A harsh word to rule

~ 3 years later ~

* Luciu's POV *

It took me 3 years to completely put the US underworld under my fallen father's gang, may god bless his soul in heaven. These 3 years were the harshest I ever lived, it made me wonder how could my father live so long while walking such a dangerous road. I also had to take care of my siblings, and protect them from the praying eyes that wished nothing but doom for us, none other than my father cousins, and close friends. Those that my father once considered his own family asked me, again and again, to take my two baby brothers as members of the gang, they even ignored my father's last wish to keep them off this accursed part of the world, too bad for them, this is my family, and in my family, I am the sole ruler of all.

Their latest attempt to do that was around 5 months ago, since then, I started giving them less and less importance and minimizing their influence on the overall scale power of the whole gang. In the world of gangs, I am the ruler, and as such, I don't need to be questioned. I need to be backed up by my most loyal servants, if they can't do it, then they better be replaced, in the end, there is no place for bad weeds in my garden.

As for my two brothers, Arthur and Alexander, they have been growing up smoothly.. My brother Arthur, now 13, has been learning martial arts for the past 2 years, I could teach him KickBoxing, but he also got interested in Kung Fu, Jackie Chan being one of his favorite idols, the poor kid was traumatized by our parents' death, he even asked to be taught at home, so no more school for the lad.

As for my youngest brother, Alexander, he was even more touched by those events. I didn't even tell him, he asked us about our parents, and to be frank, we didn't like him because he always stuck with our mother like gum, but 3 days after their disappearance, we couldn't talk, and he wouldn't stop asking, and so, he suddenly started crying, and when I tried calming him, all he said was

"Dead?"

That hit me hard, and I started crying too, and soon our second brother followed us in, that night, we didn't sleep and made a promise that one day, we will rule this world as compensation for our parents' death. And to my bigger surprise, my little brother, Alexander, participated in the oath. Since then he started reading some kids' books at first, then he started copying them on paper, learning to write. It took him one whole year before he started reading some more complicated books, and that is only because I faked disinterest in this new hobby of his, in a poor attempt o make him forget what I judged a poorly motivated mind. He started reading history books, mainly US history, but when he got to the bottom of it, he moved to European history, my good brother also wrote lots of information in his books, and would occasionally invite me to read them, to gain more information about history, he says, and it sure did help me in a lot of operations in the course of the last 3 years, from making theories about the enemy's movements to getting ideas about how to proceed and plan the next move.

These days, he started reading war strategy books, and even trains sometimes with our second brother, though I forbid him to train more than 2 times a week until he is 10 years old.

These days, I have started an operation I call "Self Cleanse", and that is to look for useless members among the gang's ranks, and either demote them or kick them based on the grade of their uselessness or the position they uphold, as well as promote any overworking individuals and loyal members. This operation judges our members, be they family members or high-rank members, or even recommended individuals, as long as they are useful, they are welcome, and as long as they are useless, they are well-kicked.

This operation made a lot of members unhappy, to say the least, especially those that are family members or that are recommended by them, but fortunately, I created a section under my complete jurisdiction and control, this section is called "The Shadows".

"The Shadows" make 5 teams of 10 members, only 18 years old orphans are accepted in enrollment, they are expected to work all the time, and thus all their needs are provided by me, my own money, not the gang's, once they finish their training, they start getting paid by the gang as normal members, and acquire additional funds as my own loyal servants. The purpose behind this decision is to protect my family at all times, as well as do what I say without question, soldiers in other words, making part of my own private army. Members would merge into different teams and acquire intel for me, from inside my father's gang, and when called, they are to answer the call, priority to teams that are mainly under my command in the gang, so as to not arouse any suspicions. And this move was my "Jocker Card" in this operation.

"Self Cleanse" will take around 6 months, and following that, harsh joining conditions will be put into motion, for less than 15-year-old highschoolers, they will have to be poor, and at least know how to fight a member of their own for a minute without blacking-out, that said member will of course not be holding out, should they succeed, they are to learn how to fight, and how to acquire money from high school, as well as how to take note of every dollar they make, they also are put under rules that should they defect to another gang, they will have to leave their head behind to be in peace with our gang, otherwise they are free to give up on the gangster road. Those members are free to take in some members to teach or help in their missions, but they are taught to know that they are constantly monitored.

And that is just one of our many influence strategies, others include Drugs, bars and alcohol, prostitution, unauthorized fights, and a lot of other things, typically, of my father's underworld gang, all are monitored by our members who are constantly taking notes of any customer and how to utilize them in any of our schemes, those are mostly politicians, and famous sports players or singers, as well as some business partners, or possible ones, influential people generally.

~ 7 months later ~

It's been a month already since "Self Cleanse" has concluded, and everything is going smoothly, my baby brother Alexander, just like Arthur, requested to be taught at home, but my brother is a genius, in what is related to studies, he is already the same level as his elder brother, who is now 14 years and 3 months old, they started training more, 3 times a week for Alexander, and 2 times a day for Arthur, whereas Arthur chooses to study even more with Alexander, but not strategies, rather electronics, a new subject that got both brothers interested.

While I was going out of my office, I dialed the number of my brother Arthur.

"Hey, Art, what are we having for dinner?"

"A pizza made by me..." He said cheerfully.

"And me" Our baby brother cut in right away

"Hey, who's looking after the pizza?"

"Oups !!"

And they cut off right away

I better buy a pizza on the way.

"What cute brothers I have," I said absent-mindedly

"Indeed" I felt something touch the back of my head

"Walk into that alley if you don't a huge mess to take place in your head," A feminine voice said, and I complied.

"Who sent you?"

"Fearless, are we? Not even bargaining for your life?"

"Don't need to bargain with a bitch"

"Owww, your cute too, you know that? My cousin sure gave birth to the brightest and cutest children ever, too bad, you'll be way cuter in death". Her English is rough, just like my late mother, my mother was a half-Russian. And that made me realize, something went off with grandma. I turned and saw a woman dressed in my personal "Shadow" guards, my guard corps.

And before I could ask she said.

"It seems you realized. If it makes it any better, planning your death was hard"

And with that, she fired a bullet right in the middle of my head, not giving me any chance to survive.

~ ??? POV ~

I was late.