Queen of Nothing

“Should we find out?” I joked, pulling the comforter down and sitting up on the bed. She looked at me like she was absolutely terrified of the idea of him catching her with me. It was probably the most entertained I had been since I watched her pound Russian number two’s face with her fists. Humor aside, I had no idea what would happen if he knew what we’d just done and a big part of me knew I fucked up royally, the other part of me just didn’t care. I had suffered for so long, had nothing to call my own until this bronze Angel appeared in my life as if she was a gift from the gods directly to me.

I dropped my feet to the floor but before I could stand, she ran in a limping hobble to my bathroom and locked the door behind her before I could comprehend what was happening. Probably smart, Ronan didn’t have access to the surveillance in my room, yet. There was a good chance with Cecilia sleeping in my room two nights in a row that he was actually about to go berserk and lose all possible rationale.

All he’d have to do is go down to tech and demand they gave him some way to access that footage. Even though we were all supposedly equal as the leaders of our syndicate organization, the motherfucker was big and scary. It was unlikely any one of our IT guys were going to square up to him about their ethics on sharing surveillance codes.

I lazily made my way to the door and unlocked it before moving out of the way as Zerkos immediately slammed through it like a charging bull.

He looked around the room, nostrils flaring before asking, “Where is she?”

I pointed to the bathroom, and almost like she timed the perfect cue, the shower started running.

Santo walked into the room following him and his eyes darted to the bathroom first before he acknowledged me.

“Stop fucking with me, she isn’t part of the trials,” he said.

“What fucking trials?” Santo challenged him for the first time in longer than I could remember.

My eyes widened in surprise as I realized his doubts must have been digging deep for him to finally explode like this

“You got something to say?” Berserk crossed his arms at Álvarez, but he didn’t back down, he reserved his turn to speak for times like this when he knew the wrong calls were being made. It was why the three of us worked.

Berserk was a maniac when it came to a gun, and taking charge, I mean, that was the whole reason we called him that. The guy literally turned into a berserker when you handed him a weapon and pointed him at the enemy.

My loyalty to my brothers and my love for violence and bloodshed were what served me in our organization. Álvarez was the common sense that kept us from fucking up and making mistakes. He always had a blueprint of the big picture in his head, so when he stepped up to challenge him like this, well even Ronan knew when it was time to back down and listen.

“Yeah, I do, brother. Call it off this year. Your head isn’t in the game, and I checked out of it the minute you forced her to sign. At this point, we’re causing more harm than good. You don’t have two girls down there who are going to willingly help us set some victims free. You have two girls we’ve kidnapped, tortured, who I’d bet at least a finger on, to say that they aren’t broken or ready at all. You’ve got one fresh out of the hospital with a fucked-up face and two months’ worth of meaningless trauma attached to boot. We need to clean this shit up, and now we got to worry about Bratvas coming to our door,” Álvarez huffed out at him, putting our brother in his place.

“I think we have bigger fish to fry than where your girlfriend sleeps at night,” I added, scratching the side of my head and Álvarez looked at me with the same annoyed look he was giving Zerkos.

“Get your shit together, both of you,” he said with one hand against my chest and the other pushing Ronan away as he tried to keep him from advancing on me.

“Guillermo called in a favor. I have to go to Ocean Valley for a few days. Can I trust you both to not kill each other?” He looked between us but kept his eyes on me when he said the rest. “Can I trust you to keep her safe?”

Ronan grunted his frustration but before I could respond her voice cut through instead.

“You’re leaving?” she said standing in the doorway, wrapped in a towel dripping from head to toe as she looked at Álvarez with a devastated look on her face.

I had to wonder how much she just heard and the look Zerkos was giving me told me the same thought was crossing his mind as well.

“I’ve got business to take care of in Ocean Valley,” he said looking back at her, his tone softening completely at her presence. It was only because I was really looking at him that I noticed the smallest of reactions when he realized she was fresh out of the shower, and I fought back a smirk. “It’s only for a couple of days max Morena, I’ll be back by Monday, if I’m fast enough I can be back by tomorrow,” he told her, trying to reassure her.

“I don’t know what day it is,” she shrugged at him, and from that announcement, there was a guilt that wrapped over me causing me to hang my head.

Zerkos looked away and tucked his hands in his pockets to pretend like he didn’t care, but I knew he did.

Normally the girls would break so fast in the kennels that we could move them to the apartments on the lower floors and start giving them back something close to a real-life again. We would even take them out to restaurants and clubs, and we’d have some of the guys run them wherever they’d ask to go. Hell, we even gave them money when they wanted to buy things. It was a big part of how the process worked, and a few weeks in, they were trusting us enough to tell us anything we wanted to know about where they came from, and who trafficked them.

Cecilia didn’t have a breaking point, and the more he pushed her, the harder she became. She was strong but human enough to admit that even though she wasn’t broken, she was affected. Hell, even I had a breaking point. The one thing you learn above all when you’re learning torture tactics from the U.S. Government, is that the most effective way to get someone to talk, is to find and use the thing they care about most in this world.

The problem with this method was that if Santo was right about Cecilia, and everything she’d been doing was to keep Berserk safe, then we weren’t ever going to get our answers. Because the thing that she cared most about, was the same thing that was trying to break her for the truth.