Chapter 2 - The Iron Horse
The Iron Horse Lounge was a dive bar smelled of cheap beer, stale tobacco, and grease.
Inside, Marcus Vane—a greasy, heavily built man with a scar across his nose—was sitting at a booth near the jukebox, laughing loudly with three of his muscle men while counting a thick stack of blood-stained hundred-dollar bills.
"She thought she could call the cops on me," Vane laughed, taking a heavy swig of whiskey. "Little laundry girl learned her lesson tonight. By tomorrow, we take the deed to the building and—"
The heavy oak front door of the bar didn't just open; it exploded off its hinges.
Splinters of oak showered the room as six heavy-set men in charcoal suits burst into the venue, their automatic weapons trained on every guard in the building.
The music cut out instantly. The bartender dropped behind the counter, screaming.
Marcus Vane jumped out of his booth, his hand reaching for the holster inside his leather vest. "What the hell is this?! This is Moretti territory! Who the hell—"
Vane froze dead in his tracks.
Vincent Torino walked through the shattered doorway, stepping smoothly over the ruined frame. Rainwater dripped from the brim of his black hat, his long wool coat draped around him like a shroud of death.
The entire bar went deathly silent.
Vane’s face drained of every drop of color until he looked like a corpse. "Don... Don Vincent..."
Vincent didn't answer immediately. He walked slowly across the sticky floor, his leather shoes clicking rhythmically against the linoleum. He stopped two feet away from Vane’s table, looking down at the stack of blood-stained bills lying on the wood.
"Is that her rent money, Marcus?" Vincent asked softly.
Vane’s lips trembled uncontrollably. "Don Vincent... listen to me! She owed three months of back interest! I was just collecting for the precinct! I didn't know she was under your protection!"
"She wasn't," Vincent replied quietly, his voice dangerously gentle. "Until her seven-year-old daughter ran into my restaurant covered in her mother's blood and asked me to save her."
Vane swallowed hard, his hands shaking as he raised them slowly into the air. "Don Vincent... please! We can work this out! I’ll give the money back! I’ll pay for her hospital bills! Don't do this over some low-life laundry worker!"
Vincent reached out with blinding speed, grabbing Vane by the throat and slamming his heavy skull violently into the wooden tabletop.
CRACK!
Vane shrieked as his nose broke, blood spraying across his hundred-dollar bills.
"She is a mother trying to feed her child," Vincent growled, leaning down until his dark, terrifying eyes were inches from Vane’s face. "And you sent two men to beat her to death with an iron pipe in front of a child."
"Don Moretti will start a war over this!" Vane choked out, blood pouring from his nostrils. "You can't touch me in this district!"
Vincent stood up, drawing his custom silver-plated pistol from his coat.
"Tell Moretti," Vincent said, looking down at Vane’s terrified lieutenants, "that Chicago has a new rule starting tonight."
Vincent raised the gun and fired two heavy rounds directly into Vane’s knees.
Vane screamed in sheer, agonizing agony, collapsing onto the bloody floor, clutching his shattered legs.
"If any man in this city touches a child or a mother again," Vincent announced, his voice echoing across the silent bar like a divine death sentence, "I will not just kill him. I will erase his entire family from the map. Starting with anyone who stands in my way tonight."
Vincent turned his back on the screaming man, walking out into the rain toward his waiting car.
"Tony," Vincent said as he stepped into the rear seat.
May you like
"Yes, Don Vincent?"
"Call Don Moretti. Tell him I am taking the south side districts by dawn. And tell him if he wants them back, he can come to my restaurant and ask me himself."
