𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆

~Tantrum Protocol~

"Yeah..who hasn't?" Antonio scoffed, wondering how this related to his question. Oscar rolled his eyes at his stupidity. Matteo widened his eyes slightly, looking at Ida then Starr. Luca's body went rigid.

Antonio was always the slow one.

The elevator suddenly opened to reveal countless men, and women dressed in professional attires while standing straight up and facing them.

They had nervous expressions and stood straighter than soldiers.

You could hear a pin drop.

Starr walked out and looked at them intensely and scanned them for any flaw. She then gave a curt and short nod and walked away. They all took silent breaths of relief and dispersed into their cubicles. One seemed more nervous than the others while his sweaty palms typed furiously on the keyboard.

Blade gestured to him and silently beckoned for everyone to follow. Starr was nowhere to be seen after she disappeared behind the heavily tinted titanium doors.

"Mr. Drew, why don't you tell Mr. Regio, Mr. Blazano, and Mr. Black who that was..." Blade smirked. The nervous 20-something-year-old-man looked behind him hesitantly and sucked in a harsh breath at the tattooed, well-built, tall, mafia men.

"T-that w-was Error 247 sir," he stuttered, still registering it himself.

Antonio's mouths fell open while Matteo and Luca just blinked in disbelief at someone saying it out loud.

Antonio couldn't believe he ever underestimated Starr while Luca was just baffled at the realization that this was the person that had his own hacker, Alessio, sweating.

On cue, Starr waltzed back in with important files in her hand.

"Sorry, I had to get some files for Midnight-why do your faces look like that?" she cringed.

"Y-you're...E-Error 247...?" Antonio gaped in skepticism. Starr gave Ida a pointed look because she didn't think Ida would tell them.

She just hummed in confirmation in a low tone as she gave a death glare to Ida.

"Welp, here's the technology center. This is where all the hacking, tracking and breaching go down. And where all of the bank accounts are managed and where we keep files of our members. Starr looks over it, but Midnight and the King control it," Blade hummed, interrupting the thick tension in the room.

"We'll take you to my section. This is where we manage legal organizations like companies, pharma, businesses, schools, law enforcement, land, government, commercial, and industrial aspects," Oscar informed them as they got back into the elevator.

"My section is what controls the underworld. The black market is not what it used to be before our control since we expelled all the trafficking except the weapons, but no one can access them without thorough investigation. This section is where we discuss our targets and how we are going to eliminate them. I look after it. Midnight and the King control all the sections we just make sure that they are going in order. Everything is owned and approved by them," Blade informed.

They all walked into the main meeting room on the top floor. Ida's phone started vibrating in her back pocket and she answered it without a glance.

Ida stopped dead in her tracks with her eyes holding panic and fear. Everyone looked at her in confusion. She ended the call abruptly without a word.

"Code red" she whispered before she started to sprint to the elevator with her auburn hair whipping to the side. All faces paled except for the Italians. They began to run to the elevators as well. Blade cursed and Starr began calling people on the phone.

The elevator wasn't opening so Ida ran down the stairs in a panic. She would have to run down 120 flights of stairs.

The 3 men followed them in confusion. They got into the elevator with milliseconds to spare.

"What's code red?" Luca asked, trying to suppress his annoyance. Oscar took a deep breath and faced the men with slight fear in his eyes.

Blade pressed on a red button in the elevator that made it speed up and go down faster. The floor numbers started down faster than the number of people that cleared their path when they got in.

"It's when Midnight's....uh....irritated," Oscar explained with hesitation. His green eyes turned dark.

Matteo and Antonio whipped their heads over to Luca, smiles growing. Luca glared at them, looking to the side as he clenched his jaw.

"What?" Ida asked, seeing the silent conversation going on between the Italians.

"Don't," Luca glared at Antonio and Matteo. But they both burst out laughing, holding their stomachs.

"You-you guys have a code too?!" Antonio said in between laughs, eyes watering.

"Goddamnit," Luca sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and not meeting the curious looks of Ida, Starr, Blade, and Oscar.

"We have one too, except we call it the "Tantrum protocol", " Matteo chuckled, looking at Luca and then back at the four faces of shock. Luca rolled his eyes, shoulders sagging, and eyes hard in annoyance.

It was true. Antonio and Matteo recalled the numerous times where Luca had gotten dangerously angry where he was the worst version of himself. It was terrifying to witness but when Thea had made fun of Luca for being on his "man-period" when Tantrum Protocol was activated, everyone else had started laughing about it too.

But it was still terrifying and no laughing matter when it actually happened.

"Okay, we get it. Let's focus now," Luca grumbled, slightly embarrassed.

Looking at the four faces of shock, he gestured that someone should explain why they panicked when code red was announced.

Starr saw Luca's unasked question.

"Anyways, do you remember the Ferni Massacre?" Starr asked with her voice deadly serious. They nodded their heads nonchalantly, Antonio and Matteo wiping their eyes of the tears that fell out from laughing.

The Ferni Massacre was a butchering of a minor cartel based in Georgia called the Ferni Cartel 7 years ago.

It was the biggest massacre to date. With 402 bodies slaughtered and dismembered. The Ferni Cartel went extinct with no survivors. Everyone knew it was the King's Mafia who did this after they started shooting at one of their shipments, stealing 50 million dollars in supplies, and killing a member in the process.

The King took that as a challenge and sent most of the members to eliminate the cartel. It was a warning to any other organization that would ever threaten them. After that, the Ferni Massacre became something that you would tell your kids to not go out after dark. It was something that was told all around the world.

It was around when the King's Mafia was just getting started so no one took it seriously, but after that everyone listened. It was the thing that made everyone bow down to the King.

It singlehandedly gave the King his throne. For good reason too.

"Only one person was there that night. The King didn't send most of the members to kill off the Ferni Cartel," Starr winced. Luca wondered how only one person could kill off an entire cartel.

It was impossible. The only person who he knew did that...was him, nine years ago.

"He sent his right hand to kill all 402 people. And she did," Blade admitted.