Fire and Guns

It was so terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. The Charity ball for Toys for Tots has started and everyone is showing up there tonight. This night starts the beginning of something that should have been stopped a long time ago.  

The McCarthy and O’Connor family have just arrived at the party looking spectacular as ever in their suits and dresses, this is going to be a night to remember. 

“Hey Raiden, Brandon over here, you’ve got to see what I have found,” Michael calls his friends over filled with excitement. 

Raiden and Brandon saw their friend Michael at the buffet area and they both decided to walk over but then Raiden stopped for a moment to see a young woman that has caught his eye. Wearing a dark blue tea-length lace dress that made her skin glow so bright that it warmed his heart. 

“Who is that fair lady that makes my heart rush so fast that I cannot breathe,” Raiden said to himself as he then notices the young lady staring back at him. Feeling shy, but he decides to walk over to her anyway. Jenny felt so flustered when she noticed the young man walking towards her, but then she felt a hand on her shoulder, her best friend Andrea’s. 

“Jenny your mom is looking for you. What’s going on with you?” “Well, I…” “Excuse me, may I have permission to ask you to dance?” Raiden asked the young lady as she smiled back at him and took his hand. “You may.” Raiden takes Jenny to the dance floor and both didn’t look away from each other. The song “Fall on me” from The Nutcracker and the Four Realms played made the guests at the party come to the dance floor as well and dance the night away. “Is it fate that has brought me here to meet you?” “I do not know because I have never encountered fate before, but if my prayer has been answered then yes even though I do not know your name, nor do you know mine.” “You are quite fair since we do not know each other, but I do wish to know. What is your name, my lady?” 

“Jenny!” Her mother calls out for her as she goes through the crowd with Nicholas.

Jenny acted quickly as she takes her dance partner’s hand and quickly goes the other way to hide for a moment. Once they were nearly in the clear someone bumped into Raiden and pushes him a little closer to share a small kiss on Jenny’s lips. That one small kiss made a spark filled with love in both hearts as they parted from each other's lips. Both looked into each other's eyes as they wanted to kiss each other once again, but Jenny stopped Raiden with fingers on his lips for a moment. “You have stolen my first kiss, and I still don’t know your name. What will become of us?’ “True but if that kiss wasn’t shared I wouldn’t have known the spark of true love would have not existed until now. My dear Jenny, your voice sounds timeless and I don’t want to stay away from your tender kiss.”

“Oh, sir who are you?” Jenny asked desperately when Raiden pulled her in and kisses her again with more passion but pulls apart once again as they hear a noise from behind.  “Jenny, your mother is calling you.” Andrea found them both and was shocked to see her best friend with the son of her enemy. Andrea takes Jenny’s hand and pulls Jenny away from Raiden back into the crowd.  

Raiden hurries after them through the crowd of the party, and he then soon saw Jenny coming over to her family stopping Raiden’s tracks to understand who she is. 

“She’s an O’Connor?” Raiden said to himself as he watched Jenny looking over to him and her friend Andrea whispers in Jenny’s ear. “That is Raiden, he is a McCarthy. A son of your enemy. It’s best not to see him again.” Andrea is only trying to protect her best friend, but she knows that Jenny is in love. 

Jenny is taken away by Nicholas and felt hurt for a moment, but it didn’t bother her at all because she is in love with her enemy. Raiden wrote a note on a napkin and quickly finds Jenny’s friend. “Miss can you please give this to Jenny please.” 

“I know, who you are Raiden McCarthy. There is no way I’m going to help you.” Andrea crosses her arms as she didn’t want to take any chances. “Please miss, I’m in love with her, and you know she’s in love with me as well. Do you want her to be unhappy?” Raiden asked Andrea as she know it was true. “Okay give me the note, I have to leave before anyone else sees me with you.” Raiden gives Andrea the note and she leaves the party with the rest of the family leaves as well.

Michael comes over to Raiden’s side as he wrapped his arm around Raiden’s neck. 

“There you are, where have you been? Brandon and I have been looking all over for you.” “I found the lady of my dreams.” “Oh, you did, did you? Well, what’s her name?” Michael is quite intrigued by curiosity. “Jenny O’Connor.” Raiden fell in love even just by saying her name, and he wanted to stay by her side. “Well, I’m sure you’ll meet her again soon because your family is asking for you. It’s time to leave for the night.” Michael walks back over to Raiden’s family. 

Raiden sighs as he walks back to his family. “Parting ways sure hurts the heart.” 

Later that night Andrea took Jenny over somewhere private to talk alone. “What do you want Andrea, you practically ruined my night with an amazing guy.” Jenny was frustrated that her night was ruined and wasn’t sure how much more she can take. “Jen I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to get hurt because your family and theirs have been at it with each other for years.” “Well it’s ridiculous, I’m not even a police officer, I’m a writer. I write fictional stories, not chase crime. Who says Raiden is a firefighter, I don’t know that because you pulled me away from him.” Jenny said as she tries to walk away but Andrea stops her. 

“You’re right, and that's on me, but I have something for you.” Andrea takes out the napkin from her purse and gives it to Jenny. She looks at the napkin with the note saying. “Meet me at The Taste of Verona restaurant, at noon I will wait for you my love, Raiden.”

Jenny felt so happy that this happened and felt foolish for being mad at Andrea. “Oh, Andrea thank you so much.” Jenny hugs her best friend and goes to her room, so she can have a good rest for tomorrow. 

Both Jenny and Raiden lay on their beds thinking about tomorrow with hope and excitement even though their families hate each other. But it’s what their family does. Jenny’s family is a long line of cops and lawyers, whereas Raiden’s family are firemen and doctors. It hasn’t been easy for anyone for both departments have gotten along with each other, but now it’s all about to change for Jenny and Raiden will end the feud together. 

The next morning came Jenny woke up early than usual, went onto her computer to get directions for The Taste of Verona, and wrote it all down quickly so she could arrive early to spend time with Raiden even longer. Once she had everything ready to go Jenny went downstairs and leaves the house before anyone could have a chance to talk to her, but her cousin got to her. 

“Hey Jen, where are you going? Nick wants to see you.” “Sorry Ty I am meeting someone right now, I have to go.” Jenny quickly gets into her car and drives away before there was another say in anything. Tyler has a bad feeling about something and he decides to go inside the house to find anything that will help him find out where Jenny is going. “Tyler what are you doing?” O’Connor asked as he wasn’t sure what was going on. “I think Jenny is seeing someone behind our back because she just left in a hurry and wouldn’t say where.” Tyler kept searching for anything but had no luck. 

“What makes you think it's someone?” “Trust me I know.”

Tyler goes upstairs into Jenny’s bedroom to find her laptop was still on, but the search link was gone, but has a way to get around that. Tyler worked his magic on the laptop and found the answer. “She’s going to The Taste of Verona restaurant.” “I’m coming with you” Nicholas wanted to know why Jenny is sneaking around like this. Both Tyler and Nicholas left the house together and drive over to the restaurant. It was going to be a bit of a drive since this is New York City and traffic is always the hard part in the city, and they also don’t know how far out Jenny is away from them.

Luckily Jenny knows shortcuts to the restaurant with time to spare. She may not like how rude the people are in this big city, but it is her home and there is no other place like it. As time passed driving through the Brooklynn bridge, and through the city that is well known all over the world, Jenny made it to the restaurant, she saw Raiden in front of the restaurant holding a bouquet of red roses for her. Jenny pulls up to the parking valet, and she saw the valet coming over and helps her out of the car and lets her go inside, but Jenny walks over to Maiden. “Hi.” Jenny moves her hair out of her face as she felt bashful. “Hi, you look beautiful.” “Thank you. You look handsome yourself.” 

“Thanks, these are for you.” Raiden gives Jenny the roses and she smells them sweetly. “They’re beautiful, thank you.” Jenny felt so lucky and is looking forward to today. “You are most welcome. Shall we?” “We shall.” Jenny takes Raiden’s arm and walks into the restaurant together. 

Tyler and Nicholas felt worried for Jenny as they have no idea what got into Jenny’s mind to run off like this. “I’ve never seen Jenny act like this before, have you?” Tyler asked Nicholas as he was curious. “No, not since last night. Ever since we came home from the party last night she’s been acting different than usual.” 

“Something must’ve happened at the party; did you see anyone near her that could have scared her or anything?” “From what I can remember she was happy when she arrived at the party with us, and when her mother tried to find her, she did some disappearing act and then found her feeling sad, but that is all I know.” Nicholas tries so hard to remember every little detail of his surroundings until he remembered something. 

“Wait, there was someone, he looked so familiar, we’ve seen him now and then, but I can’t remember, who…oh man I know who Jenny was with.”

“So why didn’t you want to become a firefighter?” Jenny asked Raiden as she wanted to get to know him more. 

“Well, I was born with Stage 1 Asthma, so I got a free card for not needing to join the department, but I love to cook, so I’m a chef. I go to the fire station now and then, but I’m no firefighter. I’m just a chef that cooks from the heart.” Raiden smiled as he wasn’t shy to tell of his feeling and what he loves to do. “Wow that sounds lovely, how come you didn’t cook for me instead of coming here?” Jenny asked as she would like to try his food.

Raiden looked over on the corner to make Jenny turn around to see Raiden’s picture with the head chef. Jenny couldn’t believe her eyes but made her excited even more. 

“You work here?” “What better way to taste my food, right?” Raiden smiled as he likes to see Jenny’s face light up. “Raiden McCarthy, you are full of surprises. The finest Italian restaurant in town, roses, and now the best seats. I’m speechless.” Jenny didn’t have the words to say but felt happy. “Well, that’s because I want you to be happy. Every day from now on.” “I as well Raiden.” Jenny takes his hands into hers as she leans in and kisses Raiden as he kisses her back. 

“What the heck, is going on here?” Tyler said furiously with Nicholas by his side. 

“Jenny, what are you doing with him? I thought we had something special.” Nicholas felt heartbroken as the situation is getting worse. 

“Gentleman I don’t want any trouble to frighten the customers.” Raiden stayed calm as he noticed some of the customers are looking over at their tables. “It’s fine by me, as long as Jenny comes with us.” Tyler acts all big brother, but Jenny backs up to Raiden’s side. “I’m not going with you.” Jenny holds onto Raiden as she felt scared. 

“Yes, you are.” “Let go of me!” Jenny pulls away from Tyler, but he kept on pulling on her. 

“Let her go!” Raiden punches Tyler in the face which made him let go of Jenny. 

Nicholas then punches Raiden in the gut, which became a bad fight. Customers hurried out of the restaurant as the head chef came out of the kitchen to try to stop the fighting, but it got worse. Tyler fights off Raiden badly when Jenny reacted and jumps onto his back and held onto his neck to pull him away from Raiden. Tyler backed up as he tries to get Jenny off his back. Tyler was so strong that Jenny lost her grip and landed on one of the tables badly. “Jenny!” Raiden hurries to her side to see that she got stabbed in the gut by accident with a piece of the wine glass as she bleeds out slowly. “No, no, no. It’s going to be okay.”

Tyler, Nicholas, and Raiden’s boss stop to see what happened, but things got, even more, worse when the candles from the tables were knocked over from the table caught the tablecloths on fire, and starting to make the restaurant go up in smoke. They were all trapped. Raiden starts coughing hard when he could breathe from the smoke, then blacked out quickly.

The Fire Department and Police came right away when they heard that the restaurant was set ablaze. Firefighters quickly got inside getting everyone out safely, but Jenny and Raiden didn’t look good. “Get buses over here!” Brandon calls out to his fellow men as EMTs came over quickly to Raiden and Jenny’s side to keep them alive. 

Raiden and Jenny were taken to the hospital as the EMT tries to stop the bleeding from Jenny’s wound and tried to keep Raiden’s heartbeat going. Time went by quickly as the ambulances arrived at the closest hospital as doctors and nurses came over to the couple and took them both to the Operating Room. 

Hours went by and still no news while both McCarthy and O’Connor are waiting and worried for their children. The head chef and Father Lucas came over to the families and told them what happened at the restaurant. Both families are shocked to hear this news, but it was the truth. “Are you all happy now? How your hate has affected your children and nearly kills them. How far are you going to go to keep this feud going until someone dies? This feud ends now and pray to God that both Raiden and Jenny survive this cruel day." Father said with anger and anxiety as he listens to the cries of both families letting out their pain.  

“John I’m very sorry,” O’Connor said as he meant every word with fear in his heart. 

“As am I Bruce,” McCarthy said as he didn’t want this fight to go any longer. 

Soon the hospital doors opened to see two different doctors coming out which made both families stand with alarmed looks on their faces. “McCarthy?” The first doctor asked. “Yes?” “Your son is doing just fine, he will be needing to stay home for a while to get his breathing back to normal. We have him on some breathing medications for his lungs, but other than that he’s going to pull through.” 

“Mr. O’Connor, your daughter is doing well. We stopped the bleeding just in time. She’s going to be fine, a lot of care to make sure there’s no infection, but she is going to be alright.” The second doctor said. Both families felt relieved both of their kids survived this traumatic day.

“You can see them both now in recovery.” The first doctor said as both families followed the doctors into the recovering room to see Raiden and Jenny’s bed attached to the side as their hands held together. 

 A feud is finally over, and the two lovers can live on with their continuous story. 

The End