Chang Mei helped the old man to his bed after his last cup of tea, and then helped him into it as was their nightly ritual these days. After he was settled in, she covered the old man with a blanket, then sat down on the edge of the bed beside him.
Old Chang, as everyone called him (even Mei didn’t know his real first name), was the leader of the Chinese Triads in Los Angeles. He was also ninety years old.
“Thank you for your help, honored daughter,” he told her, out of breath. “It is becoming more difficult each day.”
“Not at all,” Mei replied. “I owe you so much.”
Old Chang covered her hand with his old, withered one. Mei was the type that never took her black gloves off. That is, unless she was alone with him. “No, it is I who owe you. You have done a great job keeping order while my health has been fading.”
“Nonsense!” Mei shot back. “You are still a strong leader!”
Chang looked at her with those eyes that could penetrate your soul. “We both know I don’t have many days left.” He patted her hand. “I have made my wishes plain but you might have to fight for what is rightfully yours. Do you understand?”
Mei nodded. “Yes, Honored Father.”
“I could not love you more if you were my own flesh and blood,” he said.
Mei put his hand to her face and kissed it, not daring to let the tears that threatened to flow from her eyes to fall. She loved him more than she ever did her real father. Mei was not ashamed to admit.
As they looked at each other with that special love that most real fathers and daughters felt for each other, her mind recalled when they met.
Mei had seen the girl steal his money clip as he shopped at the fruit stand. She ran the girl down with a speed that she found out later had impressed him. Mei grabbed the girl by the hair and marched her back to Old Chang, then told her to hand over the money she stole.
Chang had studied her as the girl gave his money back and made her apologies. Mei had met his gaze, looking him right in the eye, unfazed.
“What do you want me to do with her?” Mei had asked.
“Kill her,” Chang had said dispassionately.
Mei remembered the girl screaming as she pulled out the switchblade she carried for self defense and flipped it open. She still remembered that first feeling of power when she slit the girl’s carotid artery and watched the blood flow out of her.
She was 12 years old at the time.
Chang had just nodded and walked away. Mei remembered being disappointed at being dismissed so quickly and never expected to see him again.
The next day, Chang showed up at her house and paid her peasant parents an exorbitant sum to adopt her as his own. As they had really wanted a son (which they later had), they agreed, too quickly for Mei’s taste.
It turned out he had been impressed with her, and word on the street spread fast about what she had done on his orders, securing his status as a powerful gangster. All his sons had died in blood feuds, so he had no other children. His wife had died recently as well, so Mei was his only family.
Ever since the day they met, Chang felt she had the strength to be his successor, and he had done his best to secure that position for her. Mei started out as a runner for the organization as that 12 year old, moved up to enforcer by the time she was 16, was operations chief by 20, and now she was the deputy leader of the Triads at the young age of 27.
Mei was the young, strong leader that an organization such as theirs needed. But she was still a woman in a man’s world, a fact of which she was painfully aware.
“You have more interesting things to do than baby sit an old man, I’m sure,” Chang said, snapping her out of her trip down memory lane.
Mei smiled. “I’ll stay as long as you like.”
Chang pulled the covers up. “Time to go to sleep,” he said. “Run along, my dear.”
Mei nodded and stood. “Good night, Honored Father. Sleep well.”
“And you,” Chang said before turning over, effectively dismissing her.

Mei went to her bedroom suite and closed her eyes after shutting the double doors behind her. She hated seeing him like this. Despite what his death would mean to her status in the Triad organization, it was hard seeing someone she loved so wasting away.
She opened a box on her vanity and withdrew an extra long cigarette. Mei liked her cigarettes like she liked her men, extra long. She lit the cigarette with the table lighter and drew on it deeply, enjoying the strong taste of the nicotine. By the end of the day, her nicotine cravings were always quite strong.
Mei didn’t smoke or drink around Old Chang. He didn’t have any vices himself and did not suffer them well in others, so she didn’t partake of hers around him. It was the least she could do with all he had given her.
Puffing once more on the cigarette between her silky red lips, she removed her leather jacket. Mei stood and looked at her reflection in the mirror as she untied the ponytail around her long, silky black hair and shook it free.
She was always a beautiful girl. Most of the comments she heard in her life was she had an angelic face, although the fire in her black eyes when she was angry would frighten even the most secure man. Mei had a powerful, petite, curvy body that many of those men admired. She twisted her body and caught a glimpse of her gun along with her behind.
Mei liked her guns small, powerful, and concealable. Her favorite at the moment was the .380 automatic she presently carried in the waistband in the small of her back. Mei always worked in close quarters and a silencer just wasn’t her style. She always carried a backup gun as well, a small .25 caliber automatic in a garter on her right thigh.
Her boy toys then came out of the back room.
Mei called her personal servants that, a private joke between them. They were young men, as she preferred, and totally subservient to her, as she demanded. They knew they would pay the price if they failed to do so, as evidenced by the collection of whips and canes that adorned one wall of her bedroom suite.
They were both Caucasian, again, as she preferred her body slaves to be since they were so well equipped to please her. They were also totally nude, again, just as she wanted them to be while serving her needs. Mei admired those killer abs of theirs when they entered. She always demanded they work out and stay in shape.
“I suppose you were sleeping in my bed,” Mei snapped around her cigarette as they began to undress her.
“You were late, Madam,” the dark haired one said, his head bowed.
Mei removed her .380 automatic, held it in her hand long enough for them to feel threatened. “My comings and goings are no business of yours, Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey dropped to his knees and bowed. “I ask forgiveness, Madam.”
Mei laid her gun on the vanity. “Get up and draw me a bath,” she snapped, removing the small automatic from her garter and lying it beside her other pistol.
Jeffrey quickly moved off as to not to draw any more of her wrath.
Matthew, the blonde one, worked quietly as he removed her blouse, then her bra, as if not trusting himself to speak his mind these days. Mei had beaten his tendency to speak out of turn out of him during his training, something she was certain he remembered well. He still bore the scars that her whip had left from his multiple punishments.
Mei put her left hand under his chin and brought his head up to look at her. “Come to me,” she ordered.
Matthew moved against her. Mei wrapped herself around his rock hard body and kissed him hungrily. Oh, how she needed that. She smiled as she felt his considerable manhood growing against her. Mei would enjoy both of them most thoroughly later tonight.

Mei sat in the large tub as Matthew and Jeffrey bathed her.
They soaped her liberally, scrubbed her thoroughly, lingering as usual over the more intimate places.
After they were finished bathing her, Matthew dried her while Jeffrey filled the hot tub and turned on the Jacuzzi jets. Jeffrey helped her inside the hot tub when it was ready. Mei leaned back against the side of the tub, letting the water wash over her nude body.
Finally, Jeffrey brought her a cigarette. The young man lit the cigarette for her, then they stood by, waiting for further orders. Normally she would have them join her in the hot tub but they knew better to anticipate her wishes.
“Go wait for me in bed,” Mei told them. “I need a moment alone.”
She exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled in anticipation of what was to come as she watched them leave, admiring the shape of their well formed buttocks.
Mei closed her eyes to clear her mind and enjoyed the Jacuzzi a while longer. The sound of the jets and the water was peaceful.

Mei slept peacefully in the king size four poster bed, completely satisfied, her arms wrapped around Matthew, as Jeffrey held her from behind. That peace was broken suddenly with a pounding on her door.
“Madam! Madam!” the shouts came from behind her door. “Come quick!”
The voice belonged to Li, one of Chang’s longest serving servants. She probably was in her sixties by now herself.
“What is it?” Mei snapped.
“The master! I think he’s dead!”
Mei jumped up, now wide awake.

Mei was dressed in a full length robe, her black gloves adorning her hands. She reached down and checked Chang’s pulse. There was none.
“Li, please contact Yang,” Mei ordered. “Immediately.”
“Then he’s really…” Li said, tears forming in her ancient eyes. .
Mei placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Yes. I’m afraid so.”
As Li left to contact the clan’s lawyer, Mei looked down at Old Chang. He died in his sleep, without pain, just as he would have wanted.
Mei would miss him terribly.

The funeral was huge and well attended, the type you might normally see for a head of state. Thousands turned out to say goodbye to Old Chang. Mei swore the entirety of Chinatown plus several others in the Los Angeles area turned out to pay their respects.
Many had something to say about Old Chang, and Mei was among them. She gave quite a speech about what he had meant to her and the community at large. For while Chang could be quite a ruthless man, and often Mei was the one who embodied that ruthlessness in carrying out his orders, he was also very active and generous in the community.
After the funeral, many came by to see Mei and ingratiate themselves to her, knowing she was Chang’s hand picked successor. She dispassionately received all of them, inwardly basking in the glory of her new power but her face remained as inscrutable as possible.
Chang had taught her long ago not to let her feelings show on her face to her enemies. Being a woman in charge of the Triads, everyone was a potential enemy now. The only person Mei had ever really trusted was now dead.

Mei looked around the table at all of the Triad underbosses, still trying to fathom that they were all her men now.
She now sat at the head of the table instead of the seat to the immediate left of the head of the table as she had for some time now.
“I intend to run things the same as before,” Mei was telling them. “The organization is running smoothly, so here is no need to make changes. You are all very efficient at performing your jobs.”
“What makes you think we’ll follow a woman?” Chow said, spitting out the last word as if it were a curse. Despite being in his mid 30s, he had an old world attitude toward women. So much so that Mei already had anticipated he might be a problem.
“You should learn not to speak out of turn,” Mei snapped back.
His brain didn’t have time to register the .380 automatic in her gloved fist before she shot him in the throat.
BLAM! The gunshot made most of the men in the room jump. Chow clutched his throat. Blood ran between her fingers.
“Anything else to say?” Mei teased.
Chow tried to open his mouth but only a gurgling sound came out.
BLAM! The second shot tore through his heart. Chow looked down and saw the flower of blood staining his shirt around the blue black hole her bullet had made. He looked back at her in disbelief.
BLAM! The last gunshot tore through his forehead, leaving a red hole. His head lolled back, and his eyes glazed over.
“Anyone else have anything to say?” Mei asked sweetly, still holding the smoking pistol in her gloved right hand.
The room was deadly silent.
“Good,” Mei said. “Now, let’s get back to business.”

Mei stood on the deck of what was now her house, leaning on the railing and watching the lights of Los Angeles in the distance. She had always liked his large house on the hill that Chang had built many years ago. Now it was hers.
She flicked the remainder of her cigarette over the railing. Her nicotine intake seemed to have increased now that she led the Triads. The stress of her new position, no doubt.
Mei had worked all her life for this moment. As Chang’s daughter, adopted or not, she was entitled to continue his legacy. She had proved herself over the years, but that meant nothing to those who ached to be in her position. It would be up to her to hold onto her power.
She looked forward to meeting her enemies in battle. Mei had lost count of the number of men she had killed over the years. She would win the battles in the future also. She always did.
Mei turned her back on Los Angeles and went back into the house. Her young men were no doubt waiting to please her once more.