Cash Flow: Los Alabasta's
As a child, my brother and I experienced a lot of luxury, only because our parents are the heads of the Alabasta Mob. The Alabasta Mafia originally started fifty-five years ago by my mom’s dad Fernando Alabasta when he was only twenty years old. After 5 years they became the top mob in the country. When my grandfather turned seventy-five he gave the mob to his youngest child, my mother, Fernanda Flores Alabasta, she was often referred to as Jefa Fernando or Florecita. Other mobs around did not take the Alabasta name seriously because a twenty-three-year-old woman is running the Alabasta Mob. Little did they know my mother was as hard and ruthless as my grandfather. Sadly that ruthless attitude doesn't run in the family, or that's what we want everyone else to think.
My brother graduated from Johnson C. Smith University in North Carolina, an HBCU, because La Jefa believed in education, and believed a college education at an HBCU would position our family to know how world economies were changing. Mamá specifically chose an HBCU because of the focus of ethnic identity development which would help Jacob deepen his comfort with our ethnic backgrounds, tour histories, and the unique traditions that contribute to ethnicities. Fernanda expected the school to teach Jacob how to be culturally and model dexterous strategies to feel comfortable in diverse settings where he may be the minority and sole ethnic representative in the group-meeting or situation, not only as a person of color, as in the sole person in the room who has a good idea among like peers, that can seem risky or cautious, either way, La Jefa had a plan and we were a part of her end game. La Jefa felt-if la familia were to grow, there would be a component of risk we would need to undertake, as her long-term objective to grow the business globally, to do so, Jacob and I would need to identify with multiple Hispanic subgroup populations.
Mi mamá decided to take early retirement and hand the familas business down to my brother, it was really handed down to both of us, my brother and I are twins, well Jacob is older than me by five minutes but that doesn't matter, mami thought that it would be a good idea that my brother and I both run things because we both have some of our mothers traits. My brother is outgoing, fun, creative, and very nice, he's a real optimist. Me, on the other hand, I am quiet, shy, practical, and a real pessimist. My family decided to keep the partnership a secret, my brother would be the face of the mafia and I am the one behind the scenes. To everyone outside of the underground world, Jacob and I seem like brother and sister who happen to run Getaway country club. To everyone in the underground world, Jacob is the head of the Alabasta Mafia and I am just his little sister and assistant when really I am the one helping Jacob make the big boy decisions.
“Hey sis could you help me with this?” Jacob called me into the room from his office.
“Yeah, what's up?”
“So there is a meeting with the 12 heads about this new mob that appeared out of nowhere. They are already in partnership with 4 of the 12, and the number is increasing every week.”
“Okay, and what is the problem?”
“Well, Darian from the Knights is trying to convince us to get into a partnership with them too and I’m not really sure if it is a good idea or not.”
“What do you know about this new group and how could they benefit us?”
“Darian told me that they specialize in heists and that they have helped them gain more income so they could expand to other areas. I don’t really know much about them all I really know is that they only started five years and that they are powerful, manipulative, and very good at hiding their identities.”
“Well, these guys seem pretty tough, and I don’t think we want to get on their bad side.”
“Do you really think so? I have a feeling that they could be some serious trouble for us.”
“I understand how you could see that, but try to think about the future if they contact you to make a deal and you reject them and say the wrong thing our own mob will be put in jeopardy. Especially if they are backed by some of the twelve they could do some serious damage to us and what our family built.”, I say worriedly say to him.
Jacob stares at me then he looks down at his hands, when he’s in deep thought he starts to tap right thumb on the nail of his left thumb. Jacob looks up at me and gives off a deep sigh “Don’t worry, I’ll try not to say the wrong words, I just have a gut feeling that I can’t trust them. We don’t know anything about them, and they are a fairly new mob.”
“I guess I’ll leave this decision to you, just please be careful with what you say and how you handle it, we don’t want to lose everything and end up behind bars.”
“Don’t worry I’ll make sure that won’t happen to us”, Jacob continues to tap his thumb but instead of his serious thinking face, he gives me a comforting smile trying to show that everything is okay.
It was the night of the meeting with the 12.
Jacob is normally nervous and a little restless before these meetings but tonight he seems to be cool, calm and collected. He didn’t even speak a word the entire way there, I started to get a little worried I haven’t seen him like this in a while.
“Hey, you good?” I turn and ask him.
“Yeah, I’m good, just thinking about how this meeting is going to go down”, Jacob says in a calm voice.
“Oh, okay,'' Every year there is a meeting between the 12 heads. Every year the meeting is held in a different location and the only people who know the location are the heads and their drivers, but it seems like we have been driving forever. Normally the drive to the meetings takes 45 minutes at most but we have been driving for the past hour and a half. I wonder where we’re going.
Another hour passes and we finally arrive at our location. It's a club that's closed for the night. The sign is covered, and any distinctive features on the building have been covered too. The lights in the building are completely off and glow sticks are placed in a line directing us to where we should go. After following along, meandering, barely lit path, we walk into a slightly lit room with twelve chairs around an oval table. It appears that Jacob and I are the first ones to arrive, out of the 12 Heads. The Alabasta Mod was the sixth to join so Jacob sits in the sixth seat, I sit slightly behind him just off to his right-hand side.
Soon after we arrive, Darian Knight head of the White Knights enters. The Knights are bodyguards for the higher class, mayors, governors, the rich, pretty much anyone who has a lot of money, they also happen to be family friends.
Following Darian is Cameron Takahashi she’s the head of The Takahashi Mafia, she was recently appointed a couple of months ago by her grandfather. Takahashi’s grandfather is very traditional and sticks to older Japanese customs, so when her mother was born her father wanted to wait until her mother had a son but she ended up having all girls. Takahashi’s grandfather decided to wait until he was ninety-five to finally pass down the mob to Takahashi.
Next, Tommy Reinert, head of the Reinert mob and number 3 of the 12 enters. Tommy has been the head of The Reinert Mafia, and the owner of Reinert’s Trucking. Ten years ago Tommy became the head and created Reinert’s Trucking to increase their business. The Reinert’s specialize in smuggling and transport. If you have something transported they will do it, from people to drugs they will do it all. The next one to walk in is Soul head of the Soul Reapers and number 9 of the 12, we don’t actually know Soul’s real name or too much about The Soul Reapers, they specialize in assassinations. I don’t know too much about them, they mostly keep secreto because they need to keep their identities private from the public. The next one to walk in is Ace Heartfelt head of the Heartfelt Mafia and owner of the Heartfelt Armory. The Heartfelt armory has supplied the underworld with weapons for decades. He is a huge asset for us and we need to keep on his good side. The last five all walk in as if it was perfectly timed, Verónica Cordelia number 12, head of the Rose Mafia and number 12. The Rose Mafia is fairly new to the underworld, Rose has only been running for the last 8 years but became very well known for their escort service. The next one to walk in is Ruben, number 10, he isn’t the head of a Mafia head accountant for The 12 so if anyone was to piss him off he could ruin all of us. He is also the most protected of The 12 because he knows all of our bank account information. The next one to walk in is Michael Pain, head of The Discharged Mercenaries, the Mercenaries specialize in the dirty jobs in the underworld. The last two to walk is Nina and Shannon Rogers, seat number 1 and 2. These two cousins have been running the underworld since their grandmothers did back in the ’50s. Nina Rogers is the head of the Red Leaf Mafia, they specialize in producing drugs, she owns thousands of acres of land for growing marijuana, and cook houses. Shannon Rogers is the head of the Blue Leaf Mafia she specializes in the factory of Nina’s drug business, her and her people harvest, package, and sell all of the drugs they produce. Together they are the two heads of the underworld.
“So are we ready to get this meeting started?” Nina says as she walks through the door.
For the next hour, the heads talked about random details about who owns what and who controls the territory in each state. “Come on just let me go through your territory, it will only be for 2 hours at the most”, Darian said towards Tommy frustratingly.
“No, I don’t trust that corrupt governor that you are bodyguarding”, Tommy replies in annoyance.“But going through your territory would make the already long drive so much faster than having to go around. Come on just let one corrupt governor go through please man”, Tommy whispers tersely.
“Can you two please talk about this at another time? We have more important things to talk about”, Nina cuts their conversation short, “now for a more pressing matter, this mafia Cash Flow does anyone know anything about them?”
The room sits in silence. The four who are currently partnered with Cash Flow are keeping quiet about it since no one knows much about this group. Everyone in the room is turning to each other. After many looks were given Jacob starts nudging me “Actually I have some information on them.”
I stand up, open my binder and start reading off of the notes that I have, “Our current information about Cash Flow is that this mafia group started five years ago and that their head is trying to control the underworld.”
Nina nods her head “Does anyone else have any more information about Cash Flow?” the room was still silent. “Well if no one else knows anything about them, I would like to know who decided to partner with them?” The room quickly went into a standstill, “Well I’ll start, I’m with Cash Flow.”
Everyone looks at Nina in shock, we didn’t expect the number 1 to be in with Cash Flow. “Before any of you start worrying about your spot in the 12 you're all okay. Cash Flow doesn't want a spot on the 12. All they want is a partnership with all of us in the 12. They want to expand their forms of profit, currently, they are only working in the heist business.” Everyone in the room is still silent, “does anyone have any objections on all of us partnering with Cash Flow?”
“How do we know they are a reliable group to partner with?” Jacob asks. “They could be playing us all and they decide to take all of our money and assets that our families have worked so hard to build.”
“Because Cash Flow is a trusted friend of mine and I have confidence that they will not cross me or tarnish the reputation that my family and I have built”, everyone in the room began to talk to themselves and others quietly.
“I’ll join you guys”, Verónica stood up confidently. “I mean we might as well give it a shot and if anything goes south well just throw them in a ditch for no one to find.”
“Damn Veronica you can go from a sweet woman in her 30’s to a scary beast”, Darian said.
Verónica turned her head and smiled at Darian but it wasn’t a happy smile. It was the smile your mom gives you when you break her fine china, “Who are you calling ‘a scary beast’ Darian?”
“No one ma’am”, Darian’s said as he sat back down.
“That’s right”, Verónica snapped back, “anyways what I was trying to say before is that we should see how this thing with Cash Flo plays out and see how we all can benefit from what they are planning.”
“I agree 100%”, Darian joins in “I’m also curious about this mysterious plan that Cash Flow has for us.”
One by one everyone in the 12 is agreeing to join up with Cash Flow. I look down at Jacob to see his reaction but I can’t read him at all he just has a blank expression on his face the entire time. After he hears what everyone has to say he joins into the conversation, “I’ll join, but only after I hear their plans and if I think this will work”, everyone in the room looked confused. No one thought about what the plan was or what they would be doing everyone decided to join on a whim, “until I hear their plan I will be on the fence for now.”
“Sounds good to me I will contact you all to have another meeting about the details of this plan until then just keep doing what you normally do”, Nina said over her shoulder as her assistant got her coat for her to leave, “I will see you all next time.”
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