Chapter 7 - Blood and Steel
The grand boardroom of the Italian-American Cultural Center on Grand Avenue was built like a fortress. High ceilings, mahogany paneled walls, bulletproof glass windows, and heavy oak doors that were locked from the inside once the meeting commenced.
Around the long, polished conference table sat the four most powerful crime bosses in the Midwest:
Geno Rossi of the North Side, Lorenzo "The Hammer" Falco from New Jersey, Old Man Carmine from the West Side, and Dominic "The Viper" Moretti’s replacement, Tony Vane.
Behind each boss stood two heavily armed bodyguards, their hands resting near their jackets. The tension in the room was suffocating, thick enough to cut with a blade.
I sat at the head of the table. I was unarmored, wearing only a dark suit, my hands resting calmly on the wood in front of me. Marcus stood directly behind my chair, his expression hard as stone.
"Let me get this straight, Reed," Geno Rossi growled, leaning forward, his heavy diamond rings clinking against his glass of scotch. "You're walking away? The untouchable Jonathan Reed is handing over the entire Chicago waterfront because he found a woman and a kid?"
"I am giving you a gift, Geno," I said, my voice cutting through the murmurs in the room with effortless command. "The waterfront generates forty million dollars a year. It's yours. Falco takes the casino interests. Carmine takes the union logistics. Vane takes the South Side real estate."
Lorenzo Falco narrowed his sharp, dark eyes, tapping his fingers on the table. "And what do you want in return, Jonathan? Men like you don't give away kingdoms for free."
"I want peace," I said simply. "A signed agreement from every family represented at this table. My family is off-limits. Forever. If any member of your crews so much as speaks my daughter’s name, or steps within fifty miles of where we choose to live, the remaining three families are obligated to hunt that man down and eliminate him."
Old Man Carmine let out a low, raspy chuckle, nodding his gray head slowly. "A blood oath of protection. It’s an old custom. But fair. You give us eighty million dollars in annual revenue, Reed. In return, we leave you alone to play family man. I can live with that."
"I agree," Falco said immediately.
"Me too," Rossi added, grinning greedily at the thought of controlling the docks.
Only Tony Vane—Moretti’s former underboss—remained silent. His eyes were cold, filled with a bitter, hidden resentment. He had taken over Moretti’s crew twelve hours ago, and his pride was clearly wounded by the humiliation his family had suffered the previous night.
"Something on your mind, Vane?" I asked, turning my gaze directly onto him.
Vane leaned back, a dark, arrogant smile spreading across his face. "I just think it's funny, Reed. You spent twenty years killing anyone who crossed you. You built your throne on bodies. And now you think you can just wash the blood off your hands, buy a little house in the suburbs, and pretend you're a saint?"
"I never claimed to be a saint, Tony," I said softly.
"You're a murderer," Vane spat, his voice rising in anger. "And you humiliated my boss, Victor! You forced him out of his own city! You think my crew is just going to smile and sign your peace treaty while you walk away into the sunset?"
Before anyone could react, Vane reached under the table, pulling a short-barreled revolver from a hidden holster strapped to his knee.
"Tony, no!" Rossi screamed, jumping back from his chair.
Vane aimed the barrel straight at my chest, his face twisted in a psychotic rush of vengeance. "You don't get a happy ending, Reed!"
BANG!
A deafening gunshot shattered the room.
Smoke curled from the muzzle of a gun. But it wasn't Vane’s weapon that had fired.
It was Marcus.
In a fraction of a second, Marcus had drawn his concealed sidearm and put a bullet directly through Tony Vane’s forehead before the man could squeeze his trigger.
Vane’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed forward onto the polished mahogany table, his revolver slipping from his lifeless fingers and sliding across the wood, coming to a stop right beside my hands.
The room erupted into utter chaos. Bodyguards drew their weapons, pointing them at one another, shouting in terror and rage. Chairs crashed to the floor.
"STAY DOWN!" Marcus roared, keeping his gun raised, stepping in front of me like a wall of solid iron.
I didn't flinch. I didn't move an inch. I slowly reached out, picked up Vane's fallen revolver, opened the cylinder, dumped the bullets onto the table with a soft clatter, and set the empty gun down.
I stood up slowly, looking across the table at Rossi, Falco, and Carmine, whose guards were trembling with their fingers on their triggers.
"Tony Vane made a bad choice," I said, my voice echoing through the silent, smoke-filled room with terrifying clarity. "Does anyone else at this table want to dispute the terms of my retirement?"
The three mob bosses stared at Vane’s lifeless body, then looked at me—at the unyielding, immortal terrifying authority in my eyes. They realized, in that single second, that even stripped of his empire, Jonathan Reed was a man you did not cross and hope to survive.
Geno Rossi swallowed hard, his face pale as paper. He slowly lowered his guard's arm.
"The terms are accepted, Reed," Rossi stammered, picking up his pen with shaking fingers. "Give me the paper. I’ll sign first."
One by one, the three remaining kings of the Chicago underworld signed the blood oath, sealing my freedom in black ink.
May you like
I picked up the signed document, placed it inside my jacket, and looked at Marcus.
"Clean up this mess, Marcus," I said quietly, turning toward the heavy oak doors. "I have a train to catch."
