Page 102 of Fate and Family

“Not anymore.”

She exhales. Behind Izzy, Uri pops his head out of the room, and Alana gazes him dead in the eye. “You wanna help Donny clean up, come with me to kick a little ass, or have the fanboy experience of your life?”

He blinks, and his face falls. “I’ll go with you. I don’t want to meet anyone looking like this.”

He’s been roughed up, but that wasn’t the answer I expected from him. He makes eye contact with me before turning away, falling in behind Alana with the other men from the Four Families.

Alana nods and types in a code to a locked door. “Good, this is a job for an Uncle anyway.” She glares at Marshall and me. “And I need the feds.”

We walk into a room much larger than the other one. Next to the door, there’s a line of men. They all have their hands on their weapons, ready to attack if need be. Former military vibes radiate from them. It’s the way they stand—too stiff, too alert. But I don’t recognize any of them. They aren’t agents. Maybe off-the-grid types? One of them has a phone, and it’s pointing at Alana. She doesn’t seem phased by this and nods to the phone.

On the other side of the room, roughly twenty men with various degrees of injuries sit on the floor, their hands and feet bound, half looking terrified and the rest defiant.

Alana drags her fingers across the wall, leaving a few smears of blood. “Everything on the other side of that door is mine. And you’ve seen what I do to anyone who hurts something or someone of mine.” Her voice is low, calculated and menacing. “Any of you could be mine too.” She offers the injured men a glance, and they stir. Side glances and murmurs fill the room. “All of you but one.”

She stands next to an inspirational poster of a hang glider. Not what I expected to see in a room like this, but maybe it doubles as a team building space. Nothing would surprise me at this point.

“If you are willing to turn yourselves in to that man behind me”—she points to Marshall and proposes, her voice softening a bit but still replete with false security—“you will serve between six and fifteen months in one of my prisons.”

Marshall snickers. “She has her own prison?”

One of the men—mercenaries? Alana’s private ops force?—tall, with dark hair like he’s been trying to grow it for a little while, answers, “There’s a few that she controls.”

Marshall and I exchange ‘oh shit’ glances. These men are felons, criminals of the worst degrees. There’s no way they’re only getting a few months.

“And when you get out,” she adds as she glares at the injured men, “you’ll have jobs, healthcare, and fifty thousand dollars to wipe away debt or to invest.”

Six men scoot toward the wall opposite her, their asses dragging, announcing they’ve picked a side and are officially on team Alana. She nods and slowly approaches the rest of the injured men on the far side of the room. A few glance at the exit, then dip their heads in defeat.

Her fingers continue to drag across the wall. “I offer you a new life, a fresh start, and all I ask for is loyalty.” Her hands ball into a fist. “All of you can have it. Except one.”

She punches, and her hand breaks through the drywall. The room gasps as she yanks out a pipe. Fear and respect battle for control of my emotions. She just punched through a wall and yanked out the fucking plumbing.

Three more of the injured and broken men inch toward the other six men who changed their loyalty.

She tilts her head to the side. “Now, which one of you likes to touch little girls?”

One man, wearing a blue shirt that’s been ripped and torn, without hesitation points with his chin to a man wearing a Cyclops X-Men shirt.

Alana’s gaze narrows. “It’s okay. I already know.” The man wearing the blue shirt nods. He’s one of Alana’s now.

She snaps the pipe and it extends into a six-foot-long bo staff. She charges at the offending man and beats him bloody. She pauses only to twist the staff at the center, dividing into two pieces and making her double-handed and even deadlier. Bones shatter, and he coughs blood. The strikes happen with the precision and speed of a cobra’s bite. While the assault doesn’t last long, the damage she does will stay with him for the rest of his life, although I don’t know how long that will be.

By the time she’s done, over half of the men who were once loyal to The Deviant, now belong to her.

She pants and flips her hair back like a mythical, monstrous mermaid, pulling out her phone from her pocket. The dress has pockets too!? Oh I am totally buying one. She lifts the phone to her face, splattered with fresh war paint.

The Chief of Staff’s voice echoes through the phone. “What the fuck did you do?”

“The Deviant and The Spider are dead,” she announces, and the rest of the men crawl over to the opposite wall only leaving the mangled mess of a man along the far wall.

“Drones around the world lifted from their hiding spots near Majesty distribution centers and dropped Faraday bombs. Forty-five seconds after impact the entire supply of Majesty went up in flames. The next drug epidemic has been eradicated. Even if it could be reproduced, it will never be at the scale it would need to be a worldwide threat. All of The Deviant’s underlings are mine now. Is there anything you would like to say?”

“You’re a fucking crazy terrorist!” he screams.

“So, not an apology?” She raises an eyebrow. “Cool.” She nods like she’s already made the decision. “You are no longer under my protection. Put your hand in your pocket. There’s a piece of paper— Oh, you found it. Great. After you read the paper, you will hand in your resignation to the president. I expect to see that announcement on my news feed by the time I get out of the shower. And one more thing. Meet Teddy, he’s the son you abandoned—the leader of the Hunters and my former partner.” She tosses the phone across the room to the man standing closest to the door. Now that I get a better view of it, he’s one of the men who recused Ian. He has the hammerhead shark tattoo.

Teddy stares at the phone screen, emanating murderous rage that feels so different from Alana’s rage. No, this one is deep, old, and personal. His voice is rough as he asks, “What does the paper say, Old Man?”

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