Squad 6: Royal Blood

Chapter 1- Majesty

Chapter 1: Majesty

Majesty's feet were propped up on the mahogany desk as she leaned into the leather office chair, casting a glance about the empty conference room. A chandelier with crystals shaped like daggers hung in the middle of the ceiling, a memory of the man who had once owned the campus.

The room was dark, but light found its way through a window behind her, casting shadows on the walls. Chairs around the long table had been overturned, paintings of previous Phi leaders torn from their frames. There were bullet holes in the door. Majesty cocked her head to the side, looking to her right at the only remaining painting.

A man with dark eyes stared back at her grey ones. She couldn't see it, but knew it was at the side of his head even all those years ago when the portrait was painted. A snake tattoo.

"Where are you, Snakehead?" she asked the painting, a sly smile making its way onto her lips. She was sitting in the same chair he had been in only months ago, but now she was the one hunting him down. How the tables have turned.

She picked up a gun from her lap, inspecting the barrel and aimed it at the painting, wanting to see it move, squirm. "Soon enough," she told herself. If her people had managed to get a lead on what he was planning next, she would have one foot in the door.

Snakehead had spent years killing people she loved, starting with her mother when she was young. Her mother had managed to hide her away in a small town in the south of Italy until she was five. She had been pregnant with another girl at the time, and Majesty vaguely remembered a man coming over and making promises to keep the three of them safe.

They were poor, barely scraping by for food. The one-bedroom vacation house was often cold in winter.

Majesty had dozed off one night, her tiny frame curled up on a worn-out couch. Her mother had been sitting across the room, breatfeeding a baby girl. Mom had let Majesty name her and in her excitement, Majesty had chosen the first name that had popped into her head.

Maddison.

Every night before bed, Majesty would lay a kiss on her sister's forehead and recite the words her mother had engraved into her. Ti proteggerò, Maddie, she would say. I will protect you.

Majesty had woken up to banging on the front door. Maddison's wails pierced her ears as she scrambled for her mother, getting as far away from the noise as she could.

"Go in the bedroom and lock the door," her mother said, handing her the baby. Majesty tried to soothe the crying bundle, but she struggled enough just to hold it. She shut the door, laying her sister in the crib.

"Sh," she said, peering over the crib edge on her tiptoes. "Please me quiet, Maddie."

The sound of the front door bursting open made Majesty's heart jump. She heard her mother arguing, the words inaudible. Majesty crossed the bedroom, peeping through the lock.

She could make out two figures in the dark. One of them she recognized as the man who visited them, but the other she had never seen before.

"Scott, you promised me he wouldn't find out," her mother said in English, a language she rarely used when they were alone.

"You thought you could hide them from me," the stranger said. "My own blood."

The man held something in his hand Majesty could not see clearly. She couldn't make out much of his face, as the only light in the room was coming from a small bedside lamp.

"I didn't want you using them as a tool to make money," mother said, straightening. She was a beautiful woman, with long brown hair and broad shoulders, gaze sharp like two knives. Looking at her now, Majesty wanted nothing more than to stand with the same serenity and grace her mother did. Despite their living conditions and the strange men in their living room, she looked unnerved, fully in her element.