Chapter 1 - And it Started
Martin! It’s lunch time. I’ve cooked your favorite dish, Fried Potato Cheese”.
It was his mother calling him for lunch while he was sitting on the 2nd stair at the main entrance of his house. Martin was mostly found in the same place, visualizing something, like he was planning for something big and he always sneered by his elders for this habit.
“Martin! It’s the 5th time I’m calling you for lunch”. This time Mrs. George shouted in a cruel voice and he finally moved in a lazy, dull style towards his most boring place The Dining Table. Mr. George and his three elder sons were already there and Mrs. George was entering into the dining hall with a big tray in her hands.
“O my dear Lord. You are finally here MARTIN.”
Mrs. George’s mood got a little better. And after putting the tray on table, she sat down on the chair next to Mr. George. “Martin you should help me along with your brothers in my business. I want you all to come to our shop to help me.” Mr. George suggested his sons advisedly. His hands stopped in the middle when he had brought the fork to eat one of the pieces of potatoes. “Yeah, I shall join you”. Martin’s accent was enough to make realize to his father that he wasn't interested. “I want you to be in the shop right after your school. There are a lot of costumers in the day time and I can’t attend them all.” Mr. George ordered this time. “But papa, Mathews and Churchill are…” “No buts, you should be there tomorrow”. Mr. George ended the conversation while his son was trying to convince him.
Martin Thomas Barajas, the fourth and the youngest son of Barajas’ Family, was 17 years old when he noticed that thing for the first time. Martin was a pretty red head child with chubby cheeks and long nose. The short-heighted boy was the apple of the eye for whole family. His father, Mr. George Thomas Barajas was a book shop keeper and his shop had gathered a lot of fame in the adjacent blocks of his area. Most of the literate people of New York often used to visit his shop to find the desired volumes of books. Mr. George has his family business of selling and printing books. Barajas Family was very famous for his quality printing books and the bestselling authors of New York, Manhattan and Queens often sign contract with this family. In short, Barajas Family has a solid brand name in the streets of New York. But this flight of fame and progress couldn't last long when Martin's grandfather Mr. Thomas was betrayed by his partner family, The Lucianos.
The Lucianos and The Barajas were family friends for the last 3 generations, but this friendship came to an end when one day in the late summers of 1862 Charlie Adam Luciano, the best friend and business partner of Mr. Thomas, reached their printing industry and saw that Mr. Thomas was trying to do something suspicious. When he entered in the office, he saw that Mr. Thomas was having a meeting with their business advocate and the property papers of the printing factory were in the hands of Mr. Thomas.
Mr. Luciano unintentionally got a suspicious feeling and wasn't able to understand the situation. Apparently he went out from the factory, but his mind was completely stuck in the incident. The Lucianos actually had 40% shares in industry while 60% of the shares were in the pocket of Barajas. So this difference of percentage made Mr. Charlie A. Luciano a victim of inferiority and Mr. Luciano had a constant suspicious glance on the activities of Barajas.
When Mr. Thomas saw Mr. Luciano going back from the industry, he realized that something wrong has happened and he rushed after him and stopped him while he was getting out of the main gate. "CHARLIE! CHARLIE!", Mr. Thomas was shouting while he was running after him. But Mr. Luciano wasn't listening to him at all.
"Charlie listen to me", Mr. Thomas grabbed his shoulder and asked him with his shortened breath.
"Charlie what is the problem? Why you came back in such an odd way? Is everything---"
"STOP!" Mr. Luciano shouted angrily "You think I'm a fool? You'll take over my business by plotting evil against me and I'll keep quite?"
Mr. Thomas was completely boggled by the words of Mr. Luciano. "What the hell are you babbling?" This time Mr. Thomas got tempered.
"I'm babbling? What the hell where you doing inside with that advocate and with MY PROPERTY papers?" Mr. Luciano elucidated in an acrimonious way.
Mr. Thomas lost his temper too, and said "What do you mean by My Property? This is a shared property and don't forget I'm the 60% owner of this property and I can kick you out from this business whenever I want."
"You'll pay for your words." Mr. Luciano warned him and left.
The very next week, a headline was printed in the New York Times that Managing Director of B. L. Corp Ltd. gets kill in a hit and run case. After this incident which was in fact a murder, Mr. Luciano took over the whole industry and Barajas were out of the theme.
George Thomas at that time was only 15 years old and all the responsibilities of the family were thrown on the shoulders of George Thomas. The only business Barajas had at that time was the book store which Mr. Thomas Barajas inaugurated to entertain his hobby of reading and selling books.
Gradually, Mr. George expanded that book store and became the top book seller of the city. That is the reason that Barajas Book Shelf was so famous in New York and especially in that particular area.
It was 03:18 p.m. on a very pleasant day in New York and Martin Barajas was just arrived from his school to his father’s shop. Martin entered the shop and moved towards the book shelves without even looking at his father. There wasn't something new for his father because the arrival of Martin in his shop itself was a great achievement. Martin went straight in the 3rd row of Science and Technology Section and started giving a detailed glance at all books. A book fell down on the floor with his hand while he was inspecting the books by looking at their title covers. He bent down to pick that book up. After clearing the dust from its cover, he put that book again in the shelf and moved in the next row of the same section. In no time, he was completely drenched in the pond of books and he was looking at each and every book with great care and with an enormous interest, like he was searching for some specific topic. Suddenly, he saw a book named as “Fire and Its History”. The book was on the uppermost shelf and was far away from his reach. Martin turned back towards the counter to bring some support to climb up. He found nothing over there but after looking around he found rolling stair ladder in the Arts Section. He moved it to the Science and Technology Section and climbed up to take out that book from the shelf. Martin took out the book and started reading a couple of the initial pages. He found that book interesting and in the mean time he imagined to take that book to his home and to read it the whole night. While he was imagining his whole day with that book, he saw one corner of that shelf to be empty. The corner was dirty and it gathered a lot of dust. The corner was a bit dark too, because it was in the opposite direction of the sunlight coming from the window. One of the bulbs of that section was also fused and no one had changed it yet.
Martin decided to clean up that corner, so he climbed down and took out a cleaning cloth from the drawer of the counter. Then he moved the stairs towards that corner and climbed up again to clean it. As soon as he climbed up, he saw a web of spider there. He was going to clear all the dust and but as soon as his sight went on that web, his hands stopped and he got paralyzed for a while.
