Santo
“Areyoufuckingcrazy man?!” I shouted from across the room as I started making my way over to Berserk, because if something was going to mess up the trials, it was going to be this - not three fucking blondes. Mateo pulled out his phone and shot a few texts and within a couple of minutes, Dez was stumbling out of the elevators with his briefcase. He was our lawyer, had been since the start of it all, that was the biggest advice Guillermo gave me when we started all of this.
Keep the law close to you and keep a lawyer even closer.
Dezmond Archer was the kid of one of our oldest soldiers. He wanted a different life for his son, but he knew the Black Crows offered a kind of protection that couldn’t be passed up. We struck a deal, paid Dez’s way through school and now we kept him on retainer 24/7. He lived in the building, he only took assignments that were Black Crow Brotherhood business, and we paid him a goddamn fortune for it.
He looked disheveled, like he probably drank too much last night, and I couldn’t blame him because I was right there next to him pouring the shots. He was wearing sunglasses inside with a white button-down and some nice suit pants that complimented his slender tall figure. He lifted up his sunglasses over his short brown hair and I had to fight the laugh wanting to bubble out. The guy was wrecked, and it was my fault. How was I supposed to know we were going to need him today?
With a clear of Berserk’s throat, the mood darkened again, and Kane met my gaze from the side. I could tell he wasn’t on board with Zerkos’s decision by the still stunned look on his face. We shared plenty of girls between the three of us, don’t get me wrong - there wasn’t much my brothers and I hadn’t seen of each other in the name of a good lay. But whatever the hell that was just now - wasn’t that. It was savage, angry and full of pent-up hate. The strangest part about the whole thing was that she just took it, like she’d be grateful for anything that came from him. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to think long enough about that to analyze it either.
Cecilia Gomez had always been more of an enigma than I wanted to spend my time dwelling over.
“It’ll be a good twist for this year, a fourth,” he said without looking back at me, eyes still fixed on her. Dezmond put his briefcase down on the coffee table and waited for instructions like the well-paid intelligent man he was.
“And how will that work?” Kane finally spoke.
“Well…” he trailed, “Maybe this is the year we toss the extras in the dumpster,” he hissed, the cowering pile of blondes in the corner cried out from his proclamation as Mateo released a whoop in excitement, and I rolled my eyes at the show they were all putting on.
“I did not hear that,” Dezmond said, plugging an Air pod into his ear and fumbling with his phone.
“You’re not thinking straight brother. You need to take a step back and separate the two situations here,” I warned him before he did something he was going to seriously regret.
“Last chance Cecilia. Tell me who is after you,” he said looking at her, but the stupid look on her face of pure defiance let me know before she opened her mouth that she was just going to stoke the fire.
“Did you ever consider this world might be bigger than you, asshole?” She shoved at his chest, but it didn’t faze him.
He raised his eyebrow at me, and I knew he’d finally noticed her accent as well.
“Tell me this then, where have you been these last twelve years? Because you went up in smoke, like Cecilia Gomez never existed to begin with.” He was starting to fume again, and I could tell her answer was gonna be the breaking point of whether or not he lost the rest of his shit.
“You looked for me?” she asked.
“If that’s what you want to call it,” I mumbled and got another annoyed look from Zerkos. To say he looked for her would be putting it mildly. It took about three months to pull him out of the alcohol induced zombie state he put himself in after she left him. That was the easy part, then came the months of regret that he had let her go and the anger redirected at me for letting her go. Finally, he enlisted and decided to focus that rage into something a bit more productive.
Once he came back it was difficult to keep him focused on building our army for The Black Crow Brotherhood. He was spending all of his time trying to find her, turning over any stone he could think of that would lead him to her. She turned into a ghost though, just vanished into thin air, and completely disappeared without a trace like she had never been real to begin with. Now she was just showing up at his door like a goddamned gift-wrapped present or something.
“I’ve been hiding,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes. “And to be fair, Cecilia Gomez is the longest I’ve ever been anyone. I’d like to think that’s the closest to me I’ve ever been.” She said so gently I feared the words would break like glass once they’d left the comfort of her mouth.
“Talks like a con artist.” Mateo circled and suddenly I wasn’t sure he was on my side anymore.
Wait, fuck…why was I on this side?
I shook the intrusive thought out of my head like a dog with water in its ears.
I walked back over to the wet bar and poured myself a double shot of the Añejo, as I tuned out the hauntingly familiar sound of Ronan arguing with the girl that always seemed to be too much to handle. I recalled all the other times their loud arguing turned into sex at the flip of a switch. All you could hear through the paper-thin walls of our shitty apartment was the muffled sounds of her screaming out her climaxes in the bedroom next to mine. I adjusted my pants as the unwelcome thought got me hard.
Zerkos paced across the room to the glass top gold framed work desk and pulled a black folder out of the drawer. He pulled a single sheet of paper from it and beckoned her over with his finger as he sat on top of the desk. Dez’s eyes perked up from his phone and he watched carefully.
She drifted over with no sense of urgency, testing him, and pushing all of the buttons like she craved the Devil’s punishment.
Ronan whistled at Dezmond and finally let him know what he had been called up here for, “We need a legal witness.” He explained and Dezmond’s face contorted in confusion.
“Isn’t it a bit early for that?” he asked Zerkos, but he just chuckled back at him.
“Not for this one. She’s already primed,” there was a darkness to the smirk he gave him, then he turned back to Cecilia to say, “If you want my protection, you’ll have to sign here.” He pointed to the pre-drawn-up agreement we used for the trials, she picked it up and read the bottom half of it out loud.
“I hereby relinquish the ability to self-govern in exchange for protection, room, and board? I will do what I am told, I will wear what I am told, I will be where I am expected. I do this of my own volition. Punishment for breaking the rules will be determined by the Black Crowes,” she said with an alarmed tone in her voice as she waved the paper in his face, “Who the hell would sign this?”
“My men are coming up the stairs in less than four minutes, if you want my protection, you will sign that before they get up here. Otherwise, I’ll have them toss you out and you can con someone else out of half their life.”
The look of hurt on her face from his final words gave away to the first break in her exterior shell she’d been putting up since she had gotten here.
“I’m not going to be some puppet for you to play with,” she raised her chin at him, but he scoffed at her response.
“Seems like you don’t really have a better option right now. You said death was waiting for you, you’re a woman with one card left and you’ve already played it,” Zerkos challenged her once again.
I could hear the seconds ticking loudly in the large gold framed clock hanging in the middle of the wall while Kane paced like a lunatic. I think if Ronan wasn’t already so close to her, Kane would be making circles around her like some sort of predator. I took note of the effect she already had on both of my brothers. I couldn’t tell if Mateo’s opinion was clouded by the memory of how many times we had to pick our brother up from the wreckage she left behind.
Kane was like a guard dog who was barely held back by his owner’s leash. He felt Zerkos’ pain unlike anyone else and his love for his brother showed in the way he burdened his grief, his heartache, and his sadness as if they were his own. It was why I loved him too. Mateo Kane reserved that for the most special people in his life, and I was lucky to be considered one of them.
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Sign It!” He exploded as he slammed his hand down on the table, his onyx hair falling down to his face.
Cecilia jumped with surprise, picking up the pen and signing the contract while Kane threw his head back in laughter at the reaction he earned.
Zerkos gave him a nod and Mateo casually made his way back to the couch crossing his ankle over his knee as he sat.
The guilt was eating at me, and I sighed my disapproval, but it went unnoticed as the three sets of elevators to the penthouse opened up. Twenty of our best men crowded themselves out of the elevators into the entranceway as they waited eagerly to see the women. It wasn’t about the women as much as it was about finding out which assholes we would be going up against this year. With the two whimpering Russians in the corner, it was obvious I painted the target well.
There were times where I wondered if twelve years ago, I could have stopped her from leaving and if I should have. My Abuela always said a woman leaving in the middle of the night had more reasons than you could imagine. I didn’t know what to think when I saw her putting all of the money in the kitchen and walking out of his life. I immediately woke him up, but he didn’t want to chase her-he said that this was a long time coming and she was just doing exactly as her father planned.
Our enforcer Fletcher plowed through the crowd of men standing at the large entryway as he checked in with Zerkos with nothing but a quick glance and tilt of his chin. He held the starving crowd back from the show they’d been so eagerly anticipating for months, waiting for our signal to let them through. He was a solid enforcer and someone we considered the right hand of our operation, whatever you threw his way he got done without question, and without fail.
He was a six-foot-three mass of muscles-an overgrown kid who was raised on the wrong side of the tracks- that we gladly took in the minute he turned eighteen. His red hair draped down his forehead in short waves he kept neatly trimmed on the sides and the back with lots of attention. Just like my brother Zerkos, you couldn’t catch him in anything but an expensive tailored suit, and the bastard made it look good.
I glanced over at Cecilia, and I could see her nerves were starting to show through her façade as she fumbled with the hem of her dress anxiously. Our eyes met and there was a silent plea between us but there was nothing I could do for her now that she signed everything away on that power of attorney form. The form was one of the last steps in the traffic trials, after Berserk melted their little minds and offered them the chance to go home, (to certain death) they realized sticking with us was their best bet for safety and comfort.
She was desperate, which meant she was in a lot of trouble.
I couldn’t help but wonder if this trouble was going to come crashing at our door the longer she stayed.
Ronan did a big dramatic speech like he always did every year about our power growing as a gang and the guys all went crazy for it. The look on Cecilia’s face told me she wasn’t even a little impressed though. I couldn’t help but appreciate the fact she saw through his bullshit too. “Get them down in the kennels, Fletch,” Zerkos said, “all of them.” The loud clang of the chain connecting the three blondes rang out as it clattered against the marble floor from the force of Fletcher’s tug on it. He didn’t so much as make eye contact with the three half-naked blondes before making his way over to Cecilia. When he reached out for her, she slapped his hand away and I choked back a laugh, swallowing my drink.
“If you put your hands on me, you will regret it. Do you understand?” She said as if she was seven feet tall and Fletcher looked to Zerkos for support, but he wasn’t looking at him he was burning his gaze into her so fiercely I think she would have burst into flames if someone didn’t cut in.
“She can walk down there herself man, just put a bag over her head,” I broke the silence, and he nodded at me as he put the bag over each of the blondes’ heads and then hers. He gave her his arm, then said, “You’re probably going to have to hold on to me then.”
An audible growl came from Berserk’s direction and the thumping of his blood pressure rising could practically be heard as she put both hands around Fletcher’s bicep. He guided her into the elevator while dragging the parade of yellow hair behind him. The three of us entered the elevator with them while the rest of the men piled into the other two elevators. We made our way to the floor directly below ours, but first we spent a few minutes going down and up a few levels to disorient our captors. Once the elevator opened, we made our way through the hall until we got to the apartment set aside just for the kennels.
It wasn’t actually a kennel though, it was just a regular apartment, with a kitchen and a living room and everything, except the bedrooms had no walls and were closed in with metal bars, like cages. The entire walk Ronan kept his eyes focused where her hands connected with Fletcher’s arms and I was just counting down the seconds before he would explode, but surprisingly he didn’t. Fletch opened the kennel and shoved the blondes in as he removed the bags from their heads and then Cecilia’s before he closed the metal door, locking them in automatically.
“You okay boss?” He asked Zerkos who still looked like he could have probably unhinged his jaw and swallowed Fletcher whole.
“They’re going to need another bed. Go get one,” he said to him, sending him away with a flick of his finger. “Start it up, will you Kane?” He signaled Mateo as he pulled up a metal folding chair and opened it up in front of the kennel sitting on it backwards. This kennel was as big as a standard bedroom, but there was nothing in it, just three walls lined with metal bars along with one exterior wall. The walls that were present were exposed brick, but that’s because they were a fake wall, we built to cover the windows that were once here. Probably wouldn’t want anyone looking in here.
Across from it was another kennel of the same size but with three twin size beds in it. Kane went inside the kennel grabbing the hose and started blasting all four of them with water until they were forcibly pressed up against the corner of the kennel trying to use each other for protection. All except for her. She was just standing there with her eyes fixed on Ronan as if he was the one holding the hose - I mean shit, he might as well have been.
“Just three more hours of this, ladies!” Mateo yelled out and he turned to us and said, “Go chill out man. Come back when you’re ready to get busy, and your head is in it. I’ve got this.” He reassured him and Ronan nodded. We both got up and made our way back to the elevator.
The rest of the men were gathered in the makeshift lobby we created for the fifteenth floor where the kennels resided. They watched the show from the flat screen TV that played the live camera footage, but we didn’t acknowledge them as we waited for the doors to open.
Once we were both in the elevator all it took was a glare at him for his composure to drop, he slouched down to the floor with his head in his hands, reminiscent of the broken boy I once had to put back together. “What the fuck am I supposed to do?”
“I think you weren’t supposed to turn your ex into a prisoner,” I said, the disdain still obvious in my tone.
He shook his head at me, “It shouldn’t have gone down like that.”
“I didn’t think she’d sign. I never knew that girl to be anyone who would buckle or break under pressure. She wasn’t supposed to sign, she was supposed to fight me on it,” he said without looking back up at me. “She fights me on everything, she signed without a second thought. What the fuck is after her?” He said exasperated at the situation, but all I could see was that Cecilia was in more trouble than we could probably imagine if she chose this willingly.
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we keep playing the game, I need to know what she’s running from - and if breaking her is the only way to get any sort of answer, I’ll deal with the mess later. Whatever she’s hiding from is so bad that she’d sign away her freedom to get away from it. I need to know what that is.”
“She’ll hate you for it,” I said matter of fact.
“Good. She still has a lot to pay for.”
“I won’t play this game man. Believe it or not, I don’t have a beef with Cecilia, leave me out of it. Where are you going to even tell the guys she’s coming from?” I asked.
“She’s Mexican, just tell them she has Cártel info,” he said it like it would even be believable.
“The Cártel is too big for us, and the guys know it, what if one of them touches her?” I crossed my arms in question.
“Why would they do that?” He immediately stood back up and got in my face. The elevator dinged open, but we didn’t get out yet. He kept breathing hard waiting for an answer from me, like I was the one feeding her to the fishes.
“I’m not the enemy brother, I’m just presenting all the possible scenarios you just opened our world up to. She just signed a piece of paper that turned her into Black Crow property, all of the Black Crows.”
Zerkos backed up and slammed his hand on the button to take the elevator back down, I followed him out, back into the kennels.
“Out!” He shouted at the entire lobby and the men scrambled to make their way out and take their post doing whatever it is the fuck they did when we weren’t around.
Within a few minutes they cleared out and we turned the corner down the hallway to the kennels, where Kane was still laughing like a mad dog while he power washed the girls against the wall.
Kane chuckled at us once I unlocked the kennel door, “That didn’t last very long.” He laughed out knowing full well there was no way Ronan was going to stay away from Cecilia for long.
With the hose off, the girls had a minute to catch their breaths, the three blondes huddled together for warmth in their underwear and Cecilia began lifting her drenched and now see-through white dress over the top of her head.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ronan asked her, his eyes noticeably shifting toward the surveillance camera, and I was sure he was probably relieved he sent all the guys out of the show in the lobby.
“It’s wet. I’m wet,” she said, cutting the T’s sharply as she threw the sopping wet dress onto the opposite corner of the kennel.