CHARISMATIC
Jeung was always the first kid into anything new on the scene. First
to dye his hair, first to get a lip piercing, first to get into (and
then out of, as others picked up on the trend) a series of increasingly
bewilderingly-named Euro dance trends.
He was also first to murder someone - some junkie bum that he had
found in one the old warehouses down at the Waterfront, and stabbed to
death with a ceremonial dagger that he bought on an internet auction
site. He was fifteen at the time.
Afterwards, to commemorate the act, he took his girlfriend
Charlotte down there and used the same knife to carve the outline of a
flower design - a rose - into both their arms.
And that's how the Blood Roses were born.
Jeung always knew he was meant for something a lot more
interesting than the safe, cosseted existence he had lived so far,
growing up surrounded by the Old Money world of The Concession. He
thought he was going to be a rock star, maybe. Or a DJ or fashion
designer. Instead, sealed in that blood pact he had made with Charlotte,
he became a criminal.
Jeung became the dark star around which like-minded souls soon
orbited. Most of them were kids like him and Charlotte, from The
Concession or Virginia Gardens, but looking for something different -
their own scene - away from the traditional gangs that ran in those
districts. They congregated together in the VIP suite of the Beltane
Club, ironically converted from the warehouse building where Jeung had
murdered that bum just a few short years earlier. There were plenty of
drugs around in the scene down there, but that wasn't what Jeung and his
crew were into, not if they wanted to stay sharp and focussed, mentally
and physically. Where Jeung led, the others quickly followed.
The first job they pulled was late night club talk made real,
done almost on a dare among each other. They went in scared, even Jeung,
who already had blood on his hands. They came out exhilarated, on a
high better than anything you could buy in any of the clubs. They money
they made from it didn't hurt, either.
They pull more jobs, start getting a name for themselves. Jeung
meets Tyron Sennet, recognises him for the type he is - hangs around
money and success, looking to feed off any crumbs that come his way -
but recognises that he has his uses. Then Michael Simeone makes his
presence known and hits Jeung with a few harsh home truths.
The Blood Roses are good at what they do, and he admires
professionalism in others, but if they're going to move up to the next
level - out of the clubs and onto the streets of the Waterfront to make a
big chunk of the city their own - then they're going to need some
representation and professional management when it comes to dealing with
people who have been doing this a whole lot longer than them.
Jeung thinks about it, thinks about his old teenage dreams of
being a rock star, and then signs up. Simeone's management, but he's
still the front man, the one the rest of the crew listen to and follow.
He'll go along with Simeone's arrangement. At least for the moment.
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