snakechahmah | Summary...

It story started with a few whispers in the dark recesses of the criminal underworld. The whispers were carefully orchestrated, spoken in places where the message would carry further. The street gangs with uneasy overlapping business with the different mafias starting talking first—the chatter started among the Bloods in Washington Heights and then traveled down over the Brooklyn bridge to the Latin Kings before spreading through the slavic gangs in Greenpoint until it reached the Crips in Queens and went as far as to MS-13 on Long Island where you could die in a machete attack as if you were in some Columbian jungle and not the 'burbs. Word was that some dumb upstart bitch was pushed across the line and went mad crazy when her crime boss father fell into the Punisher's crosshairs. Apparently, the dude didn't kill Josef Baader outright but he sure as shit armed the bitches that did. What he did do was shoot up the dead man's club. Everyone died, including a number of key industry players. That should have been the end of the Baader-Holt syndicate's era in the "entertainment industry". But something unlikely happened.

All the women that had killed Josef Baader vanished. Just fell off the face of the earth only a few days after they had been liberated. Someone snapped their fingers and all of them were gone as if they had never existed in the first place. Any body that had ever killed any body actually knew how hard it was to get away clean with one body, never mind utterly obliterate several.

The rumor that she had been involved was recent, even though the event happened a year ago. It ran through the kaleidoscope of mobs and syndicates. Especially her father's previous casual business associates, one of which was vouching for Ezera's…transition.

Could it be true? Ezera Baader was edging into the family business? It seemed unlikely. But then—and there were many people that were there to see this—the Punisher attacked Ezera at the Red Rum, a known dive bar frequented by criminal misfits of all talents and persuasions. He dragged her into the alleyway. That should have been the end of it. She should have been dead, especially if she really had those women killed. Especially if he knew it. Shots were fired. Blood was spilled. To everyone's surprise, it wasn't hers. The bitch just walked away, gun still in hand. She was either crazy or to be respected. Maybe both. Or a fraud.

Something was up and it was the Albanian mafia (who had transported Josef Baader's commodities through the Balkans) that decided to test the situation. And try to benefit from it. They sent two guys to the Katakomb Kabaret with a message.

Such a nice place, shame if something happened to it, or Ezera Baader, when her attention was diverted to business matters.

The message was returned with blood spatter, brain matter and piss stained pants when only one returned to stammer that the club and Ezera were already protected. A viking of a man had exploded his partner's head and let him go only to rely the message—hands off.

Dirty cops then spotted her strolling in the park with a very dangerous (former) member of the Bratva. It seemed that she was building a diverse inner circle. Effectively. Surprise. A woman—that woman—fighting to take over the splintered Baader-Holt syndicate?

After three months, three months of near radio silence and having been barely seen at her club, Ezera Baader finally showed her cards.

The surprise wasn't that she played her hand. It was that she had changed the game. Turns out that she wasn't taking a gamble.

She was playing monopoly.