Chapter 2 - The Currency of Fear
The air inside the backroom of 'Caldwell Auto Repairs' smelled of stale cigars, spilled beer, and cheap cologne.
Victor Caldwell sat at the head of a green felt table, a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills resting beside his elbow. He was a fat, thick-necked man with slicked-back hair and three heavy gold chains around his throat. Across from him, five other men were drinking whiskey and laughing loudly over a game of Texas Hold'em.
Two armed guards stood by the heavy steel door that led out to the garage bay.
Without warning, the steel door buckled inward with a thunderous bang that shattered the frame.
Before the guards could draw their weapons, four men in dark coats poured through the opening. The first guard was slammed against the brick wall by Marcus, his gun stripped from his hand in a fraction of a second. The second guard was forced to his knees, a silenced pistol pressed firmly behind his right ear.
The poker players shrieked, chairs scraping frantically against the floor as they reached for their waistcoats.
"DON'T MOVE!" Marcus’s voice boomed through the room like thunder.
Silence crashed over the table.
Then, through the fog of gun smoke and dust, Adrian Moretti walked into the room.
He didn't carry a weapon in his hand. He wore a six-thousand-dollar cashmere overcoat over his dark charcoal suit. He walked with the slow, terrifying confidence of a man who owned the air everyone else was breathing.
Victor Caldwell’s face drained of every drop of color. The cigar tumbled from his lower lip, dropping onto the felt table and burning a small black hole into the cloth.
"M-Moretti?" Caldwell stammered, his hands flying into the air. "Don Moretti... what... what is this? I’m paid up on my street taxes! I gave your caporegime his five percent on the docks last week!"
Adrian didn't answer. He walked slowly to the head of the table, pulled out a leather chair across from Caldwell, and sat down. He crossed one leg over the other, resting his hands casually on his knee.
"Victor," Adrian said smoothly. His voice was soft, almost conversational, which made every man in the room sweat profusely. "You have a tenant on 5th Avenue in Cicero. Room 3B. Sofia Romano."
Caldwell blinked, utterly bewildered. "Who? A tenant? I... I own thirty buildings, Don Moretti. I don't know who lives in—"
"Sofia Romano," Adrian repeated, his voice dropping an octave into absolute ice. "Her husband was Daniel Romano. He died in your garage six months ago."
Caldwell’s eyes darted frantically toward his lieutenant in the corner. "Look, Don Moretti, if this is about an unpaid debt, I can clear it! Was he one of your people? I swear on my mother’s grave I didn't know he was connected to the Moretti family!"
"He wasn't connected," Adrian said. "He was an honest man. Which makes what you did to him infinitely worse."
Adrian leaned forward, resting his elbows on the green felt table, staring straight into Caldwell’s trembling eyes.
"As of twelve o'clock tonight," Adrian said, "Daniel Romano’s debt is paid in full."
"Yes! Of course! Absolutely!" Caldwell gasped, nodding frantically. "It’s wiped! It’s gone! I’ll tear up the paper right now!"
"That's not all," Adrian continued calmly. He held out his hand, and Marcus immediately placed a fountain pen and a legal document on the table. "This is a deed of transfer for the apartment building on 5th Avenue. You are selling it to the Moretti Charitable Foundation for the sum of one dollar."
Caldwell stared at the document, his mouth agape. "That building is worth four hundred thousand dollars!"
Adrian didn't speak. He simply pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and flicked it across the felt table. It spun with a metallic ring before falling flat against Caldwell’s stack of poker chips.
"Sign," Adrian said softly.
"Moretti, please!" Caldwell pleaded, tears of terror welling in his small eyes. "I have partners! The Commission—"
Adrian reached across the table, grabbed Caldwell by his gold chains, and slammed his face into the wooden table with crushing force. Caldwell screamed as his nose shattered, blood spraying across his hundred-dollar bills.
Adrian didn't let go. He held Caldwell’s face pressed against the blood-stained felt, pulling his head back just far enough to whisper into his ear.
"If you ever go near Sofia Romano again," Adrian whispered, "if you ever send a man to her building, if you ever look at her child... I will not shoot you, Victor. I will take everything you own, throw you into Lake Michigan in a concrete coat, and give your buildings to the people you starved. Do you understand me?"
"I sign! I sign!" Caldwell sobbed, blood pouring down his chin onto the white paper.
With trembling fingers, Caldwell grabbed the pen and scribbled his name at the bottom of the deed.
Adrian stood up, buttoning his cashmere coat. He adjusted his leather gloves, looking down at the broken man on the table with supreme disgust.
"Marcus," Adrian said as he turned toward the exit. "Call the State Prosecutor’s office. Give them the security footage of Daniel Romano’s death that Detective Miller tried to bury. I want Caldwell in a state penitentiary by sunrise."
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"Consider it done, Boss," Marcus replied.
As Adrian walked out into the falling snow of Cicero, he looked up at the night sky. For the first time in three years, the crushing weight in his chest felt a fraction lighter. But as he thought of the little girl watering dead sunflowers in his garden, he knew his work was only beginning.
