Chapter 8 Santos
SANTOS
“Are you fucking crazy man?!” I shouted from across the room while I made my way over to Zerkos, 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 Junior 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 drew up a contract, paid Dez’s way through school and now we kept him on retainer twenty-four-seven.
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 Ronan’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 unhinged, 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 Gomes 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, challenging his directive.
“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 Kane released a whoop in excitement, and I rolled my eyes at the show they were all putting on.
“I did not hear that,” Dez said, plugging an ear bud in 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 Gomes 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 let her go, the anger redirected at me for letting her go.
Finally, he enlisted and decided to direct 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 Gomes 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.
I walked back over to the wet bar and poured myself a double shot of the anejo, 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 Crows,” 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.
If Ronan wasn’t already so close to her, Kane would be making circles around her like some sort of wild 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, or if it was a result of what he was seeing right in front of him.
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 girls in the corner, it was obvious I painted the target well.