When Raul received a call from the police early in the morning, informing him that his brother had died in a bar shootout, he did not feel much grief.
Their relationship was not particularly close. Although they lived in the same town, they seldom saw each other or kept in touch after becoming adults.
His brother was the leader of a gang, constantly embroiled in violence, living on the edge of the law and death; Raul, on the other hand, chose to go to college, and although he was unruly, he eventually became a guidance counselor.
Though he wasn't well-liked between teachers and students, at least it was a legitimate job.
Raul had long known that his brother would eventually die in some fight or shootout; the only question was how many years of glory he would have before his death.
That evening, Raul received a call, permitting him to go to the Miami-Dade County police morgue to claim his brother's body.
The morgue was freezing, and the air was filled with the acrid smell of disinfectant. The coroner opened a metal drawer, and a pale corpse lay bare before Raul.
The body had a gunshot wound to the head, the injury treated by post-mortem examination, but the bullet's path was still evident.
This was the first person to fall in the bar shootout last night.
Raul stood in front of the body, staring hard at the familiar yet strange face, suddenly feeling his throat tighten as if something was choking him, unable to speak.
It was only at this moment that he felt an indescribable sadness. The family bond of many years had abruptly ended like a string cut suddenly, and could never be mended.
"How did my brother die?" Raul finally spoke, his voice hoarse and low.
"He died from a gunshot," the coroner shrugged, handing Raul a stack of forms for claiming the body as a routine procedure.
"No, I mean why did the shooting happen? It was just a night of drinking at a bar, not supposed to end like this."
Raul was filled with doubts.
A bar for leisure, having a drink to pass the time, and picking up a couple of loose women to take home. How could such an ordinary activity turn into a deadly shootout?
What was the root cause of the conflict?
Although the brothers rarely contacted each other, Raul knew that his brother was always cautious. When dealing with smuggling business, he would not resort to violence lightly, even when encountering trouble.
Otherwise, the town's police would have already taken down the gang. There had to be something hidden behind this shootout?
The coroner had no answers, only stating that any questions should be directed to the police. The body would not be cremated until the case was closed and could be examined again at any time.
To unravel the mystery, Raul returned to White Beach Town.
He went to the town clinic, intending to ask some gang members who were slightly injured in the shootout for some answers.
Due to the involvement of a major case with ten dead or injured, all the injured parties were treated as suspects.
The severely injured were sent to major hospitals for treatment, while the lightly injured remained in the town clinic, but all wore electronic ankle monitors and were not allowed to leave.
However, when Raul arrived at the clinic, he found the place in utter chaos.
Urgent footsteps and shouting echoed in the corridor, and several nurses had pale faces, looking panicked.
Raul stopped a nurse and urgently asked, "What happened?"
The nurse gasped, her voice trembling, "Three guys with ankle monitors escaped. One smashed the clinic's back window, one rushed out the front door, and one tried to take me hostage."
"The ones who smashed the window and rushed the door got away, but the one who tried to take a hostage was shot dead by the police who arrived."
Following the nurse's gaze, Raul saw a corpse lying in the hallway, the shocking bloodstains spreading, not yet dried.
The medical staff were still in shock, and the police who arrived were swearing. No one had expected such a twist in such an already intense case.
The more Raul thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong. He pulled out his phone, fingers flying over the screen, searching through his contacts and making calls one by one.
But those gang members who usually called each other brothers seemed to have vanished into thin air. The calls he made were met either with cold busy signals or with silence as no one answered.
"What's going on?" Raul muttered with a frown. He continued scrolling through his contacts, expanding his reach, quickly confirming that the gang members were either dead, seriously injured in the hospital, or slightly injured and on the run.
Some had even been arrested as suspects. The few "lucky ones" who were not caught intentionally avoided him and did not answer his calls.
"This is too strange..." Raul murmured.
He had a feeling that everyone who knew something was hiding the truth, shrouding it in a thick fog that he couldn't penetrate.
He walked out of the clinic, quickly heading to his car, opened the door, and got inside. He glanced at the navigation map; the "Scorpion" bar, where the incident happened last night, was less than a kilometer away.
He stared at the bar's location, thinking if he couldn't get anything over the phone, he would go to the scene himself. Maybe there would be some clues left there.
The car took a few turns, and soon the "Scorpion" bar came into view. The bar's door was shut, and yellow police tape blocked the entrance.
The front door was closed, but the back door was open.
Raul silently slipped into the bar through the side door of the kitchen, pushing open the slightly rusted iron door, and a mixture of alcohol and blood hit him.
He had expected the place to be pitch dark, but to his surprise, the bar was lit.
The shootout scene hadn't been cleaned up, and the dim light cast a gloomy shadow on the disarrayed tables and chairs and the scattered glass shards, reflecting a scene of chaos.