Fear and Fate(poly)(bxb)

Von's Fate

I should've known not to look away from Diana while I was talking to her. Especially when mentioning something so absurd. She threw a stapler at my face.

I'm in her home. Even when I was a kid everything was all hers. The desk she's seated at has a wide array of pens and scissors. If I dodged it she would've thrown something sharper. So I let my eye swell up and continue speaking.

"We need to get these drugs off of our hands anyway. The interest we charge will make it worth it. I'll make it worth it for all of us," I say.

I'm surprised she's letting me go on. Diana cages me in her sharp glare. She's had this advantage since I was a teenager. From across a similar mahogany desk and in this same room, she'd pin me down. Insecure and naturally bad at eye contact, I'd let her win. I can't look away now but one of my eyes is closing on its own.

Diana speaks up, "You're trying to destroy everything I've worked hard for."

Some things need to be let go of. Freedom is true happiness. I want to experience it. I want to survive. My goal is to keep everyone else alive as well. The one hindering that isn't another gang or a rat within my own, it's our boss.

It's no longer enough to change things within the gang. I can't stand by and apathetically watch anymore. I have to truly distance those I care about from this business. We have to evolve from the inside out.

"Why are you acting scared all of a sudden? I guess I raised a bitch," Diana spits. "If you want to be a loan shark, which is basically what you're saying here, the group has to corner individual civilians. You won't be too scared to do that?"

I answer her question with my glare, cold and dead as a corpse. I can do anything to a stranger. It's once I get to know them that I run into difficulties.

Seven was let into the syndicate to keep me on my toes. He tried to kill me. Getting close was the stupidest thing I could've done. Nonetheless, I let him spread his butterfly wings on my sheets. I drank his nectar with no regrets.

Diana raises her voice. "Stop taking things away. You'll ruin everything! Do I need to find a new leader, yes or no?" She asks. "Suggesting stupid shit all of the time, I should've adopted a kid who went to school. I'd be better off replacing you with Mia."

Mia could never handle this. I'd kill Diana myself before I let that happen.

"I want to cut our numbers, less mouths to feed," I say calmly.

"Is that so?" Diana asks but does not oppose. "I want to know how you plan on doing that."

"The bullets will be on the front line in this war. I want the Syndicate smaller as well. Now that we have Kimori others seem a little useless."

Diana smiles at me, having already thought so herself. "I never could fully trust Seven." She's right.

"However," Diana says quickly. "Mia can't work as a spy for us anymore. She's already told us everything she knows about the police."

Mia was working as a double agent without even knowing it. We were tracking her every move. We learned her father's schedule and the exact size of the police force. We have files on every corrupt cop who was secretly working with Cleo and the TLs.

That gang kept humans in cages and shipping containers. There are so many missing women and children we can link to them and their trafficking ring. We used to have to bribe the police now we can rely solely on blackmail.

Mia lives in the dark. I don't know if I'm ready to bring her out of it. My tattoos cover the damages I've received over the years. There's more ink than skin. Mia is too clean; she can't take it.