"Damn it! I'm out of paper! Get me more paper, now!"
Marcus Kane, the boss of the Valentin Party, slammed a sheet covered in writing onto his desk and roared at the underling standing beside him:
"What are you standing around for?! Move!"
"Yes, boss!"
The subordinate snapped out of his daze after the shouting and scrambled out of the study. Before long, he returned, panting, with a thick stack of writing paper in his arms.
Marcus snatched the paper, grabbed the Parker Fountain Pen he had almost crushed in his grip, and bent over his desk to scribble furiously again.
There was no trace of his usual lofty demeanor as a gang boss.
His eyes were red, their whites riddled with alarming blood vessels. His normally immaculate slicked-back hair was now a tangled bird's nest, and his silk pajamas were soaked in cold sweat, clinging tightly to his body. He had not slept for days and nights, and his right hand trembled uncontrollably around the pen.
In truth, he was on the verge of being driven mad.
Although he ran such a large gang in East Borough, Marcus had always had some confidence in his brains. Most of the time, however, he trusted the revolver and machete in his hands more.
He would wager that, from the days he had done odd jobs at a dilapidated church school as a child until now, all the words he had written in his entire life did not add up to as many as he had written tonight!
But he had no choice! That damned bad luck was still there!
He had initially thought he could get away with having a few underlings copy the letters for him. Yet after their copies were mailed, nothing changed. Calamity still clung to him relentlessly.