We are on the back side of September and sliding into October.Time marches on. Whoopee. I’m going to digress for a moment. Way back in the way back, I kept doing these random Thursday Threads flash fiction scenes. They started to follow a pattern, of sorts, and from that developed the idea of a trilogy of series about mob Wolves. This was partly spurred on by the Russian, of Nightrider fame. Yes, he has a brother in the Russian mob. So, I had Irish mobster, Russian mobsters, and Italian mobsters. Boston. New York City. Chicago. The Irish Wolves pushed to the forefront and took over so I decided to start their series. Only it turned out they wanted their stories all joined together in one honkin’-big book. Anyway, for last week’s Thursday Threads challenge, I was so close to the end of MOONSTRUCK MAFIA: BOSTON (working title) that I wrote random words for last week. With one of the Russian characters. Here’s the prompt: *”I looked at the signs.”* I can’t fill you in because…totally random, yet it still tells a story, which is what flash fiction is all about. When will the Russians get their book? No clue. Right now, I’m only thinking about getting these Irish rogues out into the wild. In the meantime, here:

****
She wasn’t sure why she’d come. She didn’t belong here, wasn’t comfortable, especially since Dimitri was here. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have stayed. Yet…

Yeah, she thought. That’s a lie. She’d come to the restaurant in Brighton Beach with the express purpose of finding him. The hair on the back of her neck prickled as the hostess led her to a table. She didn’t have to look to know that Dimitri had eyes on her.

She sat, opened a menu, waited. It took five minutes before he slid into the chair opposite her. She prayed he couldn’t hear the rapid beat of her heart.

“Why are you here?”

She held up the menu. “Dinner?”

“You are asking or stating?”

Laying the menu on the table, she inhaled deeply to settle her nerves and to fortify them. “I…uhm…” She breathed again. “Okay. It’s like this. I have this…hobby.”

Dima smirked. “You are called Gypsy for a reason. Why are you here, Gypsy girl?”

“Someone came to me and asked about you. I looked at—”

“The signs are all there,” he interrupted.

Wide-eyed, she stared at him. He believed in signs? She’d expected him to dismiss her theories because they came from her reading of the Tarot cards. No one ever believed her when she tried to explain what she’d read there.

“Then you know?” she asked.

“Know what?”

“Whatever you plan to do tonight, you can’t do it. Not and live.”

His smile chilled her. “Challenge accepted.”
****

There it is. I have no clue who Gypsy is, and that is not her name, just what she’s called. I have no clue what Dima is up to (Dima being the “familiar” of Dimitri). Only the cards will tell the tale, I guess. Psst. I am kinda excited to have a character who’s into Tarot. Okay, back to work for me. The challenge I’ve accepted today is picking a title. What challenge will you accept today?

Added note: I’m the Week 637 winner of Thursday Threads! Which was last week’s! Woot. 🥳 I’ve now won 71 times. Wow! It’ll be interesting to see what prompt is chosen for tomorrow!

Additional added note: Yes, I typed The End yesterday afternoon. Prologue, 54 chapters, Epilogue, and approximately 157K words. That’s the equivalent of 3 of my regular books. Today, I’m staying away from the computer except to answer emails and occasionally respond to social media. Tomorrow, the very tedious task of editing and revising starts. Oh boy. Fun times. Maybe.