.

He took two stab wounds in the shootout, yet dragged himself through the pain to seize the arms anyway.

But the money was still warm in his hands when Lola took half of it to buy limited-edition bags and jewelry.

Endless arguments broke out between them.

Daniel called her immature, saying it was their son's life-saving money; Lola smashed the bear-head badge on his desk and screamed that he was "Grizzly's dog," that the money he earned was filthy.

Once, they argued until the early hours of the morning, and Daniel, losing his temper after her tirades, accidentally pushed her down the stairs.

When she called the police, she deliberately threw the badge at the officers' feet-she knew Grizzly hated nothing more than his men dragging personal matters into the open.

Grizzly's punishment came fast.

Daniel was locked in the warehouse's freezer all night, half-dead when he was let out, yet still clutching the surgeon's operation notice.

But before he could recover, Lola absconded with the remaining money one dawn, leaving only a note: "Living with someone like you for a lifetime is worse than finding someone who can give me a stable life."

The child didn't make it through that winter.

It snowed heavily that day, just like it did on that Christmas eve.

Daniel knelt in the snow, holding the child's body, while the man Grizzly sent stood beside him and said coldly: "Grizzly says you broke the rules-this is your lesson."

He didn't cry, just buried his face in the child's cold little quilt, his shoulders shaking like fallen leaves in the wind.

Later still, someone found Lola in a nightclub in a small southern city.

She was hanging on the arm of a sixty-year-old businessman, a diamond ring the size of a pigeon's egg on her finger, lighting a cigarette for the old man.

The nightclub was Cobra's territory, and when Daniel found her, he was followed by two of Grizzly's bodyguards-Grizzly had said, "Settle your own debts."

When he burst in, Lola was smiling brightly as she fed fruit to the old man.

Daniel grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out; Cobra's security guards swarmed to beat him, his face bruised and swollen, two teeth knocked out, yet he clung tightly to her wrist and refused to let go.

When the police arrived, he laughed through a mouth full of blood, his voice raspy like a broken bellows: "Run! Even if you run to the ends of the earth, I'll make you pay for my son's life!"

The bear-head tattoo on his wrist twisted with the force of his grip-the "mark" Grizzly had given him.

In the late autumn courtyard, fallen leaves carpeted the ground thickly, just like the ginkgo-leaf-strewn path he'd walked on the day he brought me roasted sweet potatoes.

I fell silent for a long time, my fingertips tracing the crack on the teacup-the one he'd accidentally smashed the last time he came begging me for help.

He'd knelt before me then, his suit still stained with blood, and said: "lend me some money-my son is dying."

I'd said: "Daniel, we haven't had anything to do with each other for a long time."

But I gave him the card anyway.

Later, Grizzly's lawyer told me that Lola had taken the money, not a cent of it spent on the child.

"I see." I looked up, my voice as faint as the mist outside the window.

My best friend looked at me worriedly.

"Are you okay? I heard Grizzly's been cleaning house lately, and Daniel. he might be sent on a suicide mission."

I lowered my head and took a sip of tea; it had gone cold, just like the roasted sweet potato he'd given me in the snow that year, which had finally turned cold in my hand.

Through the hazy steam, I seemed to see the eighteen-year-old Daniel on that Christmas eve.

He was wearing a faded school uniform, a smudge of roasted sweet potato char on his collar, and he turned to wave at me from the classroom door, his smile as bright and clean as the sunlight after snow.

He said: "When I make money someday, I'll buy you the best roasted sweet potatoes in the whole world."