Chapter 5 - The Fall of the Serpents
The warehouse on 12th and Jackson was built of reinforced concrete and old iron, designed during the industrial boom to withstand explosions, fires, and the heavy weight of heavy machinery.
It could not withstand forty men commanded by Marco.
The heavy steel loading bay doors didn't just open — they were blown inward by a synchronized breach charge that shook the windows of three surrounding blocks. Before the smoke had even begun to clear, Falcone enforcers poured through the gap like black water, weapons drawn, moving with the terrifying efficiency of a military unit executing a precision strike.
There was no gunfight. There wasn't time.
The Red Serpents had been lounging in the central office, counting the evening's collection of protection money from the south-side shops, when the floor beneath them seemed to erupt.
Marcus Vance, a thick-necked brute with a jagged scar running from his ear to his collarbone, scrambled for the heavy automatic rifle leaning against his desk, but a size-11 Italian leather shoe came down across his wrist with the weight of a falling safe, pinning his hand to the wood with a sickening crunch.
Marcus screamed, looking up through tear-filled eyes into the face of a man who looked like an executioner from an old painting.
Marco stood over him, his expression completely blank, holstering his sidearm with unhurried grace.
"Get up, Marcus," Marco said. "The boss wants a word."
They dragged him out into the rain, throwing him into the back of a black van like a sack of garbage. By the time the local police sirens finally began to wail in the distance — thirty minutes late, as usual — the warehouse was empty, dark, and burning from the inside out, the flames consuming every ledger, every weapon, and every trace of the Red Serpents' existence.
Back at the Falcone estate, the library was lit only by the fireplace.
Enzo sat behind his desk, a glass of un-iced scotch resting untouched near his right hand. The heavy oak doors swung open, and two guards marched Marcus Vance into the room, shoving him down hard onto his knees before the desk.
Marcus was bleeding from the nose, his expensive leather jacket torn, his face bruised and swollen. He looked up at Enzo with a mixture of terror and lingering defiance.
"You're Falcone," Marcus spat, wiping blood from his lip. "Man, you got it wrong. We didn't know the flower shop was yours! If we knew you had a piece of that block, we wouldn't have—"
"You didn't know it was mine," Enzo interrupted, his voice a lethal whisper. "That is your first mistake."
Marcus swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward the shadows where Marco stood holding a heavy iron fireplace poker. "Look, name your price. Whatever the old lady owed, whatever the kid's shop is worth — I'll pay double. Triple! Just let me walk out of here."
Enzo stood up slowly from his desk. He didn't wear his jacket now; his shirt sleeves were still rolled up, revealing the thick, corded muscles of his forearms. He walked around the desk until he was standing directly over the kneeling gang leader.
"Thirty years ago," Enzo began, his voice dropping into that strange, terrible quiet that preceded every major storm in the city, "a man sat in a room much like this one. He believed he could protect his world by building walls of iron and blood. He believed that if he didn't care about anyone, no one could ever take anything from him again."
Marcus stared up at him, uncomprehending, trembling from head to toe. "What... what are you talking about? I don't know nothing about thirty years ago!"
"No," Enzo agreed softly. "You don't. You know about twenty-dollar protection fees. You know about hitting women with brass urns while little girls hide under counters."
Enzo crouched down until his face was inches from Marcus's. The dark red stain on his right cuff was still faintly visible — a small, stubborn mark that refused to wash out completely.
"You thought you were hurting nobody," Enzo said. "You thought the south side was a wasteland where you could do whatever you pleased because no one was watching."
He reached out, his hand gripping the back of Marcus's neck with a force that made the man gasp for air.
"I was watching, Marcus. I have always been watching."
Enzo stood up, his face hardening into granite. "Marco. Take him to the docks. Put him on a freighter bound for South America with nothing on his back and fifty dollars in his pocket. Tell him if he ever sets foot in this city again, I won't use a ship."
Marcus opened his mouth to scream, to beg, to offer mountains of gold, but Marco's hand clamped over his mouth like a vise, hoisting him up by his collar and dragging him out into the dark.
The heavy doors clicked shut.
Enzo walked back to the window, looking out over the rose gardens where the rain was finally beginning to slacken, leaving behind a clean, wet world washed in silver moonlight.
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For thirty years, he had been a ghost ruling an empire of ash.
Tomorrow morning, he was going to take a seven-year-old girl to the hospital to see her mother. And for the first time in three decades, Enzo Falcone realized he was no longer afraid of what tomorrow might bring.
