Dᴇᴠᴏᴜʀ ᴛᴏ Sᴜʀᴠɪᴠᴇ

   Songbird Companions always had an unsavory yet strangely respectable reputation.  The company opened its doors (or its legs) on February 14th, 1952 in Chicago, Illinois and has since dominated the barely-legal escort business (though that's not to say everything they offer is legal).  Today, the company boasts a tremendous number of companions to accommodate any and all potential clients and their unique desires.  Virgie Padgett, or Virginia Angel, is one of the company's 'Golden Birds.'  She, along with six other co-workers, make up the company's top tier companions, the seven most desired of the Songbirds.  The Golden Birds are skilled seducers, performers, and all of them frightful thieving con artists.  With the pictorial aid of Padon Gyldenløve, a Norwegian-born career criminal and professional photographer, the Golden Birds squeeze their wealthy clients of their excessive riches under the shared alias 'Deliverance Ramsey,' so as not to incriminate themselves directly. 

   Virgie Samira Archer-Liane, née Padgett, is a masterful seductress, con artist, and thief from Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  When her parents split and her mother remarried, converting the family to Islam, Virgie began acting out.  At eighteen she ran away from home.  She wound up settling in Chicago where she taught herself how to pickpocket and use her body to get what she wanted.  By twenty she'd landed a job as a stripper, giving her access to dozens upon dozens of men that'd be too embarrassed to report any stolen belongings.  Her first mark at the joint later became her husband.  The strangely sweet, nervous Albert Archer-Liane somehow convinced her he could give her a better life, so they married.  When she initially married Albert she believed his wealth and kindness would be satisfactory.  But she was wrong.  She realized she didn't enjoy the money, she enjoyed taking it.  Within a few years, she abandoned her husband in the night and returned to stripping clothes and wallets.  Virgie eventually found herself work at Songbird Companions, befriended their personal photographer and a few of the other 'birds,' and devised their blackmail schemes.

   Tobias Laramie Nieuwendijk is the latest victim of violent occult activity in South Africa.  His body is found discarded outside Port Elizabeth, mangled and missing his eyes and lungs.  It proves to be the final straw for the South African Police Service, who, in 1992, create a special unit to investigate occult cases such as Nieuwendijk's and quell the public's growing Satanic panic.  Although the Occult Related Crimes Unit officially disbanded fourteen years later, it's commonly believed that the force simply went underground and still operate throughout South Africa.  Sergeant Van Wyk is the latest recruit by the shadowy unit having been inducted as recently as 2012.

   Tiaan Ajani van Wyk has suffered from night terrors for as long as he can remember.  The murder of his cousin, the details of which no six year old should ever hear, haunted him as a child and now drive him as an adult.  Toby's case was never solved.  No one was ever arrested.  No one ever paid for taking his life and mutilating his body.  Vengeance and a recent conversion to Christianity motivated him to pursue a position in the South African Police Service, but he never expected to join the remnants of the Anti-Occult Police.  They now operate under the ‘Odd & Unusual Violent Crimes,' specializing in criminal Satanic practices, voodoo, witchcraft, muti killings, and other ritual murders.

   In Lafayette, everybody knows a Babineaux.  The influential Cajun clan of drug dealers, loansharks, political fixers, pimps, thieves, corrupt cops and lawyers, con artists, and gamblers have friends all over the city.  As of 2015, the clan amassed nearly thirty blood relatives and over a dozen 'adopted' siblings, including local bounty hunter Ophelia Whitaker (the Bayou Bloodhound.)  Quincy "Quin" Babineaux and his younger brother, Isidore "Izzie" Babineaux, head the family's mass array of criminal affairs with cousin Philomène de Bellisle serving as their infallible legal representation.

   After a difficult and lengthy battle, Pakhan of thirty years Timon Veratof ultimately succumbed to lung cancer in November of 2015.  His only son, twenty-two year old Tsar Veratof, inherited his position as the Pakhan of the Filatov Bratva shortly after.  His first few disastrous months of leadership left many higher-ups with concerns about the future of Bratva with Tsar at the helm.  One of Tsar's most vocal critics was Czeslaw Mozhaev, a Polish-born Russian Jew who lead the Bratva's 'Support Group.'  Though a long time friend and confidant of Timon, having worked with him for over fifteen years, Czes openly expressed his contempt for his impulsive, entitled, and inexperienced son.  Mozhaev was infamous for his uninhibited loquacious nature, hence his nicknames, Gadyuka meaning 'viper' and Usta meaning 'mouth.'  Worried that Mozhaev's talk was more than just that, Tsar ordered his assassination to secure himself as the only and rightful Filatov Pakhan.  Over the next several weeks, three unsuccessful attempts on his life were enacted.  The message was loud and crystal clear.

   As for retaliation, Czes did what he did best: talk.  Rather than his usual banter with the lawmen, he turned over everything he could about the Bratva's operations... leaving out only the bits that would seriously incriminate himself, of course.  Mozhaev didn't want to be a rat, but he didn't want to be dead either.  The following trials mesmerized the nation with every outlet covering them extensively for nearly two years.  The 'Red Trials' saw to the incarceration of forty-seven Filatov Bratva members and associates, including Pakhan Tsar Veratof himself.  The trials were a huge deal for not only the Filatov Bratva, but the American Russian mafia as a whole.  Mozhaev's testimonies shed a light on the structure and inner workings of the Russians like no other had before.  The resulting crackdown on the Russian mafia led to countless assassination, incarcerations, and forced even more into hiding.

   In exchange for his testimony, the U.S. government accepted Mozhaev and his family into WitSec.  Now the Mazer family, they were relocated to the border town Tucson, Arizona where they intend to live in peace.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

   Lila Agnes Nolan-Sharpe (born Lila Verstraete; Jan. 26th) is a Canadian-American writer, producer, model, and activist. She is best known for her work on Investigation Discovery's Fear Thy Neighbor, A Crime to Remember, and Deadly Women. She is married to American comedian Warren Nolan, whom she has one child with.

Early life [ edit ]

   Nolan-Sharpe was born Lila Agnes Verstraete in Halifax, Nova Scotia to Korean immigrants and was adopted by Amelia Millicent (née Young), a dental assistant, and Garrett Allen Verstraete, a dental hygienist.

Career [ edit ]

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Personal life [ edit ]

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