The Queenpin & Her Reapers.

My father always said the Ravollo family ruled this city because we were willing to do what others wouldn't. He trafficked women and children. He pushed powder that put kids from the Southside in the morgue before they turned eighteen. He called it business. You know what I call that, I call it cowardice. I have ruled this empire for seven days now, since he died on the concrete floor at our warehouse on 5th street. They cleaned it. There is nothing left down there, but an oil stain that no one wants to talk about. His office, which is now my office, is spotless. Too spotless, some may say. It still smells like his cigars and cologne. Like he could walk here in at any second and tell me that I am sitting on his throne. The conference table is full. Twelve men all sitting around, staring at me. Captains, lieutenants, old men who have been stealing for my family since I was born. They stare at the empty glass in front of me like I'm going to fill it for them. Like I'm still that little girl he kept locked out of this room for twenty-three years. None of them want to be the first to speak, none of them except him. Markus Savino sits at my right hand, where he has always sat. Where his father and his grandfather before him. Looking way too good in this dim lighting, wearing that black shirt, sleeves pushed up, tattoos on full display, knuckles still raw from that night in the warehouse. He hasn't looked away from me since I walked in wearing my father's family ring. The ring that has been passed down through generations. He was there. He held the door. "As of this morning," I say, no shakiness to my voice, "the Ravollo family no longer deals in flesh." I pause for a moment. "We no longer deal in powder either." Nothing but silence filled the room, as if they were waiting for me to explain why. There wasn't a need to why, it was wrong and my father was a monster to not see that it is wrong to take people from their families and sell them or kill them with the powder on the streets. Uncle Silas scoffs, my head immediately turns in his direction, seeing that condescending smile he gave me at every family dinner we hosted. "Skarlet, sweetheart. Your great-great-grandfather built this empire on-" I immediately cut him off. "They built this empire on bodies that couldn't fight back and where are they now?" I stated giving him a cold stare. "They are all dead. So you will not be telling me what they would have wanted." This power was making me feel good, if he thinks he can control me to do what they did. He is dead wrong. I won't be told what to do, if they think that's going to work, they will be buried right next to my father and his before him. Silas looks to Markus, expecting the loyal Savino boy to put me in my place. I rolled my eyes at that thought. Markus leans forward, elbows on the table, deadly calm. "She said we're done with it," Markus says. Not loud. He doesn't need to be loud. Every man in here watched him grow up in this house. A Savino backing a Ravollo is law. "So that means, we are done with it. Unless someone wants to go join Cesare on 5th." No one moves, no one says a word. They just stare with their cold dead eyes locked on Markus. As if they expected him to say anything different. He was taught to back our word, not go against it. I feel my black heart stutter. He has always done this, stood too close, defended me like it was his birthright. Looked at me like he knew me before I was Queen and likes me better now that I am one. "So does anyone have a problem with how I run MY empire?' I say, emphasizing on my to the twelve men sitting at the table, seeing if any of them would try to tell me how to run this. Markus leans over, just enough that only I can hear him. "Brava, Rosa Nera." My heart stutters again, but I don't look at him. I look at the men sitting before me that have not broken the silence. I am my father's daughter after all. I was taught many different things in this house; how to wield a blade, how to shoot a gun and how to never back down from a challenge. I was deadly now. I was going to use everything I was taught and run this family, as I know the women in this household would want it to be run. Still, to this day, I would love to speak to my father about what if he wasn't the godfather. What if I was just a helpless child who got taken from their home? I knew he never thought of that kind of thing. He was born into this and he died in this. I wasn't going to die, I wasn't going to let anyone get a second chance at that. I was going to make this city safe for women and children. I do not care if that hurts money right now. I had my way of making money, and it didn't require flesh or death. We had business throughout the city that would make us money, like our casino and the hotels we had in different cities. Ravollo was all around the States, and it was going to continue without having to become the monster that lurked at night in that sense. Twelve men staring at their hands. At the table. Anywhere but at me. Which makes me want to smile, but I reframe from doing so. I know exactly what they are expecting someone to jump up and object to what I am doing. No one dares to speak, they choose life over death. My say over what my dead father wanted. I pulled my father's lighter from my jeans and flicked it open, pulling a cigarette from my pack and lit it. My eyes scan over the men in the room, something about none of them trying to push makes me delighted more than it should. I was expecting a fight, expecting to have to kill someone in this room. I wasn't going to lie, my trigger finger was itching really bad to put a bullet in some of these men. Their time will come. Finally, I killed the silence by speaking. "Good, now that we have an understanding. From today on, the ports will be closed to these trades. The streets will be clean. If I find out any females are moving through our docks, or a single bag of powder sold with our stamp on it," I pause for dramatic effect. While all the men turn their attention back on me, "I will personally take you out myself. I have eyes and ears everywhere. You will just be another stain left on this family," I say coldly. A few swallows can be heard throughout the room. Looking over at Markus, as I feel his eyes on me. He doesn't flinch, he doesn't swallow like some of the men in this room. He's just watching me, taking on every word I say as if he is memorizing it or taking note that maybe he will kill for me, if they break the rules I have laid out today. "That will be all," I say, dismissing the men in the room. Chairs scrape against the floor, with mumbled yes, Miss Ravollo's as they filed out of the office fast, not daring to look back at me. As if they are afraid I'm going to change my mind and end their lives before they make it out that door. All expect Markus. He says sitting in his chair until the last man closes the heavy office doors. Doesn't say a word till the sound of the automatic lock on the door clicks. Then it's just me and him and the ghost of my father, which I'm sure is lingering about, glaring down on me. Which I honestly do not care how he feels, he's dead and buried. "You didn't have to threaten them," he says quietly. His voice is lower now, not the same one he used at the table. This is his usual voice he has used with me since we were sixteen, and he found me crying in my bedroom because my father wouldn't let me go to a normal school. "I did. If I didn't, they'd assume they could do whatever, and I wouldn't do anything about it." I say. He stands up. He is so much taller than I remember. The black shirt pulls across his shoulders. The bruises on his knuckles are turning yellow now from that night. He walks around the table, leans against it, right in front of me. Too close, he always stands too close. The smell of sandalwood and apples hits my senses. I shake my head for a moment, look up at him. "You were perfect, but you are shaking," He says as he reaches and takes my hand in his, his thumb rubbing against my father's ring, the big gold Ravollo crest on it. He takes the ring off of my finger, which slides off a little too easily. My hands are shaking. "I'm not." "You are." He lets go of my hand and holds the ring in his palm. "Do you know what they are going to call you now?" he asks. "What?" I ask, tilting my head to the side slightly. His eyes drop to my mouth then back up. That deadly sweet look that makes my black heart do that stupid stutter again. "Bloody Reaper." He says without a second thought. "La Mietitrice Insanguinata. They think you killed him in cold blood and didn't even flinch." I didn't flinch. Ryker did it. But I watched from a distance. "Let them." I say, not caring what they think I did or didn't do. I was at the warehouse because my father had dragged me there to start teaching me the trade, even though he should've known better, to know that I would not want that to be under my name, under my ruling of this family.