Queen of Nothing

Mateo

RonanZerkossufferedno one and took absolutely no prisoners. His attitude and alpha demeanor made it easy for him to dominate control of a room with a single gesture of his hand. Our men both feared and respected him, but most of all their loyalty knew no end when it came to him. He was the hand that fed, and the hand that dealt the blows if the dominos did not line up.

Now don’t get me wrong, there was no decision that we didn’t make together, but I knew if you were to ask, most people would think he was the one in charge. It didn’t bother me; at the end of the day our wallets weighed the same and I was ninety percent positive my dick was bigger. Actually, make that ninety-five percent. However, his attitude right now, was causing a pain in my ass I couldn’t shake, and his choosiness was going to ruin everything this year.

“They’re all fucking blondes!” he yelled, pointing at the three frightened girls crouching in the corner. They let out a startled cry as his drink spilled from his glass all over the floor.

I rolled my eyes at the tantrum and Santo casually chimed in to relieve the tension. “Yo, I like blondes man, reminds me of all the beach girls in Ocean Valley,” he sighed, “I miss the beach.”

I felt bad for the guy, I knew he would always miss Ocean Valley but we needed him here with us, and he needed to stay away from that place. Anytime he ended up in Ocean Valley, his hands got bloody. All that blood was starting to get to him too, I could see it. I would do anything to keep him from shouldering that burden alone. I was grateful for Álvarez, he was my brother through and through and if it hadn’t been for his alliance with Los Muertos, I don’t think we would have been able to take this city by storm six years ago.

Without him we would have never been able to merge all of the smaller gangs into one giant syndication operation.

The Black Crow Brotherhood.

Álvarez had an older cousin, Guillermo. Before the age of eighteen, Guillermo’s cruelty helped him bleed his way to becoming the top dog in Los Muertos, the most powerful Mexican-American syndicate organization on the west coast. It was an impressive operation, and the entire thing was a family affair. Santo Álvarez watched his older siblings all heading towards the same future with a glimmer in their eyes that would certainly be extinguished before most of them would get to turn thirty.

He was determined never to join and to keep Guillermo’s claws from reaching his younger siblings. His dear cousin would try and sweeten the offer every time he’d round back to Álvarez to try to convince him to the dark side. Santo was a machine when it came to taking lives, and his cousin had a mega boner set on using his skills for his own benefit. But my brother was adamant on breaking a generational curse because even before Guillermo found his place, gang life had been the standard expectation where he grew up.

When Berserk enlisted in the Navy, he instructed Álvarez with a goal, to find something concrete to build a foundation off of. But Álvarez knew that nothing that was solid, would come without a strong hand behind it, so he made an agreement with his cousin. Six full years as a dedicated member, six years of unquestionable loyalty and he was free to walk away. The deal was that after those six years, the two gangs would always have each other’s backs, as allies across the country.

They struck the deal, and no sooner had he agreed but they’d already begun tattooing their brand on his chest. Santo stayed true to his word, he killed, hurt, and maimed anyone Los Muertos pointed his way. Until the day we came home from war, that’s when we freed him from his contract. Guillermo paid us back with a small army, and everything we needed to set up base and kickstart our empire.

“You want me to take them back?” I asked, a bit unsure how I was gonna tame the beast right this second. I was trying to deflect some heat off Santo, because the guy looked like he was in over his head right now. It wasn’t his fault. It was impossible to tell which year Zerkos was going to want the exact opposite, or the very same thing he once had.

“Take them back? You want to take Cindy Lou and Mary Kate over here back to the Russians and the Irish and hope they aren’t just gonna kill them when we drop them at their doorstep?” Zerkos asked, and I snorted holding back a laugh because I was pretty positive that definitely was not either of the girls’ names, and I wasn’t even sure we were fucking with the Irish this year. Ronan glared at me with a look that was full of sharp knives, and I schooled my expression to a serious one.

“My bad dude. I get it, we’re stuck with them. Álvarez fucked up. He’ll owe you big next year. Only brunettes. Right man?” I nudged Álvarez trying to coach a response out of him.

“Yeah! Totally man, all morenas next year.” He gave him a big grin and Ronan just shook his head in frustration and downed the whiskey in his glass.

Tensions were usually high this time of the year, when we were starting the selection process for the Black Crows traffic trials. It started as a game we created after a long night of drinking when we first came to power. See, the big gangs were all still around. The Russians, the Yakuza, the Ukrainians, the Irish, the Cubans, whatever. We didn’t play nice with them, but we didn’t go around starting wars either. The one thing all these skeevy mafia types had in common was that they all loved the flesh trade. We decided every year we would steal a few nobodies from them. Just a couple of some poor trafficked souls with no allegiance or loyalty that wouldn’t be missed.

We spent a few weeks breaking them with some psycho brainwash shit Ronan learned while we were doing special ops for the Navy Seals, and when they totally lost all sense of self, we turned on the charm. We showered them with love and affection and fought for their attention until they each thought they were safe, loved, and cared for. It guaranteed their undying loyalty to us and assured us they wouldn’t betray us to the enemy. We let them each choose one of us to take care of them over the next few months and turned them into pampered little princesses who ate from the palm of our hands and fed us vital intel on our enemies.

The lackeys went crazy over it since we basically turned it into an Olympic event, we had all but created a point system to it. In the end it wasn’t so bad, just two or three months out of our year, they almost always were dying to jump on our dicks anyway, and bonus points for getting to siphon as much information from them about their previous gangs as we could. It wasn’t a relationship, and they were made well aware of that from the get-go. In contract form. It was more like a mutually beneficial partnership…one where they lost all sense of freedom and self for a small amount of time, but for the greater good.

We were able to take the Triad’s trafficking ring down two years ago. The Cove City PD didn’t even so much as thank us when they were taking the credit for freeing over six thousand women and girls. Once our captives’ usefulness ran out, we paid them for their time and guaranteed them work for the Black Crows in the strip clubs or bars. If they wanted to leave the life completely, we sent them on their way with as much protection and money as we could offer. They were always grateful, and in the end the future we promised was safer than the unknown. Most of the girls would rather strip than go back to being forced to suck some rich, John’s cock on a Wednesday for chump change. Especially, when that money was just going to go to some Vladmir Fuckwad’s pocket.

We made our home in Cove City, it was the clear choice we all agreed on from the moment we got back from overseas. We owned the entirety of our high-rise from top to bottom, and every floor was filled with our men for protection. The three of us occupied the glass wall penthouse. We set it up, so the higher-ranked soldiers were positioned on the highest floors, with lower-level foot soldiers near the ground level. This way, any attack on us, would be highly guarded with at least fourteen floors of bullshit and hell our enemy would be forced to deal with before getting to us.

My phone rang and our guy at the door downstairs was telling me there was some broad demanding to come up and see Álvarez. I laughed to myself thinking his last conquest must have forgotten something behind in his room. This was why I didn’t let women up here. They always found a reason to come back and hang around and I didn’t need some chick distracting me. I told him to let her up and made my way to the triple elevators to let her in.

The door dinged open on the center elevator and a small bronze goddess walked out. She was probably five foot five, but with the heels she was only about a head shorter than me. Her hair was a deep obsidian shining brightly that fell down just past her collarbone without a single wave to it. Her eyes were deep, woeful dark full of mystery and sadness that would have hypnotized me if I didn’t let my eyes wander.

But wander they did, as I was only human and the woman who stood in front of me could only have been described as a masterpiece. I turned my attention to her lips, as I appreciated the plumpness of them painted a shiny dark purple. Her legs were toned and a golden-brown hue that shone in contrast to the white skater dress she wore and I briefly wondered where she came from. No one around here dressed like that. Cove City was wild but it was also full of executive drones who walked around in black like there was no other color available. Anyone else stuck out like a sore thumb.

“I’m actually looking for Ronan, but I needed to get past your goons,” she gave me an innocent half-smile while biting her lip with a nervous look. Like I said, bitches were fucking distracting.

Berserk almost never had a girl around here so I didn’t buy it, but I wasn’t keeping track of all his lays. I led her through the doors anyway and told her to follow me into the main room. She called him Ronan though, and it had been a long time since I had heard anything other than “Berserk” or “Zerkos” when it came to him.

Before I could let thought become a seed in my mind, I heard the shattering of a glass.