The quiet before the storm is what finally woke him. In a cold sweat, he stumbled off the wrong side of the bed and toward the bathroom mirror, lighting up a cigarette as he went. Meeting his own gaze was difficult at best. For all intents and purposes what he saw staring back was a green-eyed monster.
Never before had he felt so alone in the world, a bubble burst by its own checkered past. He was a man of humble origins who'd risen to the top, having been the only game in town and a pillar of the community with red cents galore. Now he was a church mouse nobody, a bad apple in a barrel full of thin ice.
Once and for all he'd been called on the carpet by the love of his life and partner in crime, caught red-handed in another man's cookie jar. His better half had finally had enough and told him the jig was up.
"You bit the hand that fed you once too often," his lover told him, rubbing three days growth of beard and blowing smoke into his steely blue eyes. "Your heart is black, like a giant Ace of Spades. We're finished."