

# Parabellum

## Book 1 of the Brigio Series

By:

### Mitch Goth

Parabellum

Copyright: 2013 Mitch Goth

Smashwords Edition

No portion of this book may be reproduced or reprinted in any medium, or by electronic, mechanical or any other means without the express written consent of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to real world events, people, products or places are used in a fictitious manner. Other characters, events, or places are products of imagination and any resemblance to actual people, places or happenings is purely coincidental.

### Dedication:

### This book is dedicated to one person in particular, you know who you are.

### 1

Jimmy Brigio stepped out of the crowded Midway terminal and cringed as the brisk November wind bit at his face. It was hardly the warm, dry air he'd gotten used to. His well-collected brown hair was pushed and shoved about by the movement of the icy air.

He let out a quiet sigh at the sight before him. There leaning against his coveted nineteen sixty-eight Pontiac GTO, was Jimmy's kid brother, Marco.

Marco was trying his best to comb through his flowing black hair with his fingers, attempting to fix the mess the wind had caused. His gust-blown head was of no contrast to his dark sport coat and deep tinted aviators. Hardly the plain looking nobody Jimmy had left years earlier.

"Jimmy!" he exclaimed, taking quick, long strides towards Jimmy and giving him a tight, brotherly embrace. "How've you been?"

Jimmy had seen the depths of Chicago only once in the past ten years. He stopped in for a single day to attend their father's funeral five years earlier. He'd tried his best for the majority of his adult life to avoid his hometown and his brother's both.

But now, fresh off a twenty-hour flight, here he was again. Their sister, Anna, the youngest of the Brigio clan, had disappeared from this airport several days ago. He heard over the phone that she was already presumed dead. Jimmy wasn't ready to accept that, not by a long shot.

"Where's Anna?" Jimmy spoke quickly.

"Anna? You think I know where Anna is?"

"Yes, Marco, I do."

"Sorry to disappoint," Marco shrugged. "We've been looking everywhere for her. Me and Mickey both."

"Mickey too?" Jimmy had high doubts their eldest brother would put in such a large effort personally. He had many people below him to do that on his request.

"Even Mickey. Trust me."

"I know for a fact nothing in this town can get past Mickey. Now you're saying he can't find our sister, his sister?"

"Times have changed, Jimmy. The business isn't what it used to be anymore."

"So what, Mickey's cronies can't go around crushing shopkeeper's heads in for a cut of their profits anymore? Don't bullshit me, Marco. From what I hear the Chicago mob is still very much alive."

"Well you've heard wrong. Either way, Mickey's trying to legitimize, we don't have the resources we used to. Now come on, I'll take you to him and you can ask him yourself," Marco gestured toward his car. He seemed hurried.

"I was hoping to get a rental."

"Fine, I know a nice place to get a car on the north side," Marco wrapped around to the drivers side and continued gesturing for his brother to follow.

Jimmy strolled over to the passenger side of the car in a steady, march-like gait. His years in the army taught him to move surer than anyone else. He didn't have any luggage with him. His plan didn't involve staying very long.

"Why so nervous, Marco?" he wondered as he got into his brother's vintage vehicle. He'd noticed Marco had spent much of their reunion searching around the area, as if he was watching for somebody. Or somebody was watching for him.

"Why'd it have to be Midway?" Marco replied, wasting no time getting the car rolling.

"Because that's where the plane took me."

"You know O'Hare is a much better airport. Much more reliable, you know?" Marco's words came out swiftly. "And, on the plus side, I won't get shot at O'Hare."

"You're not going to get shot at Midway either."

"Oh, yes I will. And the killer will have good reason. The south side ain't our territory. North is where I should be, north is where O'Hare is!"

"You're telling me you live your whole life in half of Chicago?"

"Yes, because it's safe up there! I work up there, Mickey works up there, there's nothing but good to be had on the north side!"

"Calm down, Marco. You know Anna probably never had to worry about what side of the city to stay on. The joys of being a civilian I suppose."

"You're right, she never did. And look what happened to her!"

Jimmy shot his brother a troubled look.

"Marco, calm down," he said again in a stern yet collected tone.

"I'm sorry," Marco sighed, "I just hate being on the south side."

Jimmy accepted his brother's apology with a nod as he turned to watch the road. It felt like ages since he'd laid eyes on a paved street. This one had its share of potholes, cracks and discolorations, but it was better than dirt.

Just then, Jimmy spotted something scurrying across the street. Without thinking he grabbed firmly onto the wheel and jerked the car partially into oncoming traffic to avoid the tiny critter. Car horns blared, Marco's included.

"What the hell is the matter with you?" Marco straightened his car out and shoved his brother's hand off the steering wheel.

"There was an animal in the road," Jimmy replied.

"That was a rat, Jimmy. There's a ton of them here. Definitely not worth steering me into traffic for. You're a citizen of Chicago, be prepared to kill a few rats."

"I'm not a citizen of Chicago. My ID says Israeli, I say Israeli."

"Your ID can say whatever it wants, you were born here."

"Lucky me."

"What would dad think about you talking like that? He loved this town."

"He loved what he loved, but he still understood why I left."

"You know I never wanted you to be a part of this business," Marco said almost solemnly, "not by any means."

"Well, like it or not, everyone lumped me in with you and Mickey. But thanks for trying."

"I did try. That's more than Mickey could say."

"I know, Marco. I said thank you, and I meant it. I always mean it."

Jimmy opened his door before the car had even stopped, stepping out just in time for the brakes to fully kick in.

"You remember how to get to Mickey's?" Marco inquired.

"I'll find my way. Don't you worry."

Marco gave his brother a small wave and drove away, leaving Jimmy standing before line after line of seemingly identical vehicles. The rental company hardly looked like the 'nice place' his brother described. The cars had years on them, and dents and dings accented many of their fenders. The building at the center of the lot looked as if were pieced together from random cuts of sheet metal. But it was on the north side all the same, which made it a nice place to be. In Marco's eyes anyway.

Jimmy paid what he saw as a grossly small amount for his car and got the keys to an almost sickeningly bland sedan. White exterior, tan interior, four black tires, air conditioning, and an engine. It was the whole package. The only bit of extra luxury Jimmy could spot was a tiny display on the rearview mirror that had a digital thermometer and compass. Thirty degrees it read, he doubted it, and pointing east.

As he rolled the egg-colored car out onto the road, Jimmy couldn't help but look up at the little display once more. Twenty-nine degrees, and south. He looked at the road before him, he could head back to the airport right now and avoid seeing his eldest brother for another five years perhaps. But then he thought of Anna. He had no clue where she could be, but he was certain Mickey knew. Nothing in Chicago gets past Mickey Brigio.

### 2

Jimmy stood contently in the large, open den of his brother's home. He stared over at the fire roaring in the large stone fireplace for a long time before his eyes were drawn upward to a short shotgun placed decoratively on the mantle. It was a lupara, a common weapon of Italian mobsters back in the day. It looked like it'd seen its days in action. But knowing Mickey, Jimmy figured it still worked.

Mickey had always been an avid gun enthusiast, ever since they were kids. And now Mickey's house was strewn with them. Guns big and small, new or old, and everything in between; the only thing in common they all had was that they all were still functional, Mickey had always made sure of that.

"Jimmy," Marco appeared in the doorway and waved him back to the study.

Jimmy followed his brother back into the small office. The room was dark and secluded; the thick wooden shades were closed, letting only a dim glow of late day through. Mickey was standing behind the desk, seeming to be in a deep thought of some kind.

Mickey was a tall, well put together person. He walked, talked, and spoke with an unmatched sophistication and distinction. His partially graying hair only accented his upper class look and demeanor. The sharpness of his suit and his dominant jaw line gave off the essence of immense power.

Also in the room was Lathrop "Doc" Sherman, Mickey's consigliere, who was sitting in a tall, leather armchair with a glass of brandy and his cane beside him. He was a short, aging man with more wrinkles on his face than hair on his head. He'd gotten the nickname Doc Sherman due to his doctorate degree in business, not to mention a masters in law, both of which were more than helpful in Mickey and Marco's profession.

"Jimmy," Mickey said with a soft smile, coming around from the desk and giving his brother a hug, "it's so wonderful to see you again. You remember my friend Lath, don't you?" He aimed his hand to his partner in the chair.

"Yes, I do," Jimmy nodded at Sherman, who politely returned the gesture. Jimmy had only met the man once before on his last return home. He only spoke a few sentences to Lathrop on that day, but that was all it took for him to know he despised that man, for reasons even he didn't quite understand.

For a few moments after that, all went quiet in the study. Mickey, Marco and Sherman each knew that Jimmy was the kind of guy who'd want to get down into the heart of the matter as quickly as possible, and for good reason. They were more acquainted to beating around the bush, as businessmen do, but seemed to be out of gentle greetings to hum around.

"Well," Jimmy had quickly grown impatient with the only noise in the room being the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, "Where's Anna?" No matter what Marco said, Jimmy was certain Mickey knew.

"Look," Mickey replied, "before we say anything, I want you to know that there's nothing we can do now. What's done is done, understand?"

"Yeah," Jimmy shrugged, eager for an explanation. He fought away a small smile. He was right, Marco was wrong.

"You remember Rico Terez, right?" Mickey wondered.

"Rico "The Rican" Terez," Jimmy nodded, "I remember hearing that name once or twice." Jimmy had, in fact, remembered a lot about what he'd heard about Rico "The Rican" throughout the years. He was Mickey and Marco's main ally from their workings in Los Angeles in the nineties. But when it all came to Chicago, their friendship fell apart and both sides have been at each other's throats ever since.

Wars happened on and off between the years past. Although now it seemed things had begun to calm down in the world of Chicago-land. The Eisenhower Expressway split the city nearly perfectly down the center for them. The north side went to Mickey, Marco and Doc Sherman, while Rico and his associates got the south side. A peace was there, but the line was fine.

Another thing Jimmy happened to remember about Rico was his nickname, he was one of those people who loathed the nickname he'd received. Rico was born and raised in El Salvador, but in the early days of their rivalry Marco had given him the name to instead make people believe Rico was, rather, from Costa Rica. And it caught on very heavily, which infuriated "The Rican" to absolutely no end.

"Well," Mickey tried to explain, "she got picked off at Midway Airport."

"Picked off?" Jimmy looked confused. "What the hell does that mean? Just say kidnapped, I already know what happened."

"Kidnapped, right," Sherman said. Nobody in the room liked using that word.

"Wait," Jimmy was blown back by this realization, "Rico Terez kidnapped Anna?"

"Yes," Mickey nodded, his voice solemn.

"And you're not doing anything about this?" Jimmy became livid, "I thought shit like that was supposed to start wars, Mickey! Where's your guys grabbing guns and shooting up the streets?"

"We're going legitimate, Jimmy, we can't afford to start a war in this transition period."

"Well if you're going legit, call the cops! That's what legitimate people do after all."

"We're not in the business of cops," Sherman protested. "And besides, Rico's got just about every damn cop in town on his strings. We can't trust a single one of them."

"You're not in the business of cops. You're not in the business of war. What the hell are you in the business of then?" Jimmy exclaimed.

"Money," Sherman replied simply. "We do what's profitable. Wars cost a lot, and police involvement compromises profit of any kind, legitimate or otherwise."

"So," Jimmy addressed Mickey, "you're going to let our sister die, so you and Doctor Mengele here can make a buck," He swung his hand over to gesture Doc Sherman's way.

"That's not fair, my doctorate is business," Sherman corrected.

"Fine," Jimmy scoffed, "I guess you're just Hitler," He turned back to his brother. "You can't honestly stand there and tell me that you think this guy is right. That's your sister out there!"

"It's either do nothing, or end our turn towards legitimacy as well as bankrupt ourselves by starting a war we can't win," Mickey said.

"How can you be so sure you can't win it?"

"Because "The Rican" has made no attempts to push legitimacy whatsoever," Marco answered. "That makes him and his operation a lot stronger than us."

"So we just let our kid sister get kidnapped by a bunch of psychopaths, and that's it?" Jimmy couldn't believe what he was hearing. "What do they want her for anyway? Ransom?"

"I was hoping he wouldn't ask that question," Sherman said softly, refilling his snifter.

"Why not?" Jimmy gave a look of puzzled worry to everyone in the room.

"Not ransom," Mickey's head was facing the floor.

"Well then, what?" Jimmy was beginning to fear the answer he was seeking.

"Do you know what human trafficking is, Jimmy?"

"Son of a bitch!" Jimmy was instantly filled with rage, "You bastards know that our sister is going to be sold on some black market, and you still sit here and don't give a fuck about it? What kind of people are you?"

"People who think about the future, Jimmy," Sherman replied, sounding as bureaucratic as a person could possibly sound.

"Shut the hell up, Lathrop!" Jimmy commanded.

"We can't do anything, we already told you," Marco explained. "You know we would if we could," he spoke with sincerity in that instance. Jimmy could hear it.

"Well if you guys aren't going to do anything, I will," Jimmy exclaimed, "Where is she?"

"Excuse me?" Mickey didn't know how to respond.

"I know you know where she is. And I know a human trafficker's goal is to keep the person the kidnap alive for a while. So where is she?"

"I'm sorry, Jimmy, we can't start a war."

"Enough with this war bullshit! If there was anytime in the history of your lives to take up arms, it's right now!"

"It's been four days, Jimmy. Either she's out of the country already or she's dead."

"Don't you stand there and lie to me, Mickey. I'm going out to find our sister whether you help me or not!"

"It's the truth Jimmy, trust me. We know how this works; we've seen it ourselves. At most someone's got forty-eight hours and it's been twice that time."

"And besides, what are you gonna do exactly?" Sherman added, "The big time soldier, the hardened war veteran. What are you gonna do? Mister lawful is just gonna walk through the south side and kill his way to finding his little sister?"

"Yes," Jimmy said sternly.

"Bullshit," Sherman laughed a raspy cackle.

"Watch me you old bastard!" Jimmy snapped.

"You're quite the reactive fellow, aren't you? You don't even have a gun to hang at your hip, and you want to take on the whole South Chicago outfit?" Sherman laughed harder.

"Don't believe me? Give me the address of the place. I know you know it. Let me prove you wrong."

"You really wanna come up and play with the big boys? You think you can handle that?" Sherman grinned, pulling a small piece of paper out of his pocket and snatched up a pen, scribbling a few numbers and words on it, "This is the address of a warehouse in Cicero. Go there and lets see those big words in action."

Jimmy snatched the paper from Sherman's hand and bolted from the room without another word.

"Lath, what the hell?" Mickey said. "He's going to get himself killed!"

"Yeah," Marco agreed, "don't you think we've lost enough of our family already?"

"Don't you two get it?" Sherman was still chuckling slightly, "The only reason Anna got picked off was because not one of Rico's guys had seen her before in their lives. Do you think if they knew that was your kid sister they'd have done it? No. Rico wants a war just as much as we do. Nobody, not even that sociopath wants to go out of their way to lose money. And all of the upper level south side guys know who Jimmy is, they know he's your brother, and they wouldn't dare kill a direct relative of the Brigio's. Sure they'll rough him up a bit, but as long as he doesn't run in there with guns blazing, we've got nothing to worry about."

"How do we know he won't find a weapon someplace? Cicero's teeming with them at night," Marco pointed out.

"Did you see the way he ran outta here?" Sherman replied. "There's no way he'd go through all that extra time and trouble. He's gonna get down there, and only then realize he doesn't have a piece to draw on them. Simple as that."

"I suppose you could be right," Mickey said, still unsure. "Now come on, I suppose it'd behoove all of us to make sure my house doesn't burn down." He gestured for them to follow as he wandered out of the study.

Sherman tilted his head back and sipped down the last of his brandy while he watched Mickey poke at the fireplace in the den, which still housed a considerably sized blaze. But when he brought his head back down he froze. Something was out of place, and it took only a moment for him to realize what it was.

"Mickey?" He called to his friend, his heart close to stopping.

"Yeah?" Mickey replied, coming back up from the fire to face his colleague.

"Where the hell is your lupara?" Sherman's voice shook as he pointed up to the empty mantel.

Mickey swung back around and was now frozen himself. He couldn't believe he didn't notice one of his post prized, and most powerful pieces was missing.

"Oh shit," Marco said lowly.

"Oh shit!" Mickey sprinted towards the door, "Jimmy!"

### 3

Jimmy walked across the darkened, empty street of Cicero, away from his tiny rental car and towards the address Sherman had given to him. The building fit the bill for what he was looking for. To the untrained eye it would seem abandoned, the few windows it had were coated in plywood, and there were no outside lights to show any signs of life coming from this structure. But to Jimmy, it looked like exactly the place he needed to be.

He approached the door and was surprised when it was unlocked; he simply chalked it up to the fact that nobody in their right minds would think about going through this door anyway.

The interior of the place was even worse off than the exterior, the hallway he entered into was thin and dark, and the walls were tattered and worn. There was extensive water damage everywhere he looked, and a thick layer of dust caked every surface in view.

Jimmy could hear voices down the hall, he cautiously and silently pursued them. He turned a corner and stopped just short of a dimly lit room that was the source of the noise. The room was just as dank and disgusting as the hallway, and was illuminated with only one naked overhead bulb. In the center of the room was a small card table, where five rather large Latino gentlemen were squeezed in and making an attempt to play a close quarters poker game. But it really just looked as if they were in a rather intense swearing match. Jimmy waltzed into the room from the dark shadows.

"Whoa, whoa," One of the men quickly hopped from his spot and drew a pistol up as he nearly sprinted over to Jimmy, "Who the hell are you?" He had the gun in Jimmy's face.

"I'm just someone who's looking to buy what you're selling," Jimmy raised his hands lazily.

"Buy?" The man laughed, "This is a rental service, homes. You wanna buy, you gotta have a name for yourself around here. So you got one? You got a name for yourself?"

"I'm Jimmy," Jimmy answered softly.

"Jimmy?" The man let out another short chuckle, which his friends at the table joined in on, "Jimmy who?"

Jimmy leaned in close to his adversary.

"Jimmy Brigio," he whispered with a sneer.

The man, instantly recognizing the name, made a swift attempt to move away from the tall ex-soldier before him. But Jimmy was quicker, getting a firm grip on the man's gun arm, while drawing Mickey's lupara from his coat simultaneously. Before anyone at the table had time to think Jimmy pressed the shotgun into the man's chest and fired, sending a thick spray of red over the people on the table, as well as the light above them, which lit up the whole room in a deep crimson color.

The man before him slunk to the ground, dead, and Jimmy now held the pistol in his hand along with his brother's lupara. Everyone else sat in stunned awe, not sure what to make of the strange man that just blew a hole through their friend.

One of the other men shot up from his seat, pulling a gun from his waistband. Jimmy lifted the shotgun and that man suffered the same fate as his friend, flipping completely over the chair he'd just stood up from as he fell to the floor.

Jimmy then utilized the pistol in his hand and provided himself some covering fire. He shot round after round in the general direction of the remaining men, not expecting to hit any of them, just hoping to give himself a chance to remove himself temporarily and regroup. By the time the pistol was empty the three remaining men were flat on the ground, and Jimmy took that opportunity to disappear down another dark corridor.

He had no idea where he was running to, it was so dark in the hallway that he could barely see the walls to either side of him. Just then, he heard the sound of gunfire behind him, this time from automatic weapons. He found a set of stairs and ascended them quickly, skipping several steps at a time, but still managing not to make a sound as he did.

The upstairs hall was a little brighter for some reason, Jimmy could now make out doorways on either side of him. He ran a ways down until he found and open door to fade into. Once hidden in the room he immediately put his back to the wall and broke open the shotgun. With a near perfect precision he switched out the empty shells with new ones and shut the gun back up.

It was only after he reloaded did he look up to see what was in the room he'd just entered. Directly across from him sat the only piece of furniture in the room, an old metal bed. Atop it lay a woman, emaciated and pale, Jimmy wasn't sure if she was unconscious or dead, and he didn't want to find out.

The sound of gunfire filled the hall. One of the men was walking towards the door, firing random bursts from a large submachine gun.

Jimmy peaked his head out as much as he could and caught the silhouette of the man, about halfway between him and the stairs. He waited for the man to let out another random spray of bullets and then took his shot. He swung the small shotgun out of the doorway and fired, catching the man in the arm, tearing through a great portion of his bicep. The man screamed in agony, letting out another burst of fire.

Jimmy hid back into the room as soon as he knew where his shot landed. That was one thing he learned from his time in assorted militaries, never go back into hiding unsure about anything. Always know the exactness of the situation you're leaving. He knew his situation, and liked his odds.

"You son of a bitch!" The man called out through the dim corridor. Jimmy could hear his voice getting louder, closer.

Jimmy peered down at his gun. He had one shot left before he'd have to reload. If he missed there would be a strong possibility that the man in the hall would discover his location and get to him much faster than he could reload. Jimmy had to plan this as quick as possible, and aim as best as he could.

There were no more random shooting sprees, so Jimmy just guessed a time and bent half his body out into the hall. He spotted the man right away, now in much more detail than just a shadow-like figure, lifted his gun and fired. The blast caught the man directly in the forehead, sending him hurdling backwards and falling limp on the ground. Jimmy took this second chance to move further down the hallway.

He turned a corner, and then another, working fast and efficiently to try and put as much distance as possible in between him and the remaining pursuers. He found another open door and disappeared through it, this time closing it behind him.

This new room was larger, there were two beds in this one, both if which were occupied. In one lay another strange woman, not as skinny or as colorless as the one before. But it was the woman in the opposite bed that caught his attention immediately.

Lying motionless on that bed was a girl, young, her hair was short and jet black. She shared Marco's hairstyle and was the spitting image of her mother.

Jimmy collapsed on the floor next to his sister. One look into her eyes and he knew she was dead. One thought came into his head first, that he'd just barely missed saving her. If he'd have come just a few hours earlier than might still have been alive, he'd still be able to save her from this. But then another, worse thought followed. She'd been gone for five days, and she looked recently departed. She'd gone through five days of unspeakable horror before she finally succumbed to it all. At that, Jimmy finally crumbled all the way to the ground and sobbed.

His grieving was unfortunately short lived, as a noise from behind him drew his attention up and away from his own sorrows. The woman in the bed opposite him moaned and began shifting around. He got up and moved over towards her. She opened her eyes listlessly.

"Hey," He spoke in a stern whisper, trying to get her attention, "hey, can you hear me?"

She just moaned again.

"Hey," He spoke louder, "do you know her?" He pointed at his sister.

She didn't speak but turned her head in the direction he pointed.

"Do you know her?"

"Oh God," She replied in heavy weakness, "she's dead isn't she?" Jimmy could hear the onset of weeping in her voice as well.

"Did you know her?" Jimmy questioned.

"I talked to her while we were in here," She responded. "She said her name was Anna."

"Yes," Jimmy nodded, his eyes still watery, "that's my sister."

"I'm sorry," The tone of her voice was of deep sympathy and melancholy, it seemed as if she'd be crying if she still had the energy to.

Just then, voices came from the hall, the remaining men had caught up to them, and they were close. Jimmy looked back at his sister before taking his spot at the wall beside the door, now more determined to kill these men, as well as Rico Terez, than ever before.

He heard doors being kicked in, he knew it was only a matter of time before his came flying open. He double-checked to make sure he was standing on the side of the door opposite the hinges, and waited, reloading the lupara while he did. A few more loud bangs of doors being kicked in came, each one closer than the last.

Just a few moments later, he heard talking just outside his door, and readied himself. It didn't take long and his door was kicked open. The shadow of an AK-47 came through the doorway first. Jimmy grabbed the gun by the top and shoved the barrel into the ground before swinging up his other hand and pulling the shotgun right into the man's face, the barrel fit over his nose. Jimmy fired, and the assault rifle fell to the ground without letting out a single blast.

Jimmy turned his head and saw the final man standing not a few feet from him in the hallway, he lifted the gun to fire once more and the man quivered heavily. Only then did Jimmy see that he had his arms raised, his pistol dangling from one finger. The man was surrendering. Jimmy was glad that he was, for this was barely even a man. He couldn't have been more than twenty-five.

"Drop it," Jimmy commanded, and the kid dutifully let his gun drop to the floor. Jimmy approached him and at first it seemed he might turn and run. But as Jimmy got into his face, the kid stood his ground, albeit shakily. Jimmy knelt down and picked up the pistol and looked the kid dead in the eye. He seemed sympathetic, but then he took another looking into the room, and saw his sister's body once again. His sympathy was gone. He turned back to the kid and fired a pistol round into one of his feet. The kid screamed in pain and fell backwards to the floor. Jimmy sent another bullet through the other foot. He yelped again.

"Please," The kid said in a thick accent, his voice was weak with pain and fear, "please don't kill me!"

"Give me a reason why not," Jimmy kneeled over his wondered enemy.

"I didn't want this!" The kid blubbered. "Caldero forced me into it man! He said he'd kill me if I didn't come work for him and Saint Rico."

"Who the hell is Caldero? And what is this 'Saint Rico' garbage?"

"You know, man, don't you? Saint Rico, man. Rico Terez."

"I know who he is, now who's Caldero?"

"Cesar Caldero is Saint Rico's head enforcer. You outta be real afraid of him, man."

"Saint Rico," Jimmy completely ignored the kid's warning, "Now why do you call him that?"

"He saved South Chicago, man. Him and his guys took all the drugs off the streets, all the heroin and crack, you know?"

Right then, Jimmy recalled something he'd looked over before. He got up and walked back into the room where his sister was. He threw the pistol aside and picked up something else, a handful of used needles off the ground on the edge of Anna's bed. He looked at her arm and saw it was spotted with drag marks.

He stormed back out into the hall and threw the needles on the ground before the kid. He knelt back down.

"You call that getting rid of them?" Jimmy spoke with a deep fury. "Taking them off the streets and putting them in the veins of the people you abduct!"

"It saved the families around here man, the well being of the whole neighborhood," The kid stammered as he tried to explain. "You've gotta believe me, man. It was for the greater good."

Upon hearing that, Jimmy took the handle of the lupara and slammed it down on the kid's foot, causing him to scream and cry in further pain.

"Please, man! I'm sorry!"

"What's your name?"

"Esteban."

"Well, Esteban," Jimmy spoke clearly to ensure the wounded kid would understand, "I'm not going to kill you. Instead, I'm going to leave you here. So, when Saint Rico "The Rican" shows up you can tell him something for me."

"What?" Esteban wondered, fearing the answer.

Jimmy leaned in close.

"You tell that piece of shit, that Jimmy Brigio's gonna find him, and cut his fucking heart out." Jimmy sneered before rising back up and walking back down the hall.

Jimmy didn't get far before he turned back and returned into the room once more. He approached the girl in the other bed. She was still barely conscious. He looked over to his sister one final time before wrapping this girl around his shoulder and leading her out with him. Her clothes were dirty and torn to shreds, but her arms didn't have any drag marks.

By the time Jimmy had gotten her into the car she was beginning to slip out of consciousness again. He had to try and get as much as he could out of her while she was still awake.

"What's your name?" he asked as she began to drift off in his passenger seat. "What's your name?" He repeated.

"Samantha," she replied with a breathy whisper, "Samantha Ashton."

That was the only bit of information he could get from her before she finally passed out. He had to get her to a hospital, and soon. But he had a feeling he'd have to deal with Mickey's backlash long before he'd reach any hospital.

-

Jimmy was driving down a thin back street on his way to the hospital when he encountered a speeding car heading directly at him. He knew right away that it was his brothers. The car turned on its side and came to a screeching halt, blocking off the whole road. Jimmy saw Marco and Doc Sherman get out of the car, but Mickey stayed planted in the passenger seat. Jimmy got out to meet them, but didn't get more than a few steps before they were in front of him.

"Jimmy! Jesus, what happened?" Marco exclaimed.

"I found Anna," he replied solemnly, "She's dead."

"Oh, God," Marco said, visually distraught. He had known already that this was going to be the outcome, but he still wasn't prepared for it.

"How'd you get out of there?" Sherman wondered.

"It wasn't easy," Jimmy explained.

"I'm just happy you're alive," Marco said with a small, joyless smile.

"So," Sherman said, his voice deep with anger, "how many people did you take out while you were in there?"

"Four. I left one other wounded."

"Jesus Christ. Do you understand what you've done?"

"Yes I do, Lathrop."

"Really," Sherman let out a skeptical laugh, taking a few steps towards Jimmy, "because I don't think you do. You've started a war, and a very bad one. You've killed us all!"

"How can you be so sure of that?"

Sherman looked as if he was about to explain every single reason how he knew that they would all die, but Samantha caught his eye before he could begin his rant.

"Who the hell is that?" he demanded.

"One of the people from the warehouse. She shared a room with Anna. I thought she might be beneficial to knowing what happened to her. But she needs a hospital."

"Just great!" Sherman exclaimed, throwing his hands up, "Not only do you get all of us killed, now you pull some random woman into this mess!"

"She's not some random woman," Jimmy asserted. "I already told you, she could be beneficial to us."

"No, Jimmy, beneficial to you! Now you go ahead and take her to the hospital, but after that I don't want to hear a damn thing about her! Understood?"

"Let me talk to Mickey," Jimmy changed the subject defiantly.

"Mickey doesn't want to talk to you. He knew you'd either be dead or you'd have started a war. And it looks like you came through on one of those ends. Needless to say he's not at all happy."

"Don't blame me!" Jimmy retorted, "You gave me the damn address!"

"I didn't think you'd run in there with a damn shotgun! How was I supposed to know you'd steal Mickey's gun?"

"Guys!" Marco interjected, "Maybe we ought to carry on this conversation elsewhere." He pointed to the buildings lining the street. The lights in the apartments were starting to come on.

"Okay," Sherman nodded, much quieter now.

"Here," Jimmy said going back to the car and retrieving the gun, "give this back to Mickey."

"Thanks," Sherman said unhappily, taking the gun, "He'll probably need it now." At that, he turned and headed back to the car.

"I'm happy you're still alive, Jimmy," Marco reiterated his previous relief, "for however long we've all got left." He spoke that last part with heavy sorrow and nervousness. His kid brother had always believed in him and trusted his actions. But now there was nothing but doubt left.

-

Rico Terez arrived at the warehouse with Caldero about a half hour after Jimmy had gone. He'd gotten a call from an associate about the shooting and got there as fast as he could. Rico was never a man to be in any kind of frantic hurry, but tonight was a major exception. Nobody from south Chicago would ever dream of hitting one of his warehouses. He knew it had to be from the north.

Rico looked around in disgust at the corpses of his men strewn about both levels of the decrepit building. The disgust showed its full extent when he came across the wounded Esteban, still writhing in a pool of blood right where Jimmy had left him.

Rico knelt down beside Esteban. The kid froze as soon as he saw who was looming over him. Caldero was watching intently a few feet down the hall, at the ready for something to occur, like he always was.

"What happened here?" Rico asked calmly.

"A guy," Esteban began, "a guy came in here, he killed everybody, man."

"One person did this?" Rico was shocked, although his expression and demeanor didn't show it.

"Yeah, we could all barely even get shots off before he dropped us."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. But he seemed interested in that room," he pointed to the open door nearby.

"What's in there?" Rico asked Caldero.

Caldero took a quick peak into the room, not even picking up his feet from their solid positions.

"Two beds," he explained, "one with a body in it, looks dead. And the other's empty," he shrugged, not sure what to make of it.

"Two beds?" Rico wondered, "Don't we fill a room with two beds with two people, rather than leave one empty?"

"He took someone with him," Esteban exclaimed.

"Excuse me?" Rico turned back to the injured kid.

"He took someone out of that room. He took her with him for some reason, I don't know why."

"She was alive?"

"I think so."

Rico arose from the kid's side and went into the room to examine it himself. It was just as plain as Caldero had explained it to be. He approached the body in the bed and recognized her himself before he'd even reached the bed's edge. He'd only ever seen her in pictures, but he knew that face anywhere, the wide cheekbones and even in death she still carried a deep stare just like her brothers. He knew she was a Brigio.

He strode out into the hall again and took his old spot next to Esteban.

"I know why that man came here," He said sternly.

"Why?"

"That dead girl in there is the sister of Mickey and Marco Brigio."

"We didn't know, we didn't know, Rico!" The kid immediately tried defending himself, "I promise you we had no idea who she was!"

"You know, this is why I tell you people to keep a filing system," Rico exclaimed. "To keep track of who you take, as well as the faces of the people out there you don't want to go near!" his voice escalated, but never strayed from its tone.

"I'm sorry, Rico, I'm sorry!"

"Who was it? Did you recognize who did this?"

"No, I'd never seen him before in my life! But," He paused, "he said he was a Brigio."

"He told you his name?"

"Yeah, he told me who he was when he left a message for you," Esteban said nervously.

"Message? What message is this?"

"He said...he told me to tell you, Jimmy Brigio's going to find you, and cut your heart out."

"Jimmy Brigio?" Rico was, for the first time, visually taken aback, "Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes, I'm positive."

"Jimmy Brigio is in town?" Caldero wondered. He'd only ever heard of this third Brigio brother. But from what he did hear, it definitely explained how just one person could take down the entire warehouse.

"Apparently so," Rico replied, not taking his gaze off Esteban.

"What the hell for?" Caldero asked, puzzled.

"Well, I guess to kill my men and steal my property," Rico scoffed. "Which begs the question," he addressed Esteban, "why did he choose to leave you alive, and not any of the others instead?"

"I don't know, I don't know!" Esteban exclaimed fearfully.

Rico could tell right away the kid was lying.

"Why you kid? Answer truthfully and this will only be easier for you."

"I..." Esteban replied, "I surrendered."

"You surrendered?"

"He'd killed everyone else and...and," Esteban stammered.

"And what?"

"And I didn't want to die!"

"So, despite that all the others died here, you figured you were just too important, better than the rest of them?"

"No, no, you've gotta believe me, Saint Rico, it's not like that! Please, I know I was wrong...I was scared. That's all, man, I promise it won't happen again, please!"

Rico turned back to his enforcer, "What do you think Cesar?"

Caldero just shook his head.

Rico nodded in agreement. At that, he lifted one of his legs over Esteban so he was literally hovering over top of him. He reached into the pocket of his coat.

"Please, Saint Rico, I promise it won't happen again. I was stupid, I know, just please man!" Esteban pleaded.

Rico was tired of the noise coming from this kid. He put his other hand over his mouth. The kid continued to beg anyway, but Rico was much more pleased with the reduced noise.

With his free hand, he pulled out a long, resplendent bowie knife. This sight made the muffled pleads grow louder, and they became coupled with almost random seeming arm movements, trying to push Rico off, to no avail.

"If you hold still, this will go quicker," Rico said simply, admiring his blade. He had it plated in a layer of platinum, which he polished frequently to bring it to a sheen that rivaled the sun. He aimed the blade down and slid it effortlessly in between two of Esteban's lower ribs. He made sure to go slowly, in order to reduce the amount of blood spatter, as well to ensure he savored the moment, as he did every time he used his knife.

Esteban's pushes grew significantly weaker, and his sounds grew quieter, but his eyes were opened wide.

"I can see you're in a lot of pain right now," Rico observed, "but don't worry too much about it, my boy. From where I placed my knife I can feel your heart beating. I can tell its slowing down. I can feel that you're dying. I hope you learned a lesson from this, however short lived the knowledge may be."

A few more silent seconds past until Rico could no longer feel the pulsing of the heart. He withdrew his blade slowly and lifted it up to look at it once more. The blood running down the side gleamed like rubies as it flowed across the elegant metal. After his moments of admiration, he wiped the blade off on Esteban's shirt and put it back beneath his coat before walking over to Caldero.

"We've got a war on our hands now Cesar," he explained, "And you've got some important jobs."

"What have you got for me?" Caldero was eager, the spectacle he'd just seen excited him to do some work of his own.

"First things first, I know these guys keep records of who they take somewhere around here. Find out who it was Brigio took with him and either get her back to me or kill her, I don't care which. But I can't have anyone exposing what goes on here, understand?"

"Perfectly," Caldero nodded obediently.

"Good. Now once you get that done, your only job is to deal with Jimmy Brigio. You let me worry about his brothers, Sherman, and everything else. Jimmy is a dangerous man, he's got a lot of military history and I want him to be your full attention. As a matter of fact, send some of your guys to get the girl back, you should be on Jimmy only."

"I'll take care of it, don't you worry about it."

"That's my boy. Now, let's bring hell to the Brigio's doorstep."

### 4

Jimmy reluctantly did as he was instructed and returned to Mickey's house after delivering Samantha anonymously at the nearest emergency room. He entered the house to find his brothers and Sherman sitting in the den, the fire still roaring, and the lupara back up on its perch.

"Why couldn't you have just listened when I told you we couldn't do anything to save her?" Mickey asked with a mixed tone of calmness and distress.

"When I found her she'd been dead for only a few hours," Jimmy pent up his emotions as he recalled the events. "If you'd have just told me sooner, she could've been saved."

"Oh, Jimmy," Mickey laughed a sad chuckle, "always the hopeful one."

"It's the truth!"

"Whatever you want to tell yourself, Jimmy. It's not like its going to matter much longer seeing as we can probably count the days we've got left on one hand."

"Not if we fight back,"

"Don't be a schmuck. We've spent the last four years trying to work in legitimacy, which means in times of war we're useless."

"I don't think we could've even taken Rico on four years ago," Sherman added his skepticism.

"We can still build up a defense," Jimmy went on, "You guys have got influence. And, Doc," he addressed Sherman, "don't sit there and pretend you don't have money to spend."

"You can't build an army when you're already in the trenches, Jimmy!" Sherman retorted angrily.

"Well sitting here and waiting to die isn't going to do us any good!"

"Going out and getting ourselves killed isn't going to do any good either, Jimmy," Mickey remarked.

"This isn't like how it used to be," Marco spoke up. "You can't just wander the streets with a machine gun and expect yourself to survive. You need to hit fronts and supply lines, all the infrastructure, you know?"

"And The Rican's got a lot of infrastructure," Sherman let out a nervous laugh.

"Not to mention a God damn army backing him!" Mickey's voice was rising. Mickey didn't yell often, but when he did, it struck. "Rico Terez has a damn near registered militia for a crew, and heavy weapons to back them all up. The man's a warlord! We can't handle that!"

"Well, if we're going to die, wouldn't you rather die with your gun in your hand?" Jimmy retorted.

"And compromise the legitimacy we've worked so hard for? No."

"Well then I guess you're just gonna die right here in this house, when The Rican's guys come bursting through your front door. Just be glad you don't have a wife or kids that could get in the crossfire of that!"

"Don't forget that you started this, Jimmy! You've got no room to talk here!"

"I started this? No. That heartless bastard started this, when he kidnapped, tortured, and killed our sister. Which you seem to not give a damn about!"

"Guys!" Marco called out, "This isn't going to help anything! We need to act constructively here."

"How do you suppose we do that?" Mickey wondered snidely.

"Well, Rico is a man of diplomacy when it comes to things like this. Every war he's started, he's started with a phone call to try and negotiate before hand."

"He only does that so he can look like the better person in the situation," Sherman pointed out.

"But when he calls-"

" _If_ he calls," Mickey cut him off.

" _When_ he calls," Marco continued, "we can try and talk our way out of this situation."

"That's not going to work," Sherman said in doubt.

"How do you know it won't?"

"Because he may do that every time, but he still goes to war every time too."

"It's still our only chance to not get killed," Mickey figured.

"So we'll try and negotiate with this maniac?" Jimmy almost laughed.

"No," Mickey replied, " _We'll_ negotiate, you need to get the hell out of dodge."

"What?"

"Yes, either way the negotiations go, Rico's still going to want you dead," Sherman explained. "It's best for everyone if you leave town. We'll say we never saw you after you left the first time."

Jimmy looked over at Marco, hoping to find a differing opinion.

"Sorry, Jimmy," Marco shook his head, "it's really the only route to go with."

The phone on a nearby end table began ringing. They all immediately knew who it was.

"Don't talk," Mickey said, pointing intently at Jimmy before hitting the speakerphone button.

" _Mickey,"_ Rico's voice came through the phone.

"Rico," Mickey said collectedly, "I've got you on speakerphone here with Marco and Lathrop."

" _I'm sure you've heard what's happened to one of my warehouses._ "

"Yes I did, and I want you to know that was not ordered by me or the others, and that Jimmy acted on his own."

" _Well, my friend, I'm afraid reparations must be paid for this occurrence,"_

"Understandable."

" _Your brother cannot live after what's been done, that is not an option."_

"Look, Rico," Marco cut in, "isn't there something that we can work out? Some kind of deal?"

" _Here's the only deal I give you, your brother dies for his actions, and you pay reparations for the damages in attune of forty million dollars."_

"Forty million dollars?" Sherman held back a laugh. "I'm sorry, but there's no way our Jimmy caused that much damage."

" _He killed four of my men, ransacked one of my largest Cicero operations, and ran off with property of mine. The money is for fixing the building and covering it all up.. No amount of money will bring back my men, human lives are irreplaceable."_

It took all his might for Jimmy not speak up at that point.

" _And as for the stolen property of mine, I will be retrieving it soon enough."_

Jimmy remembered the hospital he'd left Samantha at, and the quickest route there.

"Isn't there any other option that you'd be willing to consider?" Sherman wondered.

" _It's either that deal, or I wage war throughout all North Chicago until each and every one of you is dead."_

Sherman had nothing left to say.

"Well I guess we don't have much of a choice then," Mickey said.

" _Good, I'll contact you soon with details. Oh, and one more thing. If you know the whereabouts of your brother, it would behoove you to let me know."_

"If I learn anything I'll let you know. I just want this whole catastrophe behind me."

As do I, my friend, as do I."

As soon as he heard the phone on the other end click, Jimmy made a B-line for the door.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Sherman was the first one in pursuit, but his hobble kept him at a distance.

"He said that he's going to get his 'property' back," Jimmy replied. "I can't let him do that."

"If you walk out into that city now, you're dead!" Sherman lifted his cane up at Jimmy.

"Buy me a nice gravestone,"

As he strode widely down the front walk of Mickey's house, Mickey came out and caught up to him.

"Jimmy, just wait a minute!" he called.

"You're not going to stop me from doing this, so don't waste your damn breath!" Jimmy snapped back.

"Ten million dollars."

This stopped Jimmy dead in his tracks.

"Excuse me?"

"Ten million dollars. That's for you to drop this idea of yours and leave town right now, and don't ever come back."

Mickey had never offered Jimmy any amount of money before. But now all of a sudden he's throwing ten million dollars at him just to leave town. Jimmy was right away suspicious. If Mickey cared that deeply about his siblings, why didn't he just offer that money up to Rico when he discovered that he'd taken their sister? It didn't make any sense.

"No deal, Mickey," Jimmy declined and kept on his stride.

"Why do you care so much about this?"

"Because, unlike you, I care about doing what's right. Not just for me, but for everyone else. Now I've already let one woman in my life die at the hands of that man, I can't in good conscience let it happen to anyone else."

"Not even to some random woman you don't even know?"

"Not just her, Mickey. I can't let this go on for any of them. Any of the people I left in that building, or any others in the other buildings he's got in this city. I can't go on living, knowing that there's a man like that alive on this planet. I've always been one to want the good of the public, that's why I became a soldier in the first place and you know it. And if the good of the public means killing a man the entire world would be better off without, so be it."

At that, Jimmy gave his brother a slight nod of farewell before getting into his rental car and speeding off towards the hospital.

### 5

As Jimmy sped his way through the streets of Chicago he thought over and over about what Mickey had said. He threw ten million dollars on the table, simply for Jimmy to leave town. There was something Mickey was fearful of, and he knew his brother wasn't that fearful of Rico just by the way he spoke to him over the phone. There was no apprehension there, no fear. Mickey was afraid of something else, and Jimmy was certain if he kept on his pursuit of Rico he'd find it.

Jimmy arrived at the hospital in no time and he barely gave himself time to park before rushing into the lobby.

"Samantha Ashton," he almost yelled at the attendant behind the desk, "what room is she in?"

"Sir, visiting hours are over," The attendant replied sternly. Her voice matched her overworked and frustrated demeanor.

"Please, it's an emergency! Just tell me what room."

The woman began typing slowly on the computer before her with a degree of sympathy, despite not coming even close to realizing the situation Jimmy and Samantha both were in.

"Okay," the attendant said, "this says Samantha Ashton was discharged about an hour ago."

"Discharged? When I brought her here _three hours ago_ she was a wreck, how could she have possibly improved so much since then?"

"Sir, a lot of times all any druggie needs is some fluids and they're right as rain. Of course, that won't stop them from coming back here in the same state again in a few days."

"You think she was a druggie? Do you have any idea what happened to her?"

"I had a nice conversation with the doctor who treated her actually. He said that he'd asked her what had happened, but she simply seemed unwilling to talk about it. So we just assumed she was a drug addict and sent her away."

"So you figured she was a drug addict, and sent her away anyway?" Jimmy couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea.

"Sir, we don't have a detox space here, and we get quite a bit of addicts around. What the hell do you want us to do if they don't want to seek treatment?"

"I can't sit here and argue with you. Where'd she go? I know you've got to have her address."

"We're not allowed to give that information out to random people, Sir."

"Look, she is in a very, very dangerous situation she knows nothing about right now."

"Yeah, I'd say so," The attendant sarcastically agreed. "Some psychopath is trying to get her home address from a hospital. I would call that a dangerous situation too."

"Oh, no, you've got it wrong," Jimmy gave out an odd laugh of frustration, "There's people much worse than me going to kill her right now, and I mean the people who make up the nightmares of criminally insane people. The Charles Manson's of this town are going to find her and do God only knows what unless I get to her first."

"Sir, if you think this woman is legitimately in danger, I can contact the police on your behalf."

"Don't do that!" Jimmy stopped her, remembering what Sherman had said about the police in this town and their connection to Rico. "I think we can work this out another way," He just stared at her for a moment; his voice was a bad attempt at soothing.

In an instant he lunged over the desk and twisted the computer monitor his way, knocking almost everything in her workspace onto the floor as he did. Luckily his assumptions were correct and her patient profile remained up on the screen. His eyes locked onto the address after only a few moments.

"Security! Security!" The attendant yelled out as Jimmy bolted out of the hospital and back towards his car.

The address wasn't far away, but he'd wasted valuable time bickering with that woman. He sped away once more.

-

Jimmy arrived in the neighborhood of the address and parked around the block from the house. He sprinted around the street until he came to the small, two-story home the address belonged to.

The windows were dark except for one in the upper floor. There weren't any signs of forced entry and no cars to be found. He breathed a sigh of relief, figuring he wasn't too late after all.

He walked up onto the dark porch and began searching for a way in. Soon, he recalled how easy it'd been to sneak into the warehouse. Maybe, in all her confusion, Samantha had left the same easy opening for him at her home as well.

As Jimmy grabbed the handle, he scoffed at himself for thinking this would work twice. He was forced to take that skepticism back as the handle turned with ease.

Creeping slowly into the dark house, he heard a fan going in the upstairs bathroom. The light dimly illuminated the hall and stairwell through a slightly ajar door.

He moved like molasses up the stairs, half expecting to be shot as soon as she spotted him. He really, hoped she didn't have a gun in her house.

Jimmy reached the top of the steps and was no more than a few feet from the bathroom door, but he'd stopped. He'd never broken into a person's house before. Was he just supposed to barge in? Or was there some finesse involved?

Jimmy stood for a few moments pondering on this. He didn't look like the scariest individual, he thought. But, he figured, anybody breaking into your house has got to seem frightening to some degree.

After deciding enough was enough, he simply approached the door and pushed it sluggishly open. The whole room was clad in blindingly white tile.

Samantha was sitting on the edge of her tub, wrapped in a towel, hair still wet, and incredibly deep in thought. Despite her long gone mind, it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to notice Jimmy's tall shadow adorning the entrance to the room.

"Oh my God!" she screamed, pushing herself up against the furthest wall away and grabbing at the nearest object to throw, a large candle in a glass container. She hurled it towards Jimmy and it struck him directly in the forehead.

He yelped, holding his head in pain. Despite this, he was relieved she didn't have a gun after all.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?" she pleaded, trying to grab for more items but finding none in sight. "Please, please, just leave me alone! I'll give you everything I have if you'll just leave me be!" she began to sob.

"No, no, wait! Just hang on a minute!" Jimmy stopped her. "I'm the guy who helped you!"

"What?"

"My name is Jimmy Brigio. You shared a room in that warehouse with my sister."

"Anna Brigio," Samantha recalled, wiping away tears.

"Yes. And I came back to help you."

"Help me with what?"

"The men that put you in that building are coming back,"

"What? Why?"

"Either to take you back there or to kill you, I don't know which. Either way, bad thing's will happen, so we need to go now!"

"How do I know I can trust you?" She wondered, not removing herself from her tight hold on the far wall.

"I suppose you can't for sure. But do you have any other options?"

Samantha paused, "I guess not."

"Okay, get dressed. We can't stay here very much longer."

Jimmy gave her privacy while she dressed herself and collected some spare clothes. He looked at what he was wearing, the same old suit he'd started the day in, with more than a few spots of blood on it from the warehouse. He wished he'd have thought to bring a few spare shirts at least.

Pacing between two windows in the house nervously, he looked out one facing the front of the house, then moved to another facing the back. Watching constantly for any of Rico's men coming out of the woodwork.

"Where exactly are we going?" Samantha wondered from her room, still heavily nerve racked by the situation.

"I don't know yet," Jimmy replied, peering out the front window. "There's no chance you have a gun is there?"

"No," she shook her head, coming out of the room dressed casually, still brushing through her long, oak brown hair, "but I think I'm going to invest in one."

"Smart plan."

"So why'd you come back for me?" she followed him as he walked between the windows. "Was it just because I was with your sister?"

"Originally. But then it occurred to me later you were the only person I came across in that place who was still alive. You survived something everybody else well...doesn't. Then when I heard that they were going to take you back there, I couldn't in any good conscience let that happen. And now I can't go on thinking that's happening to anybody else out there."

"Anybody else? How many others are there?"

"Probably hundreds, and I can't let any of that go on in this town anymore. I won't stop until that man's dead."

The number visually repulsed Samantha.

"What man? There's a man?" she never thought just one person was behind all this.

"Rico Terez is the man. He's the leader of the whole south Chicago mob, and the leader in human trafficking in probably the entire country."

"Why don't we call the police on him?"

"That man owns the police. The cops won't help us, my brothers won't help us, we're on our own."

"Who're your brothers?" she questioned, wrapping her hair up in a ponytail.

"Mickey and Marco Brigio. They run the north Chicago mob with the help of their right-hand asshole Lathrop Sherman."

"So why won't they help us? Help you?" You're their brother for God sakes."

"It's a long story, and I don't think I've got enough time to tell it right now." he pointed down to the street, where two police officers just parked their cruiser and were making their way to the door. The hospital must have called.

"What do we do?" Samantha noticed the cops.

They watched as both officers approached her house. But then, one of them fell to the ground. The other turned around and started to speak into his radio. It wasn't more than a few seconds before he'd fallen as well.

"What happened?" Samantha asked, confused.

"Oh, no," Jimmy pointed to two people wandering out of the darkness. Rico's men. They each carried short pistols with long silencers attached to them.

"I thought you said the cops worked for that guy! Why'd they kill them?"

"I have a feeling cops aren't exactly the right people to handle a job like this. But I'd be a little more worried about these guys right now."

They heard the door swing open. Two pairs of footsteps began moving into the house.

Jimmy pushed Samantha into the bedroom and he pulled the door almost all the way closed.

"What are we going to do?" she wondered, frightened.

Jimmy pointed to the closet, "I need you to hide in there," he slunk himself behind the door.

Samantha nodded and disappeared into the closet, being sure to not make any noise as she did..

Jimmy stood silent and still as he heard one pair of steps coming upstairs. The footfalls paused for a moment as they reached the top before moving down the hall towards the bedroom. He took a deep breath as the steps came to the other side of the slightly opened door.

A slow creaking noise filled the room as one of the men pushed the door open. Holding his gun directly in front of him, the intruder sauntered in. He noticed the bag Samantha had packed lying on the bed. But he was nowhere near seeing Jimmy in the dark, shadowy crevasse beyond the door.

As soon as Jimmy saw that the man had passed completely into the room, he sprung noiselessly into action. Moving out from his hiding place while barely even lifting his feet from the ground, Jimmy placed himself directly behind the man with the gun, who was still entirely oblivious. He acted fast as he put his hands strategically across the man's head.

Before the assailant had even any time to make a sound, Jimmy pulled his hands in opposite directions, whipping the man's head upwards and to the left. A stiff crack came from his neck and he crumbled to the floor. Jimmy collected his gun and moved over to the closet.

"Just stay there, okay," he whispered.

"What'd you do?" The door muffled Samantha's question.

"Don't worry about it. Just stay there, I'll be back."

"Wait! What if you don't come back?"

"I'll come back," he assured. "I promise."

At that, Jimmy made his way out into the hall, gun in hand.

Jimmy stood at the top of the steps, gun aimed down. He could hear the other assailant searching through the lower level. Now he was just waiting for him moment.

It wasn't long before footsteps approached the foyer from another room. As they got just as close as they could, they ceased. Jimmy could see the second man's shadow on the floor of the living room, just a foot or two away from the entrance into the foyer. But why wasn't he moving?

Still noticing shadows, Jimmy noticed his. The moonlight through the windows and the still lit bathroom light sent his shadow all the way down the steps and onto the ground floor, where it was in plain view of the last intruder.

He ducked behind a corner, silently swearing to himself for being so stupid. The man must've noticed this, because he began moving again. This time he moved into the foyer and slowly up the stairs.

Jimmy waited until he heard the man getting up onto one of the middle steps before he moved out from the shadows. He didn't have time to aim before he fired two shots. Both missed, one went through the glass pane that made up most of Samantha's front door, while the other just seemed to disappear into one of the walls.

The man leaped down the stairs and landed squarely before firing a shot of his own, which barely missed Jimmy's ear.

They both swung back behind walls on either floor.

The man pulled out a cell phone and hit a speed dial.

"He's here damn it, Brigio is here!" he barked into it once he heard the other end pick up.

The person on the other end hung up. After placing his phone back into his pocket, the remaining attacker swung back around into the entryway, only to find Jimmy and his pistol meeting his gaze.

He'd made his way down stairs without making a sound.

"A gun fight doesn't stop so you can answer your phone," Jimmy remarked before firing a single shot.

After collecting a few more magazines from the second man, he ran back upstairs to retrieve Samantha.

"Come on, we have to go," he instructed, ushering her out of the closet and handing her the bag she'd packed.

They rushed from the house. Samantha was careful not to get more than a peripheral look at the corpses lying about her house and front yard.

"What's the rush?" she asked, running across the street and onto to the passenger side of his car. "You killed all the guys chasing us right?"

Lights appeared at the far end of the street; three pairs, each belonging to rather large vehicles. They were black to the degree that he could barely make them out through the night air. But he could hear their large motors running like a hundred galloping horses from hell. They were coming up fast and were arranged in some kind of "V" pattern, effectively blocking off both lanes of the street.

"Not all," Jimmy said, staring down the trucks before them. "Not by a long shot."

He unlocked the car and they were both quick to get in. Samantha was sure to buckle her seatbelt.

The tires squealed as they rocketed down the open side of the street, the black trucks quickly closing in. He could make them out much better now. Humvees, just like he'd seen in the army, only they were painted jet black. They each looked like the car death himself would drive around in.

Once the front Humvee had closed the gap considerably, the turret on the roof swung open. Cesar Caldero was quick to rise out. He stretched his back for a moment, and swung his head up, letting his long black hair blow gallantly in the heavy wind. After this gesture of confidence, he pulled an AK-47 out from inside the truck and aimed it down at the car.

A barrage of fire came from the rifle. In an instant the back windshield shattered, and the trunk became Swiss cheese.

Samantha let out a scream as the glass shattered. Jimmy swung the wheel sharply, sending the car sliding into an intersection and turning down another road. The Humvees let out their own, much heavier squeal as they navigated the tight turn.

The gap between the vehicles had successfully been opened again as the large trucks had to slow to a near crawl to avoid from crashing into each other.

Noticing this, Caldero sent out swift signals to the other drivers to change their formation. As the trucks sped along they reshaped into a spread out zigzagging pattern, which made for much less awkward turns.

They crept up once more on Jimmy's crippled rental. Caldero aimed his gun again and fired one shot into one of the rear tires, sending the car swerving across the whole road, almost hitting several parked vehicles in the process.

Another shooter popped up from a second truck, armed with a submachine gun. Caldero gave him a signal and the shooter opened up on the little car, breaking both rear windows and piercing the other back tire.

Jimmy looked back at this second shooter and found he was in shooting range, unlike Caldero. He checked the road quickly before swinging his gun back over his seat and taking a deep breath.

With heavy concentration he fired, clipping the second shooter in the shoulder, sending him reeling back into the truck. Jimmy swung back to face the road again. He continued swerving around the street purposefully to avoid direct fire, to no avail. His car was slowly coming apart.

In a stroke of luck, the chase came to a crowded and quickly moving intersection. Jimmy swung his wounded vehicle into the traffic, causing several cars to slam on their brakes to avoid a collision. The Humvee convoy swiftly followed suit.

Despite the streets high speed limits, the chase had to maneuver constantly through the heavy traffic. Jimmy's car could go with relative ease, while the Humvees clipped just about every car they passed. In addition to this, the traffic had broken apart Caldero's zigzagging strategy, leaving each truck to its own devices.

The second shooter had reappeared, now wielding a pistol. He fired extremely accurate shots into the car, several of which hit the center consol.

One of the second shooters bullets grazed across Jimmy's arm, causing him to cringe heavily in pain.

"Oh, God!" Samantha cried out. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Jimmy assured, "Just keep low!"

Jimmy looked back to see if he could manage a shot at the shooter. He couldn't. The second shooter's truck was too close to the back of his car to even get a look at him. But there was still somebody he could see, the driver. He reached back and fired two fast shots at the windshield. They did no good, the truck was bullet proof.

The third truck pulled up along side the car, keeping Jimmy from weaving through any more traffic. And, to worsen an already dire situation, Caldero's truck was catching up. He was reloading his rifle, ready to fire another barrage.

The third truck, being without a shooter, resorted to swinging into Jimmy's car, mangling the right side of it. Every swing pushed the tiny rental closer to on coming traffic.

Again and again the truck slammed the car. Jimmy tried to push back, but that was no good. The Humvee was too strong.

The truck slammed into the car again, sending it close enough to an oncoming car for it to lose a side view mirror. Jimmy had to think of something, and fast. If the truck slammed them again, they'd be going head on into another car.

Pistol and rifle fire all of a sudden began to tear through the sedan once more, now dangerously close to the two of them. Jimmy sped up his decision-making.

As the third truck pulled slightly away to make room for another swing, Jimmy readied himself. The truck swung towards the car and Jimmy swung as well, only this time he swerved their car into oncoming traffic. He pulled into the second lane while the truck unknowingly turned itself into the first, heading straight towards a low riding Mercedes.

With neither the truck or the Mercedes having any time to react to each other, they collided. The truck rolled over the hood of the car, which sent it swinging to one side. In no time the Humvee had flipped onto its side, and then onto its top. It skidded to a slow halt in the middle of the intersection while the other vehicles kept speeding on.

One down, two to go.

Jimmy swung the car back into the right lane of traffic and saw that the second shooter's Humvee had fallen back. He wasted no time in grabbing his gun and seizing this opportunity. Swinging backward again, he fired off another shot. This bullet hit the second shooter directly in the chest. There was no reeling this time, only limp falling.

The success was short lived as Caldero's truck came charging ahead of the second and closed in. He began firing more rifle rounds in the rental's direction.

Jimmy made another quick decision and sped up until he reached a point where the front of his car was parallel to the rear fender of the car in the opposite lane. He turned hard into that car, sending it spinning out in front of Caldero's truck.

Caldero's Humvee had no choice but to crash head on into the car, shaking him up like a rag doll. By the time the truck pushed the now crushed car aside, it was going losing ground against Jimmy, as well as the second truck.

Just then, a new obstacle came into view. This busy street was coming up to a "T" intersection on to two streets that seemed to be much slower going. If they turned onto either one of these streets and Caldero caught up, there'd be no hope of weaving through traffic that's going that slow. They'd be dead.

But a glimmer of hope still shined. There was an alleyway across the intersection. It was frighteningly thin. Jimmy wasn't sure his car could get through it, but he knew the Humvees couldn't.

He slammed on the accelerator, which didn't get the car going all that fast, but it seemed fast enough. He could see Samantha begin to brace herself, she knew what they were aiming for.

"What are you doing?" she said, burying herself into her seat.

"The only thing I can do," Jimmy replied.

They ran through the intersection, causing several more cars to slam their brakes and blare their horns. The little car barreled through the alleyway, both sides scratching against the brick walls of the surrounding buildings.

The second truck stupidly pursued in the exact same fashion. But as soon as it reached the alley, it came to a slamming halt, smashing the driver's head into the wheel. It'd had become jammed in the thin opening.

Caldero's truck raced up and stopped at the alleyway. The driver of the second Humvee exited through the turret and ran to Caldero, head bleeding.

"I'm sorry, Cesar, he got away," the man said apologetically.

"Damn it! Damn it!" Caldero pounded his fists on the roof of the truck in fury. Just then, he heard a symphony of sirens heading their way. "Get in! now!"

The wounded man did as instructed and the truck sped off again and disappeared from the scene.

### 6

Jimmy parked the shot up remains of his rental car in another dark alleyway , and the two of them walked a short distance to a hotel. Jimmy buttoned up his coat to keep people from seeing the blood on his shirt, and he also did his best to hide the wound in his arm, which had now stained a nice sized spot onto his jacket.

The hotel they'd walked into had an unappealing, almost industrial-like look to the exterior. But the inside was a different story. The floor of the lobby was a crème colored marble. The walls were a wondrous and eye catching shade of gold; as were the tall, Romanesque pillars that adorned the large, open foyer.

To either side were groupings of dark brown couches and chairs that surrounded gold and glass coffee tables. There was a large sign above the reception desk that read in large, gold letters, "The St. James Hotel Welcomes You." Jimmy and Samantha both nearly scowled at the tackiness of the banner.

"I think we just walked into a five star hotel," Samantha chuckled.

"It's okay," Jimmy replied, "we won't be staying long."

Jimmy found an ATM and got them a room and the two went up to it as quickly as they could, not making as much as eye contact with anyone around them as they did. They were both certain they looked heavily suspicious. But they didn't care.

Their room was on the third floor and had a window facing the street. Jimmy liked this because it was still low enough to ground level that he could see who came and went from the hotel anytime he wanted.

The room in itself was bland, carrying nothing but the basic necessities of any hotel room: two beds, a TV, and some complimentary soaps in the bathroom.

"You should probably clean yourself up a bit now that we've got some time," Samantha said, throwing her bag onto one of the beds before collapsing onto it herself.

"Yeah, I will soon," Jimmy shrugged, staring out of the window.

"Nobody's looking for us here, I think you can come away from the window for a few minutes at least."

"You can never be too careful," Jimmy retorted, yet still following her advice and making his way towards the bathroom. "I think it'd be good that you remember that piece of knowledge Samantha, especially now."

"I'll remember that," She nodded. "And nobody really calls me Samantha. I'm Sam."

"I'll remember that."

While Jimmy took time to shower, Sam was left alone with her thoughts, the flashbacks of everything that'd just occurred. Just one week ago she was living a normal life, day to day living. She bought coffee from Starbucks every morning and skimmed the front page of the Chicago-Sun Times when she could find a moment.

But now she just got done running from a band of psychopathic human traffickers, not to mention being nearly shot to death and coming uncomfortably close to dying in a car accident. In addition, she was rooming with someone who's basically a stranger who she'd just seen kill several people. Not only did he not seem bothered by it, he seemed good at it, and that bothered her.

Before she'd sat down everything was going so fast, her mind was racing and she couldn't concentrate. Now, everything was slowed down, and she was processing it all at once. All that was left was a seemingly endless line of questions. Am I going to survive this? What'll happen if we get caught? Who exactly is this guy who saved my life twice today? When will this all end? Will it ever end? Can my life ever be normal again?

Sam found herself wiping tears from her eyes as she thought about all this. If they came this close to death today, how long is it until death finds them? Finds her? This certainly wasn't anything she'd ever prepared herself for. This wasn't part of her plan.

Everything was different and dangerous now and she doubted highly that it would change anytime soon. She began openly weeping, all she wanted was to just go home. But she didn't really have a home to go to anymore. All she had was this small hotel room and Jimmy Brigio.

She heard the shower go off and immediately sat up. She tried to collect herself as best as she could, not wanting Jimmy to see her in such an emotional state. She smeared away the remainder of her tears and fought back the ones that welled up in replacement. Stressful situations weren't exactly her specialty, and she couldn't think if a more stressful time than this one.

In an attempt to busy her mind with something, she got up and walked to the window. The streets were lit up with streetlights and cars. There weren't any people wandering about at this time of night, but traffic still whizzed on by.

To further occupy herself, she decided to count the cars that passed. When that didn't seem to work, she figured she'd classify all the cars into colors and count each certain color. Math had always been her strong suit.

When color-coding the cars still didn't fully sidetrack her mind, she counted each one in each new category as prime number. But still, her mind remained clouded with the painful remembrances.

When all of her mathematical preoccupation failed, Sam resorted to the last thing she could do to keep herself from falling into a nervous breakdown. She chewed on her nails. It was a habit of hers she'd been cutting down on, but never seemed to shake. She figured now was as good enough a time as any for a relapse. And this, coupled with the arithmetic going on in her brain, managed to keep the memories at bay for the time being.

-

Jimmy dressed the wound on his arm with a washcloth. Despite how much it bled, it was merely a superficial wound, nothing to be fearful about. But once he'd redressed himself he looked in the mirror, disgusted at his appearance.

The shower had done well for his skin and hair, but the blood and grime stained suit brought everything down. He looked homeless, and in a way, he was.

He peered down at the gun and the spare magazines he'd placed on the counter. He'd collected a hefty amount of ammo from the attackers in Sam's house. But if he planned to take on Rico, and if that night's chase was any indication, he'd need a lot more than one pistol and handful of clips.

Jimmy needed to go Mickey's number one weapons dealer and long time Brigio family friend, "Grandpa" James McGovern. He just hoped McGovern hadn't become as much of an asshole as Mickey had. At this point, Grandpa James was really Jimmy's only hope of making it through this alive.

Jimmy returned to the room to see Sam still standing at the window, gnawing at her fingers and mumbling numbers to herself.

"See anybody suspicious?" Jimmy wondered, half joking with her.

"No, just cars," Sam replied quietly.

"What was with the chanting? Are you in a cult or something?"

"No, no. They were numbers. Doing math in my head helps me take my mind off stress."

"Huh, I'd figure you'd take time to call family or friends or somebody."

"I don't really have either of those things."

"Well, that's unfortunate," Jimmy was unsure or what to say to that.

"Even if I did I wouldn't know what to say. I can't get my mind straight."

"You know what helps me?" Jimmy brought the gun out with him and set it on the end table before lying back on his bed. "Drinking."

"Sounds healthy," Sam remarked, sitting down on the other bed.

"Don't blame me," Jimmy defended, "blame my heredity and my friends in the army. Those guys drank all the time."

"You were in the army?"

"Yeah, Iraq for a few years."

"Did you win any metals?"

"A Silver Star."

"No way!" Sam sounded almost excited, "My brother won the same thing!"

"What for?" Jimmy's curiosity was peaked.

"Well, he was stationed in Afghanistan, and one day his team was doing recon and they rolled over a mine. My brother took some shrapnel, but he was the only person in his truck that was able to get out and walk. Insurgents jumped the other trucks in the convoy when they stopped to help. So, my brother, despite being wounded, still managed to help fight them off, he took out five of them and still managed to pull the survivors out of the fire. But," she paused, looking towards the floor, "well, let's just say there were two mines on that road. His truck found one...he found the other."

"What was his name?" Jimmy wondered sympathetically.

"Brandon."

"Well, Brandon sounds like he was a damn good soldier."

"Yeah, So what did you get yours for?" she changed the subject quickly.

"Nothing heroic or valiant."

"Come on, they don't give those things out like candy you know. And I told you my brother's story, you gotta return the favor."

"Okay, fine," he sighed, "my squad got ambushed at the Battle of Fallujah. A few of us got cover behind an old barricade, I took a bullet in the process though. But two others got hit in the legs and were still out in the open, my staff sergeant included, so I ran back and got them. Simple as that." Jimmy didn't want to go into any greater detail than that.

"Well that sounds pretty heroic to me," Sam commended.

"If it was so heroic they would've been more apprehensive about me leaving. But no, they just slapped the words 'honorable discharge' on me and sent me on my way."

"Did you leave, or did they send you home?"

"A little of both I suppose. I wouldn't have stayed if they'd made me anyhow."

"Why not?"

"It wasn't my scene, you know? I went there to help the people, the innocent bystanders you always see on the news. But instead I was stuck doing whatever work my country and the higher ups wanted me to do."

"What's with that?" Sam wondered, puzzled.

"What's with what?"

"All that helping the innocent bystander stuff. I've never met a single person who seems to remotely care about other people more than they do themselves. Now you risk your life to bring me out of that warehouse, as well as risk you and your brother's lives to find your sister. Not to mention you saved my life _again_ tonight. And now you're probably thinking you can save everyone else who's out there in the same situation your sister and I were. I suppose I just don't get it. Who or what exactly taught you to be so concerned about the well being of complete strangers."

"I never thought about that before," Jimmy shrugged. "But if I could guess about why, it'd probably be the way my brothers treated people when they first moved back to Chicago from Los Angeles. They were high-class criminals then. They robbed and manipulated good people, or at least Mickey did. All I ever knew about Marco was that he went along with it. But they forced their way down the throats and into the minds and souls of everybody who worked in their territory. I once watched as a few of their guys smashed some poor grocer's head into his cash register until he was unrecognizable, on Mickey's order too. Apparently the guy didn't pay protection or something. But I knew that guy, he'd been serving our family for years, he was one of my mother's best friends, and Mickey had him beaten half to death over a few bucks.

"Then people started recognizing me too, just because I was their brother, these people wouldn't even look at me, others would go and walk on the other side of the street. All these innocent people were afraid of me, because they had good reason to be afraid of my brothers. I didn't want to live like that. I didn't want these people to fear me. I didn't want any of them to feel fear towards anything. I thought that's what being an American was all about. But I knew I couldn't do anything to help the people in Chicago, they'd already learned to fear me and my brothers, not to mention Rico's operations were coming up on the South side too. Everywhere in that city people were afraid of someone. So I left, to the only place I though I could go to help innocent people stuck in a bad situation, the war. But that didn't work out like I'd planned."

"So I guess you've got your brothers to thank for the way you are now," Sam figured.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"So what'd you do after you left the army? Come back here?"

"Hell no," Jimmy laughed, "I didn't think I'd ever come back to this town, not by a long shot. I figured my name was still feared. Even when Mickey called me and said they were going legitimate, I still didn't think I could stand coming back and being feared so much by all those people again."

"So where the hell did you go?"

"Jerusalem," Jimmy chuckled, "if you can believe that. I went there looking for some kind of religion. But I found something totally different, yet just as good. If not better."

"What?"

"I found a group of people just like me, or rather, they found me. They'd been working a long time across the border of Palestine and Gaza. They didn't support either side of the conflict. All they worked for was the safety of the public on both sides, as well as other people, like tourists and diplomats, caught up in the conflict. They freed hostages and provided safe havens for people displaced by the fighting."

"What were they called?" Sam had never heard of these people before, as she'd been an avid watcher of the news, which always seemed to be talking about the Israel-Palestine conflict whenever it wasn't discussing the Afghan war.

"We never really developed a name for themselves," Jimmy replied. "Most of the public got to calling us some name or another, it was different from town to town. But they all revolved around what saints they thought we all were. From the outside I'm sure it looked that way. But in reality we were far from saints. I learned that when they began teaching me what they knew. They taught me to kill without making a noise, to fashion a home made silencer, all that terrorist stuff. And I made good use of all of it every time we freed a hostage or cleared a terrorist camp. I became a killing machine with a good cause. Everybody kept telling me the ends justified the means, and at first I didn't believe it. But when I saw the peace that came to the people we helped, the smiles that grew on their faces when they learned that they had nothing to be scared of anymore, I knew the means were justified. I've spent the last five years with them, and if I get through all of this, I'm going right back there."

"Wow!" Sam was astonished at the story. "The people need to know about you, about them. Then you could get backing from militaries."

"No," Jimmy immediately protested the idea.

"Why not?"

"Because separation from the militaries is what makes us what we are. The militaries don't look out for the people nearly as much as they do their country and themselves. People may see us and look at us as insurgents or mercenaries, but we say let them. To the outside world, we're not good people by any means, I'm certainly not. But to the people of those areas, the ones we help, we're saints."

"How can you say you're not a good person? You won a Silver Star, and have helped so many people with that group of yours."

"I've killed a lot of people in pursuit of those goals, Sam. And once you take a life, you can't exactly give it back."

"I thought you said that 'the ends justify the means'."

"Right, they do. For the people we help. Not for us, not for me," Jimmy let out a long sigh. "Go to sleep, you're going to need every bit of energy you can get."

After a long bout of deliberation on whether or not to stubbornly dig deeper and keep the conversation going, Sam finally decided to give in to Jimmy's instruction. She sat back and gave out her own sigh as she did. She reached out and shut the light on the end table off, being very careful not to get too near the gun. It didn't take long at all for her, or Jimmy, to drift off into deep sleep.

-

Jimmy dreamt a recurring dream about the ambush on the road in Fallujah. He still wasn't sure where he was. All he remembered was seeing his friends out in the open as the hell broke loose.

Sitting still for a second, he felt the bullet wound in his stomach. His vest was on, but the powerful rifle round had weaseled its way partially through it. Blood ran from the hole in his armor, although he didn't focus on that. He kept his eyes fixed on the two soldiers that remained incapacitated on no-mans-land.

Without further delay, Jimmy rushed out from behind the barricade, holding the stomach wound as he did. Wrapping each soldier in one arm, he dragged them slowly but surely to safety behind the barrier.

After a second of catching his breath behind the cement barricade, Jimmy spun back around, his weapon at the ready, prepared to open fire on the attackers. But just as he was about to unleash fire, his peripheral vision caught on to something else.

There, behind their own tiny cement block of a barrier, sat a cowering woman with a small child wrapped tightly in her arms. Terror showed in both their faces.

He unleashed a burst of fire as he jetted out from behind his cover. His crippled sergeant screamed for him, but the sound was lost in the forest of gun reports and ricochets. Jimmy sprinted almost halfway to the frightened woman and child before he was knocked off his balance.

The bullet that rocked into his shoulder sent him falling to his knees, the entire right half of his body throbbed. More rounds whizzed above his head, his squad was finally giving him some covering fire. The wound in his stomach was beginning to bleed worse, as well as give out its own pulsing pain. He could feel streams of blood running down his arm.

A grenade rolled itself to the base of his knees. He picked it up and hurled it back at the attackers without a single thought. It exploded a few seconds later, sending dust and shrapnel every which way. Jimmy felt a piece hit him in the thigh, but it wasn't nearly close to the pain coursing through his arm.

He could vaguely hear his commanding officer's voice behind him, continuing to scream frantically at him. Probably telling him to come back to them or duck for cover or something along those lines. But Jimmy wasn't anywhere near sure, all the voices were just noise, secondary to the sound of a racing heart and the sight of the woman and child he ran out of cover to save.

The young woman and the little girl couldn't have been more than ten feet away by now, and all Jimmy wanted was to pick himself up and run towards them. He'd just done it moments ago with his sergeant and another soldier . Why couldn't he now?

Another grenade came rolling in from the attacker's side. Picking it up, he once again tossed it back, not sending nearly as far as he had the one previous. He knew the blast would be closer now, more severe, but he didn't brace himself in the slightest. It exploded. This time dust and debris encircled him, rocks and pebbles rained down. More small pieces of shrapnel cut him up. Jimmy saw the woman shriek heavily, although he couldn't hear it, he couldn't hear anything anymore.

Jimmy fell forward, not finding himself with enough energy left to keep himself upright. Despite this, he continued to keep his gaze on the frightened people before him, the innocent bystanders. He began pushing along with his feet, finding it rather easy to meander across the dirt. Slowly closing the space between himself and the cowering civilians. Jimmy was certain once he could get to them he could provide some extra fire and direct them to safety, even if he couldn't take them there himself.

He'd closed the gap to about five feet. Close enough to see the color of the woman's eyes. A deep hazel, the kind more romantic types would probably get lost in. He didn't have a long time to look at them as he inched towards her, something else drew his vision, a dark green blur coming towards him. It slowed to a roll in front if him, another grenade. Only this time, it rolled right at the feet of the woman and the child.

The woman was frozen with fear, as was Jimmy. The distance between him and the explosive was menial. But could he muster enough energy to lunge over and swat it away, or did he have no other choice but to let them go?

Jimmy knew he didn't have long to think about his decision, he had no time at all. They both watched it as it came to rest just inches from her feet. He looked up at her, getting another look into those hazel eyes. The fear she showed was unlike anything he'd ever seen before or since.

Matching her gaze with an equal fear, e wrapped his unwounded arm around the back of his head and neck and curled himself up into a ball. Jimmy immediately regretted what he'd just chosen to do. But his brain kept telling him it was all he could do. He didn't have enough energy to stand, much less push himself the length needed to throw the grenade away. And so he shielded himself, showing his shrapnel-proof vested back to the explosive, and to the terrified woman.

'we're not good people by any means, I'm certainly not.' his words echoed through the dream.

The grenade exploded.

### 7

Jimmy awoke from his dream abruptly, covered in a cold sweat and breathing heavily. He looked at the alarm clock on the end table. Four-thirty in the morning, it read.

He grasped his shoulder tightly where the scar had formed. The faint remembrance of pain returned to the area. He knew from experience that it was useless trying to go back to sleep.

Getting up slowly, he made sure the creak of his bed didn't wake Sam. Still in his street clothes, he put his shoes on and headed for the door. He stopped, and after a few moments thought he returned to his bedside and grabbed the gun off the end table and slid it into his coat before leaving.

Jimmy was heavily thankful the bar on the ground floor was open all night. He desperately needed a drink. And at this time of night, the pub was all but dead. The only other patron was a young, blonde, flapper looking girl. He doubted if she was even twenty years old. But her age obviously didn't stop her from drinking herself to the point of going unconscious over the bar. Drunken stupor or not, she looked rather peaceful.

He sat down in a stool near the end of the long bar and watched as the bartender made his way down the line to take his order. Jimmy didn't even know what he wanted, all he knew was that he wanted something.

"I'd be drinking too if I was in your situation," a voice came from behind him.

Jimmy swung around, reaching for the weapon in his jacket. He stopped as soon as he saw who it was.

"How the hell did you find me?" he wondered with a relieved sigh as he saw Marco standing before him.

"You used an ATM," Marco replied with a smile, sitting down beside his brother. "That's a rookie mistake. We've got friends at the bank who'll tell us when someone we're looking for or keeping tabs on makes a transaction. Just count yourself lucky Mickey was already asleep and Lath had gone home when they called."

"I'll try and remember that little tid-bit," Jimmy said, annoyed by the seemingly endless amount of connections both his brother and Rico appeared to have in this town.

"What can I get you fellas tonight?" The bartender wondered. "Or should I say, this morning?" he joked.

Marco laughed along with the bartender; Jimmy cracked a little smile too.

"We'll have a bottle of Johnnie Walker, Blue Label," Marco ordered. If there was one thing the Brigio boys all had in common, it was their uncanny love for a fine Scotch whiskey.

The bartender nodded and went to retrieve a bottle.

"Blue label?" Jimmy said. "I've only been drinking Black lately."

"Black? Where'd you learn to like Black?"

"We raided an extremist PLO compound a few years back," Jimmy mentioned his workings in Israel. "They had cases of the stuff. That's all they drank, which means that all we drank for a while. I guess it kinda rubbed off on me."

Jimmy looked into the eyes of his brother as they made conversation. This was the first time he'd seen his brother's eyes since he left for Iraq a decade before. And now he noticed it, Marco had the same deep hazel eyes of the woman from that street in Fallujah. Jimmy couldn't help but concentrate entirely on his brother's eyes, ignoring what ever it was he was saying. Marco began pointing at something, the movements brought him back to reality.

"Look, you made the news," Marco was pointing to a small TV hanging up near the corner of the ceiling.

Sure enough, the news was playing a reel of a reporter standing in front of the over turned Humvee.

"Do you think they're looking for me?" Jimmy asked, almost frantic.

"Well listen and let's see."

" _The chase that roared through this busy street late last night left many cars damaged and caused traffic congestion that could lead well into tomorrow while authorities clean up the wreckages,"_ the reporter explained. _"I have also been informed that the only death throughout all of this was one of the belligerents, who was shot somehow. And, although none of the suspects in the chase that have been apprehended are talking to police, but authorities claim they'll soon determine the motive of this chase. The names of any people involved are not yet known..."_ she continued on, but both of them had stopped listening.

"See," Marco said confidently, "nobody's looking for you."

"Well won't the people they captured identify me so that the police can keep me in one place?" Jimmy wondered, although his mind was more filled with the relief from knowing that through all of that, none of the people he'd put in harms way had been killed or hurt.

"Like we told you before, we're not in the business of cops. Not us, not Rico. Even if he's got half the cop shops in town on his payroll, he's gonna want his guys to take you out, not some nobody patrol officer."

"So I don't have to worry about the police, only a militia of murderous gangsters, lovely."

"Be happy, that's one less thing you've gotta worry about right?"

Marco had always been an optimistic one.

"What kind of news channel runs the news at four-thirty in the morning?" Jimmy wondered, looking back up at the television.

"This is Chicago, bro. There's always something going on, and always somebody reporting on it."

The bartender returned, carrying the blue-labeled bottle Marco had ordered.

"That'll be two hundred dollars," he said, setting the bottle before them and reaching under the bar to retrieve two glasses.

"Jesus Christ!" Jimmy was astonished.

"Don't worry it's worth it," Marco said, giving the barkeep his credit card.

"Now, wait," Jimmy looked confused, "I can't use and ATM, but you can use your credit card?"

"Nobody's looking for me," Marco smiled, taking his card back while the bartender opened the bottle and poured them both a glass before leaving them in peace.

"The joys of not being a wanted man," Jimmy sighed.

"Oh, cry me a river. You weren't here for the bad times."

"What bad times?"

"The wars you missed out on while you were off fighting a war. The entire first half of this decade was filled to the brim with blood and bodies. I couldn't even walk out my front door without looking over both shoulders the whole time, much less come out and get a drink with anybody."

"What ended the wars?"

"We and The Rican finally decided on a fair territory distribution. Split it up on the Eisenhower Expressway, and everybody keep to themselves. But damn if those few years didn't change all of us a little bit."

"Is that why Mickey is the way that he is?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, back in the days before I left, he was a ruthless criminal, but at least he treated me like an actual brother, you know? But now, he just sounds like a businessman, some careless bureaucrat. The old Mickey would've burned this whole city down if his little sister had gone missing. Now, not only does he do nothing to help her, but he _offers money_ to the guy who killed her? What the hell happened?"

"Lathrop Sherman happened."

"Oh God, that man is the devil on Mickey's shoulder."

"You've got that right,"

"Why the hell do you let him stick around anyway?"

"Mickey brought him in to help with his precious legitimacy. It didn't take long for Mickey to be dependent on him, like an alcoholic and his booze really. But, however much he changes Mickey for the bad, he changes our business for the better. Pretty soon, when all the crime aspects are behind us, I'm sure Mickey will go back to his old self, and I'm talking even before L.A. old. The Mickey we knew when we were kids."

"I really don't see that happening," Jimmy said in heavy skepticism, finally raising his glass and taking a long swig of the whiskey. "Oh, damn," he exclaimed, "that's good stuff."

"Better than your Black, right?" Marco grinned.

"Hell yeah, those PLO guys don't know what they're missing here."

At that they both drank their glass down, followed by a few more. And then a few more still after that.

They continued on talking, about the separate lives they'd lived over the past ten years, their childhoods, and how things used to be. And how they both longed for it to be like those times again.

"Do you remember that time when mom and dad bought us that swing set?" Marco asked, red faced, slurring, and laughing heartily.

"And the first day you used it you fell off it?" Jimmy did remember, and began laughing just as hard.

"Knocked me out fucking cold! You and Mickey both started flipping out! You thought I was dead!"

"You fell from, like, the highest you could've possibly fallen, what were we supposed to think?"

"I don't remember what you did, but Mickey just ran in and called the meat wagon. He didn't even tell mom or dad, he just called the damn ambulance!" Marco could barely contain himself.

"I know, I know! I know what I did! I remember, I wanted to do CPR like they did on all those medical shows that mom watched. But all I really did was punch you in the chest a bunch of times!"

"Oh, yeah! Now I remember that! I swear those bruises you left didn't go away for three weeks!"

"And then, when the ambulance finally came, mom almost had a damn coronary 'cause this huge truck was rolling over the yard and all her mums!"

"And dad just laughed!" they both said that in unison.

"Oh, man," Marco said as they both slowed down their laughter, "fun times, man, fun times."

"No doubt," Jimmy nodded. "So, Mickey called the ambulance without a seconds thought back then, what do you figure he'd do now if that happened?"

"Well, he'd probably just walk over and kick me in the face to see if I'd wake up," at that they both began laughing again. "And if that didn't work, he'd probably bury me in the sand box and then go steal my swing!"

They both shared another few moments of gut busting hilarity, before Marco looked up to notice another familiar face almost power walking in their direction. As soon as Jimmy stopped laughing, Marco pointed a finger out to signal his brother to turn around. When he did, Jimmy groaned silently at the sight coming towards them.

"Well isn't this just a sight to see," Sam said, approaching the two of them. "You're drunk," She scolded Jimmy, "And who the hell is that?" she gestured over at Marco.

"This is my kid brother, Marco," Jimmy wrapped his arm around his brother's neck, as if he were about to give him a noogie.

"Oh," Sam said quietly, not sure what to think of the man sitting in front of her. He looked harmless enough, playfully fighting off his brother's grasp. But he was, after all, a criminal just like the one's they'd barely escaped from.

"Come, sit with us," Jimmy patted his hand lightly on the bar stool next to him. "What are you doing up?"

"I couldn't sleep," She replied, sitting down cautiously.

"Join the club."

"Let me buy you a drink, new friend," Marco offered, gesturing the bartender over.

"Okay," she replied cautiously, "And it's Sam, by the way."

"Well then, Sam," Marco exclaimed as the barkeep approached them, "what'll ya have."

"Can I get a glass of one-fifty-one, straight?"

The man behind the bar gave her a look of surprise, but went to get the high proof alcohol anyway.

"Excuse me?" Marco leaned over to look at her, in complete shock.

"What?" Sam giggled, "Is it wrong for a woman to know how to hold her booze?"

"Oh, Jimmy," Marco sighed with a smile, patting his brother on the shoulders, "she's a keeper."

"Maybe it'll keep you from chanting numbers to yourself," Jimmy pointed out.

"Hopefully," she nodded with a grin.

"You chant numbers to yourself?" Marco wondered, "Are you in a cult or something?"

"No, math just keeps my brain busy."

"What are ya, a math teacher or something?"

"Well, before all this I was an accountant actually. But I have a feeling it might be difficult to go back to work right now based on my current situation."

The bartender returned with the glass of rum and she took a few sips of it while Marco paid. Jimmy just watched in amazement.

"Good?" he wondered with a cocked smile.

"Oh, yeah," she said, the taste of good old-fashioned alcohol brought her back to some degree of normalcy.

"Sounds healthy."

"Shut up, I'm still not as drunk as you guys."

"Hey," Marco leaned into the conversation, "we're not drunk, our tongues are just weighed with too much sophistication, so we're talking a little weird."

"I'm surprised you can even say the word sophistication right now."

"I can say a lot of things, baby, just you watch."

"Your brother is charming," she addressed Jimmy.

"He's much more of a gentlemen when he's sober, trust me," Jimmy assured her.

"I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."

"So, Samuel," Marco began.

"It's Samantha, but okay," Sam shook her head with a smile.

"Anyway, Samantha, have you ever shot a gun before?"

"Nope, I've never even held one."

"That could pose a very large problem. You outta take her to Grandpa James, get her figured out there." he spoke very closely to Jimmy's ear, almost whispering into it.

"That's what I was planning to do," Jimmy told his brother, pushing him away from his head.

"You guys have your grandfather in on this too?" Sam wondered.

At that, they both busted out in a fit of laughter that rivaled those previous. They'd never heard it, or thought about it, like that before.

"No, no," Jimmy tried to explain and contain himself at the same time, "he's not our grandpa."

"We're actually older than he his," Marco added.

"Then why do you call him that?" she was heavily confused.

"Because he's his own grandpa," Jimmy replied.

She just stared at them in disbelief. She had absolutely no idea how that was even possible.

"It's complicated," they both spoke in unison again.

"Is it best if I don't ask about it?"

"I'd say so," Jimmy nodded.

"What's he like?" Sam wondered. "Is he one of those scary mafia types?"

"Oh hell no," Marco explained. "Grandpa James is a little bit out of the box, but I think you'll like him. Or at the very least be able to tolerate him."

"Out of the box?"

"You'll see,"

"Scary mafia types?" Jimmy laughed under his breath.

"What?" Sam asked, confused by how he found humor in that.

"Granted I haven't been around much lately, I don't think there's been any 'scary mafia types' since the seventies."

"Well what about your brothers?"

"I'm not scary, am I?" Marco chimed in, leaning to his brother's ear again. "Do I really make that bad of a first impression?" In his inebriated state, he seemed heavily self-conscious.

Jimmy just pushed Marco away from his ear and continued on with his conversation.

"My brother's are mafia types, I'm not arguing that," he said. "But this is the twenty first century. Cosa Nostra is dead. There aren't any mass murders for turf, or billion dollar illegal businesses anymore. It's not like it was in "The Godfather" you know? Mobsters don't just go out, shoot somebody in the face, leave the gun and take the cannoli, then come home and beat their wives."

"Most mobsters these days don't even have wives," Marco added, sipping his drink faster and still feeling bad about himself.

"Exactly. Even big time guys like Mickey aren't like the ones you see on TV. He may be different from how he was when I left, but even still he's not going out to kill anybody on a whim. In these times organized crime is just like any organized business, and even businesses like these can't afford a run away body count."

"You seem to know a lot about organized crime," Sam pointed out.

"This is Chicago, I grew up with it. And I'm related to two people who basically run that racket around here. Even if I was blind and deaf I'd be able to tell you how a mafia works."

"So they're not ruthless killers? Because the one's we just got away from seem to tell differently."

"There's some killers out there," Marco interjected. "We're not them though. I don't think we can speak for Rico; he's always done things a little differently. But as far as we go, my brother's and I aren't ruthless killers by any standard."

Sam thought about what Marco had said, and then her mind returned to Jimmy killing the men in her house.

"Not ruthless," Jimmy put emphasis on that part. He almost knew where Sam's thoughts had gone, because his had gone to the same place.

"Not ruthless at all," Marco drank down the last of his glass.

Jimmy just let out a heavy sigh after that. He peered up at the clock, it was well past five now.

"You know, I would love to sit down here and talk about how much of a dick Mickey has become over the years. But, I have a feeling I'm going to need some sleep," he got up from the barstool.

"Oh, come on," Marco replied, "there's still some whiskey left," he held up the bottle, there was about a fifth of it remaining.

"Enjoy it," Jimmy shrugged before turning to Sam. "You coming?"

"I've still got some of my drink left," she replied, holding up her glass, there was still about half of it left.

"Alright then," Jimmy was in no mood to urge anyone to do anything, so he just shrugged once again, "don't stay up too late you crazy kids."

"One more thing, bro," said Marco, "if you talk to Mickey, we never saw each other. I think he'd flip if I knew I came to see you now."

"Mums the word," Jimmy nodded and strode slowly out of the bar, almost wobbling on his way.

That left Marco and Sam to continue with their drinks.

"So do I really scare you?" Marco wondered after a moment of silence.

"Well," Sam paused, "not you as a person, I guess. But you're a gangster, and in case you haven't noticed, I haven't had much luck dealing with any of them in the past few days."

"Yeah," Marco nodded. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure."

"Where'd they get you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Where'd you get taken from? Midway?"

"You ask weird questions."

"Only when I'm drunk. And only in the hopes that I get weird answers."

"Well, it wasn't from Midway. Does it happen a lot around there?"

"Mostly, yeah, but they get people from just about anywhere they can. I swear I've seen a few of Rico's guys hanging around high schools on the south side."

That thought made Sam's skin crawl.

"Jesus," she said under her breath.

"But still, Mickey just talks about 'anything to keep the peace'."

"Well when does peace stop being worth it?"

"I suppose that varies. To Jimmy, and you I'd guess, that time was yesterday night."

"What about for you?"

"I don't know," Marco refilled his glass, "I don't know."

"You're obviously willing to go pretty far if you'd let your sister die without drawing your guns," Sam didn't mean or want that to come out seeming spiteful. But it did.

Instead of getting angry, like all the movies and stereotypes had taught Sam to expect, Marco just nursed his whiskey in despair.

"It wasn't my choice to do nothing," he explained. "Mickey and Sherman made the choice, I barely even had a say. They said I was 'too emotional to make any kind of rational decision'. But I think rationality requires some kind of emotion, don't you."

"Yeah, otherwise you're just some heartless, distant person who'd do anything and give up anything to avoid what you don't want, and keep what you do. You know, a sociopath."

"That may just be exactly what Mickey's become. I mean, he saw Anna the day she was born. And she actually looked up to him. She didn't want to be a criminal, but she wanted to be as successful as he was all the same. And now, it's like she was just some stranger to him, like he never even cared to begin with."

After that they sat in silence again. Marco had said all he'd wanted to about his eldest brother, and Sam wasn't quite sure how to respond.

"You know," she tried to rekindle conversation, "I never answered your question."

"What?" Marco had forgotten all about it.

"Your question, about where they got me."

"Oh, yeah," he remembered. "Where did they?"

"Well, as far as I can remember, I was walking back to my car from a bar down in the Little Italy area when I crossed through an alleyway as a shortcut, and that's really all I remember."

"Never go down an alley, that's a rookie mistake," Marco joked.

"Well excuse me," Sam replied, "I'll have to remember that next time I need to avoid getting _sold_. And why were they in Little Italy? I'd figure that would be your guy's place see as, you know, you're Italian."

"Yeah, we lost control of that place when we made the treaty with Rico," Marco was almost ashamed of this, "I think he took it just as one last jab at us before the war ended."

"Well I guess that meant very bad news for me."

"Yeah, I guess so. So, did they give you heroin?"

"Only for a day or two, so I think I avoided most of the withdraw symptoms and I left without any drag marks. I suppose that's a plus."

"You seem like quite the optimist."

"Only when I'm drunk," she raised her now almost empty glass of rum.

"You wanna refill?" Marco was ready to wave the barkeep back over to them.

"No, no, one's fine for me. And I don't think now is the best time to have a hangover, especially not when guns could go off."

"Yeah, hangover plus gun fire is just no good. Trust me."

"So, Marco," Sam drank down the last of her glass, "if your older brother changed so much these past years, why haven't you?"

"I can't really say for sure," Marco shrugged. "I'd guess it'd be that I was never one to get into the hands on parts of this business unless I really needed to. Otherwise I was just a back-up boss, a councilor to Mickey."

"Like Robert Duvall?"

"Kinda," Marco laughed, "I was basically Mickey's Robert Duvall. But from that position I could watch as other members of our operations changed, they'd get greedy or careless, becoming all about the money or the power. And Mickey wasn't any different. For a few years there he was his old, fine self, but then all the wars started. He really had to get deep into the bloody business of it as well as the actual business end. He'd knock on my door at crazy hours of the night so he could stash blood covered rifles and pistols in my crawl space. He still cared for family then, but to the outside world he was scarier than Osama Bin Laden."

"That's why Jimmy left?"

"Yeah, he said it bothered him," "And I couldn't blame him, it bothered the hell out of me too, the way they'd all look at me, like I was Charles Manson or something. I figured then it couldn't get any worse, but once the wars subsided and Mickey brought in Doc Sherman to help him legitimize the whole operation, it did. He just got so far into the whole thing he stopped paying attention to anything else, and eventually, he stopped caring about anything else."

"So why didn't you go into that legitimizing with him?"

"I wanted to, I didn't want to be looked at with fear anymore. But Mickey said it was something he and Sherman could handle themselves."

"No offense, but your brother sounds like an asshole. And so does that Sherman guy."

"No offense taken. Mickey and Lathrop are pretty easy guys to hate," Marco looked up at the clock, which was inching its way past the five-thirty mark. "I should probably get heading home now."

"I should probably be getting to bed," Sam agreed.

"I'll meet you guys at Grandpa James's place tomorrow. I figure you might need help learning how to use a gun."

"More than likely," Sam sighed, not really looking forward to using something she'd been avoiding her whole life.

"Don't worry any about it, James is a fine guy, and I'm sure you'll learn in no time. Shooting a gun is kind of like accounting."

"I'm sure it is."

"If you're as good with numbers as a good accountant should be, there's one thing you should always remember to do."

"And what's that?"

"Count your bullets. Know when you're going to need to reload, and prepare accordingly. Don't get stuck in a stand off with two guys when you've only got one bullet in the chamber."

"Good to know."

"Indeed it is, Samantha, indeed it is," At that, Marco strolled unsteadily out of the bar and pulled out his phone to call for a cab.

Sam was now the only person left in the bar. The bartender had gone into a back room for something, and the blonde girl was still sound asleep, leaving a deafening silence to the whole area. She sat and thought about the conversation she'd just had, and who exactly she'd had it with.

All the movies had taught her to fear mobsters, just like the rest of the public did to the Brigio's. But now that she'd sat down and had a talk, and a drink, with one of the highest-ranking Mafiosi in all of Chicago, she felt she'd misjudged. And as she thought it over even further, she came to _know_ that she'd misjudged.

### 8

Jimmy and Sam woke up late in the morning and taken a cab the short distance to Grandpa James's place in River West. They'd found that Marco hadn't yet arrived, his GTO was nowhere in sight.

"I thought you said he sold guns," Sam said, eyeing the building as they exited the cab.

"He does, this is just a front," Jimmy replied.

James chose to sell his guns from his business, which also happened to be his home. A small four story structure that fit in like a puzzle piece with the rest of its surroundings. Most of the first floor was taken up by his front, a tiny café.

"I don't think anybody's here," Sam observed the dark nature of the coffee house.

"He's here, don't worry."

Jimmy began pounding on the glass door of the café, he was certain James was there.

"Don't break the damn door down."

"I'm not breaking the door down. I just know he's here. He lives and works here, he doesn't have any reason to be anyplace else."

"Did he know we were coming?"

"I'm sure Marco told him."

Before Sam could argue with him any longer, a figure began shifting about in the coffee house. A man approached the door from the other end.

"I told you he was here," Jimmy remarked.

Grandpa James opened the door and greeted Jimmy with a big hug and an even bigger smile, which he also gave to Sam. Marco said he was out of the box.

James seemed considerably younger than Jimmy and Marco, even a few years younger than Sam. He looked like a hippie mixed with a hipster, the kind of guy you'd see typing up a screenplay at Starbucks with an antique typewriter. He wore a tattered sweatshirt that looked at least a size or two too big. Despite his bum-like clothes, his hair was done up in some kind of artistically created 'bed-head' look that must've taken an hour to get right.

"James McGovern, it's been so long!" Jimmy exclaimed.

"Too long, Jimmy, too long," James replied with a second hug and a bigger smile. But that smile fell away quickly to a look of pity and sorrow. "Marco told me this morning what happened to Anna. I'm sorry."

Jimmy didn't reply, he simply gave an appreciative smile. From the look James returned, he could tell it was enough.

"What are you guys standing around for?" James wondered, gesturing them inside. "So what can I do for you?" he shut the door behind them.

"I need some lemon tea with a lime," Jimmy spoke cryptically.

"Here or to go?"

Sam didn't quite understand the need for the buzzwords they were obviously using. There wasn't anybody in there with them, and she didn't know any person in their right mind who'd bug a coffee shop ran by someone who looked as nerdy and harmless as Grandpa James did.

"To go," Jimmy answered.

"Wonderful!" James said, "Follow me to the back."

"It's been ten years and you still use the same code?" Jimmy snickered as they went through a small doorway into the back of the building.

"I'm a creature of habit, what can I say."

They walked into a decently sized open room. The wallpaper seemed old and the hardwood was scratched up, it definitely wasn't a place meant for living. But for a storage space it seemed elegant. There were a few old wooden chairs around the room and a large table in the center of the area.

"And you must be the girl Marco informed me of on the phone this morning," James approached Sam, "it's Samantha, right?"

"Sam," she corrected.

"My apologies, Sam. I'm James, but people call me Grandpa James, you can choose whichever you like."

"So how's your stock of lemon tea with lime?" Jimmy wondered.

"Higher than it was the last time you were here. I've easily tripled inventory. So what can I get ya?"

"You got any M4 rifles? I used them in the war, it'd be good if I could get my hands on one again."

"Any kind you'd prefer?" James asked, opening another door, which led into a storeroom crowded with metal crates and boxes.

"A1 would be best."

"You got it," James said jubilantly before disappearing into the storeroom.

"You don't have any idea what kind you want, do you?" Jimmy leaned over and spoke to Sam.

"Not a clue," She replied, shaking her head, "I don't even know what an M4 is."

"It's pretty standard military issue assault rifle. But you'll probably need a pistol. Something more easily controlled and concealable."

"Any kind that you can think of?"

"I know a whole lot of pretty okay ones, but you're gonna need the best you can get."

James returned from the storeroom with the rifle in hand, he set it down onto the table.

"Standard M4A1 assault rifle," he said, "I'm sure you know all the specs on it by heart."

"I do," Jimmy nodded confidently.

"You want any special kind of scope?" James wondered. He sounded like a waiter taking a food order.

"What you've got on there now looks fine," Jimmy replied observing the common iron sights. Jimmy never much enjoyed scopes, they got in his way. "You know, I saw a few rifles back in the Mid-East with shotguns under the barrel, you got any of those?"

"Hell yeah I do, give me a sec," James went back into the storeroom.

"You know, that guy doesn't quite seem like the person to peddle guns," Sam observed.

"I know, but he does it better than anyone. He's been at it since he was sixteen."

"Where does he get them all?"

"We never bothered to ask him."

James returned with a new weapon in hand. It looked almost like a regular shotgun, only much shorter and completely minus a stock.

"I'd like to introduce you to the KAC Masterkey shotgun," he announced proudly, setting the weapon underneath the M4, where it would sit if it were attached to the rifle.

"Oh, yeah, I've seen these before. Pretty nice attachments," Jimmy recalled, peering down at the gun.

"But, you know me, I bet I've got something for you that you've never seen before," James grinned almost devilishly.

"What?" Jimmy spoke with a partially apprehensive curiosity.

James sat a box of shotgun shells on the table and pulled a few out. They looked just like any other normal round, except no slug or shot was visible.

"These, my boy, are called dragon's breath to the outside world," James explained. "Illegal to the state of Illinois, but what the hell do we care, right?"

"I've heard about these before, I didn't really think they had a lot of tactical use," Jimmy remarked.

"What do they do?" Sam asked.

"Shoot fire, basically," Jimmy replied.

"The regular kind aren't really made for killing people," James said. "But these aren't exactly the regular kind. These are beefed up versions I got special ordered. They've got a whole different cocktail of explosives and shit in 'em. They'll light up a whole tight group of people in one shot, and in close quarters they're the deadlier than bullets. They'll burn anything in the way to ashes."

"Sounds lovely," Jimmy chuckled.

"So you'll take the dragon's breath rounds?"

"Sure, what the hell."

"What about her now?" James aimed his head Sam's way.

"She'll need a pistol," Jimmy spoke for her. "Light weight, easy to fire and reload, low recoil, high stopping power."

"Well, my friend, you've officially lowered the pickings to about a thousand different kinds of pistols."

"I've never used a gun before," Sam added.

"Well, follow me into the back of the back and I'll set up a buffet for you," James gestured for them to follow him to the storeroom.

The storeroom seemed just like the room they'd left, only larger in dimension, and a whole lot more crowded. Crates of weapons stacked up almost to the ceiling in some places. James had created an elaborate hallway system through the room in order to reach his entire inventory.

Jimmy and Sam stopped in a larger opening in the middle of the room, which also had a table centered in it, identical to the one in the other room. James grabbed one of the larger metal boxes and brought it over to the opposite end of the table from their position. He popped it open and began setting gun after gun onto the table; pistols big and small, antique and brand new, American and otherwise.

"Good God," Sam exclaimed under her breath as she watched the young man pull out the arsenal.

"Yeah, this is a buffet," Jimmy cocked a smile.

"So," James said, setting down a few more guns, filling the table space, "see anything you like?"

Jimmy looked at Sam to measure her reaction.

"Don't look at me," she noticed his gaze, "I have no idea what I'm looking at."

"Okay," Jimmy said, beginning to judge the weapons himself, out loud. "Too big, too heavy," he pointed at each of them while naming off their problems, "too hard to reload, too unreliable, too old," he wanted to continue on paneling these pistols, but his eyes caught a glimpse of one that needed a second look.

"Which one are ya staring at?" James inquired.

Jimmy pointed it out, "That one."

"Heckler and Koch nine millimeter USP Compact," James spoke the name aloud, picking the weapon up and handing it to Sam, who paused.

"Why are you giving it to me?" She wondered, drawing back from the gun.

"We're looking for your gun, we need to make sure that you're comfortable with it."

Not wanting to argue with him, she slowly wrapped her fingers around the cold, black grip of the pistol.

"How's it feel?" Jimmy asked. "Too heavy?"

"Not really," Sam said slowly.

"Do you feel comfortable holding it?" James questioned.

"I don't think I'd feel comfortable holding any gun."

"How's the stopping power?" Jimmy addressed James.

"With the basic nine mil' Parabellum bullets, it's pretty okay. I can get you some hollow points though, those would definitely make it deadlier." James explained.

"Let's do that then," Jimmy nodded, looking back at Sam. "Well?"

"If you're expecting any positive opinion out of me right now, you'll be sorely disappointed," she replied.

"Well I've got a firing range in the basement," James said. "Why don't we try giving it a shot?" He grinned at the bad pun he'd just pulled.

"Sweet Jesus, James," Jimmy laughed embarrassingly at the joke. Sam even let a little smile show.

The firing range in the basement dominated the entire area. There were three cement stalls, which matched well to the solid cement walls. Sam could see now why James left all his boxes of weapons in the upstairs. There was barely room enough for the three of them in the basement.

"Okay," James loaded a magazine into the pistol, and flipped the safety switch, he was careful to make sure she was watching so she'd know where it was, "aim and shoot," he pointed to a target about halfway down the range.

She took the gun slowly and with shaking hands, walking into a stall, and held the gun up with bent arms.

"Hold your arms out straight," Jimmy instructed. She did so.

"You guys ready?" she wondered loudly at them.

"Are you?" James snickered.

Sam found no amusement.

She took a look down the sights of her weapon. They seemed pretty straight to her. She took a nervous breath and squeezed the trigger, closing her eyes as she did. Nothing happened. She squeezed it further, still nothing. She pulled it all the way back and braced herself. Nothing.

"What the hell is wrong with this thing?" she turned to the men.

"I set up a simple problem for you to solve, do you think you can?" James replied deviously, pushing the still aimed pistol downward in her grasp.

"No," Sam shook her head.

"Oh, come on, believe in yourself a little!"

Sam looked down at the gun, confused. She looked up at Jimmy like a deer in the headlights.

"Oh for God sakes, cock it!" he exclaimed humorously.

"There's no..." She made a crude and confused hand gesture towards the back end of the gun, trying to signal for the hammer, "...thing!"

"A hammer?"

"Yes! That!"

James simply approached her casually. He took her wrists, raised them up to her eye height, and pulled the slide back, loading the gun.

"Now try," he stepped back.

She turned back to the target and raised her arms up to aim, straight this time. She took another breath and stared down the sights. She couldn't help but shut her eyes once more in anticipation as she tightened her finger around the trigger.

The gun went off with a loud bang and a small poof of smoke from the barrel. She immediately let go of the weapon and pulled her arms back, letting the pistol clatter onto the counter before her.

"Oh, come on, that's brand new," James waved his hands at the gun. "You probably scuffed it or nicked it or something."

"I'll tell you what she didn't nick," Jimmy remarked, "the target. You missed it entirely. It's like ten feet away and you missed the damn thing."

"Well, I'm sorry if I'm not a sharp shooter after a single shot," Sam snipped.

"Easy, people, easy," James diffused them, "let's take it from the top."

"Don't close your eyes this time," Jimmy taught slyly.

"Bite me," Sam retorted.

"Please don't drop my gun again. You break it, you buy it," James added, picking up the pistol and handing it back to her.

Sam aimed once more, this time being more careful with lining up her sights. She took over a minute to get it positioned just as close to pointing straight down the center of the target as possible.

"Don't worry about firing anytime soon, I can definitely live for another century," James chuckled to himself.

Ignoring him, Sam pulled down on the trigger slowly again. The gun popped off another round. She pulled her arms back again, but was careful not to drop the weapon.

"See, you got it!" James said happily, pointing down the range.

Sure enough, she'd put a bullet though the target, albeit far off to one side.

"There's some progress," Jimmy said, patting her on the back.

"So, what do you think?" James wondered.

"I hate it," Sam replied. "But I'd probably hate every other gun you've got considerably more than this one."

"I'd call that a sale if I'd ever heard one!"

James put together Jimmy's gun as well as a cache of ammunition for both the rifle and the shotgun. Jimmy also got a few more boxes of bullets for the pistol he'd stolen off Rico's hit man. James also set Sam up with enough hollow-point rounds to last her a lifetime, as well as the instruction manual for her new gun.

"You know," James said as he finished bringing out the last few boxes of ammo, "I got into the suit business as well a few years back," he pointed to Jimmy's dirty, blood stained attire.

"I could definitely go for a few of those if you've got some that fit," Jimmy said with a sigh, looking down at his war-torn clothes.

"I can dress you to the damn nines, my friend. I'm talkin' thousand dollar three pieces."

"Something basic will do just fine."

"Anything for the lady?"

"Maybe she could go for a ten thousand dollar dress seeing as Marco's probably paying."

"You're damn right I am," Marco appeared at an almost too convenient time, something he'd gotten scarily good at. "But I'm not shelling out ten grand on something not perfectly essential."

"Since when is looking good not essential?" Jimmy responded.

"Yeah," Sam agreed, showing a smart smile, "you never know when I might have to go under cover at a lavish party."

"She makes a good point," James pointed out.

"Oh, hush, James," Marco scolded. "Go get the keys already."

James simply nodded and fell away into another room.

"Keys to what?" Sam asked.

"We got you guys a nice safe house," Marco explained. "It'll be safer there than at the hotel."

"James does safe houses now too?" Jimmy inquired.

"He does a lot of things."

James reappeared in the room quickly, a small key ring dangling from his fingers.

"A lovely two bedroom apartment in Old Town," James explained, handing the keys off to Jimmy.

"Sounds nice," Sam said optimistically.

"Prepare to be surprised," Jimmy replied joylessly. He'd seen safe houses before, and unless they all got a major facelift in the time he'd been gone, they weren't in for luxurious accommodations.

"But, of course, let's get you some new suits first," James aimed his eyes at Jimmy.

Jimmy shrugged and followed James back through the room he'd just come from.

"So, how's the gun treating you?" Marco wondered, noticing the pistol on the table.

"I'm not a big fan," she shrugged. "But I suppose it couldn't really be that much worse."

"That's the spirit," Marco laughed.

"I still haven't gotten the whole aiming thing down yet."

"Why don't you try the number thing you were doing before?"

"I did try that. I counted a bunch of complicated numbers and did a whole mess of complex multiplications and things. I still could barely hit the outside ring."

"Why don't you try holding the gun sideways like all the gang-bangers do."

"Seriously?"

"No!"

Sam's face began to turn pink.

"Oh, come on," Marco tried to ease her embarrassment, "all it takes is a little bit of practice."

"Do I have time to practice?"

"Knowing Jimmy, probably not."

This brought unease through Sam's mind. She could barely aim a gun straight and flinched every time she fired. But now she might already have to try to defend herself with it.

"How long do you think I've got?"

"I don't know, I'm not a psychic. But I'd guess a day or two, tops."

"Until what exactly?"

"Until you're gonna have to use that gun, and use it well."

"Any more tricks I should know? Besides count my bullets."

"Not really. Just don't die, I suppose."

Sam nodded nervously, biting at her nails once again.

### 9

Once Jimmy had gotten a slew of fresh new digs he, Marco and Sam made their way to the safe house. The drive didn't take long. James had been sure to provide them a place close to the territorial border.

The apartment itself had been a little over Jimmy's expectation, which still wasn't saying much. The furniture looked dated, every surface seemed as if it needed a thorough dusting, and it just flat out smelled. An odd mixture between the odors of a dingy basement and wet paint wafted through the stagnant air, which caused further confusion considering it looked like the walls hadn't been painted since the days of Al Capone.

"It's..." Sam began as she trotted in.

"Basic," Marco finished.

"A little less than basic," Jimmy replied. "But it's not the worst one I've seen."

"What's the worst you've seen?" Sam wondered.

"A studio place with a stove-adjacent toilet and a stained mattress on the floor," Jimmy explained, disgusted by the memory.

"Oh, yeah, I remember those places," Marco smiled. "Those were good times."

"Well, it looks like this place has a whole kitchen, a whole bathroom, and a whole living room," Sam took a look around the large open area that housed the kitchen and living room.

"And look, a little dining area," Marco aimed his finger towards the wall.

"That's a piano," Jimmy pointed out, partially amused.

"It's table-like, give me a break."

The upright piano placed in one corner of the room did have a flattened, table-like top, as Marco had said. But it was coated in dust and grime, and looked in desperate need of a refinishing, and probably a tuning as well.

"Whatever, I'm just happy to have a living room with a TV," Jimmy nodded to the small television set across from the worn out and highly uncomfortable looking couch.

"And two bedrooms," Sam waltzed over to two doors on the opposite side of the apartment.

"You've really stepped it up," Jimmy joked. "What's next? A place without paint chips on the floor?"

"Boo-hoo," Marco mocked, "you got the deluxe package here," he made his way to the window and drew the drapes. "See!"

Once the shades had parted, Jimmy could see the window Marco had opened to wasn't a window at all. A sliding glass door led out onto a small veranda. He could see a few wooden chairs placed out there to look out at the nearby skyscrapers.

"I suppose that could be a plus," Jimmy said, walking over to take a look at the porch for himself.

"We've still got the place with the floor mattress, if that seems preferable."

"Why don't we just go and steal Mickey's house?"

"Oh, yeah, that'll go over well."

"We'll just kick him and Sherman to the street for a few days. At least his house has guns already in it."

"Speaking of guns, did James say when he'd drop off yours?"

"Later today, he just needs to make sure everything's in working order first."

"That's Grandpa James for you, always caring for the customers."

"Holy crap!" Sam exclaimed as she returned from one of the bedrooms. "We have a balcony?"

"Why yes you do," Marco replied.

"Not like we'll be using it often," Jimmy added. "It's thirty degrees out there."

"Party pooper," Sam said.

"I don't think this is the most opportune time to get bronchitis."

"Is that honestly going to stop you from killing people?" Marco questioned.

"It'd make me less efficient."

"Like you need to be more efficient."

"There's no such thing as _too_ efficient, Marco."

"You could kill so quickly your gun wouldn't have time to keep up," Sam joined in.

"And with you, that's a solid possibility," Marco humorously agreed.

"Well then I guess that just means I can have a little time to show Rico "The Rican" what I really think of him before my gun catches up to me," Jimmy said cockily.

"I wish you the best of luck against his army, my friend," Marco looked past the skyscrapers in view and out towards the south side in the distance. "I just hope you know what you're getting into."

"Trust me, after getting chased by a bunch of military vehicles and screwing over that rental car company, I think I know the depth of my situation."

Over the next few hours Jimmy and Sam got acclimated to their new surroundings. They shook the dust of their bedspreads and figured out the channel set-up on the TV. All the while, Marco just sat back and enjoyed the lumpy couch as much as he could.

It was just when they began to feel somewhat comfortable with these new surroundings that Grandpa James came barging in, gun cases and a rolled up piece of paper in hand.

"What's happening party people?" he wondered, exhausted from taking the stairs up. Nobody blamed him, the elevator looked rather treacherous to say the least.

"Whatcha got there, James?" Marco asked, leaning over the couch.

"Everybody's guns and ammo, and a map of the city," he exclaimed, unrolling the map and setting it against the wall.

"What the hell do we need a map for?" Jimmy scoffed.

"You don't get it," James laughed, pulling tacks from his pocket and sticking the map to the wall. "This is your key."

"Key to what, exactly?"

"In case you haven't realized, Rico runs a pretty elaborate trafficking operation. This will help you pin-point all the areas of interest you'll wanna hit in order to win this war you've gone ahead and started."

Jimmy stared at the map for a few moments. It was completely blank of any markers whatsoever. It was just an average road map.

"That map is empty, James."

"Observe, my impatient friend," James smiled, pulling a red pin from his pocket and sticking it through the map and into the wall. He turned back to the group with a "ta-da" look on his face.

"One? You give us one place?"

"You said he had an elaborate operation," Sam recalled.

"He does, but this is the only place I know," James defended.

"It's the only one I know too," Marco shrugged. "The guy keeps he stuff under wraps, that's for sure."

"What is this place?" Sam asked, getting a closer look at the map.

"It's some nightclub based out of a real industrial lookin' place down on California Avenue. Right on the canal." James explained.

"What's it called?"

"Canal," James shrugged.

"Why this nightclub?" Jimmy got a look at the map for himself. "What's there?"

"It's operated by Cesar Caldero, and it's one of Rico's biggest hubs," James replied. "Think about it, there's trucks coming and going in that factory filled district anyhow, and with a nightclub being there, nobody's gonna take a second look at a semi with a food company label on it loading or unloading from that building."

"Let me guess, they're hauling more than food?"

"Precisely. They can keep the people they capture there for a short period without anyone noticing. And because it's on the canal, they can put those people onto boats and sail them out to a bigger boat in the harbor, where final transactions can be done between any number of their shady friends, and they haul a pile of money back instead of a bunch of noisy people."

"What happens to the people after that?" Sam feared the answer.

"Whatever whoever bought them feels like," James responded simply. "They could go to Michigan, Canada, or really anyplace else. That nightclub is Rico's connection to international trade."

"You said they bring back money, do they keep it there?" Jimmy pried for further information.

"From anywhere from days to weeks, yes. The nightclub itself only takes up about half the space, forgetting the basement. The basement is used to store their people; or so I hear. You can't very easily house a bunch of screaming people above ground can you? But I'm sure through the sea of kidnapped and tortured souls, there are pallets of money sitting around."

The conversation was beginning to unsettle Sam, who backed away from the map and furthered herself from the conversation.

"If we hit that place, do you think it'll cripple his finances?" Jimmy asked.

"I wouldn't say crippled," James replied, "but there'd be a bullet in his foot, in that sense."

"What about in a business sense?"

"It'd take him easily a year to recover from losing a place like that. Like I said, it's his connection to international trade."

"Domestic isn't that much of a money maker, huh?"

"The one's they keep in town have to be kept on the drugs, and they don't last nearly as long. They sell as prostitutes, bottom line ones too, they can't make anywhere near the dough the people they put on the boats bring in, no way."

"Can we stop talking about this please?" Sam ordered them, chewing her nails again.

"Marco, put the coffee on," Jimmy changed the subject, visually appeasing Sam.

"Why?" his brother wondered.

"We're hitting Canal."

"When? And who's we?"

"Tonight. And 'we' is Sam and I."

"What? Me?" Sam looked scared and appalled that she'd be the first choice to go to a place like that.

"Well I can't take James, he's a pacifist," Jimmy replied.

"What?" Sam said, more than puzzled on how that could be possible.

"Peace, brother," James did his best hippie impersonation, holding up a peace sign as he did so.

"And I can't take Marco, if he gets shot Mickey will definitely kill both of us before Rico can lift a finger," Jimmy went on.

"Good for me, I guess," Marco smirked.

"How are you getting there?" James asked.

"We'll take Marco's car," Jimmy answered.

"No you will not take Marco's car!" Marco objected from the kitchen as he brewed the first batch of coffee.

"You can drive us to and from if that makes you feel better," Jimmy called back to him. "That car's more bullet proof than a tank anyway."

"Fine, but if I get shot on the south side, don't leave my body down there. I don't wanna be buried in some dirty south cemetery." Marco groaned, returning to coffee duty.

"When exactly tonight do you plan to go?" James continued questioning.

"When's the place go into full swing?" Jimmy replied.

"Around mid-night I'd say."

"We'll go at mid-night then. It'll be easier to go in undetected. But we'll have to be extra careful not to get any civilians in the crossfire."

"Solid plan, as long as you're a decent shot."

"I am."

"She isn't."

"Hey," Sam retorted, "I'll work on it."

"Yeah, tonight, when you're waving your gun through a crowd of twenty-somethings jumping around to meaningless waves of bad music and crummy lighting," James laughed.

"Don't worry about her, James, we can figure it out," Jimmy assured.

"So once you hit this place, and assuming you survive doing it, then what?"

"If this place is as big a part of his operation as you say it is, then I've got a plan."

"Which is?"

"You'll see. I just need to know one thing."

"And what's that?"

"Does Caldero just run the place, or does he own it?"

"Caldero co-owns it along with Rico and a few other higher-ups in the operation. Unless things have changed in the few months since I've heard anything about it."

"Even better," Jimmy smiled deviously.

"What have you got cookin' for that place?" James continued on being curious.

"Just you wait and see. Let's just say, if the cops are too crooked to be trusted, there's another superpower out there we can use to our advantage."

"Marco, your brother's talkin' cryptic nonsense!" James called to the kitchen.

"Color me shocked! Jar head is speaking a lingo only he understands!" Marco replied.

"Don't worry guys, I've got this all figured out," Jimmy's smile grew bigger.

"I hope so," James said. "Because if you die, it's a safe bet we all do too."

"What a lovely thought," Marco returned to the room.

"How's the coffee?" Jimmy asked.

"Don't worry, it's brewing as fast as it can."

"So," Sam wondered at Jimmy, "no chance you've got any good shooting advice other than to count your bullets and not die?" She shot a quick look at Marco.

"Breathe," Jimmy said simply.

"Breathe? That's it?"

"Breathing is important. You take a deep breath before your shot and hold it in you can aim steadier and shoot in a better state of mind. On the other side of that, if you don't breath you tend to get anxious. If you get anxious you miss your shot, if you miss your shot, you die."

With that thought in her mind, Sam filled her head with numbers again. Being especially careful to keep her hands in her pockets for a while.

"I couldn't have said it better myself," Marco commented.

-

Midnight approached quicker than anybody thought. They spent the hours pacing around and wasting time. James just looked at the map and made gentle conversation with Jimmy, who in turn spent his time looking over his gun and filling his magazines, as well as Sam's. She just sat on the couch with Marco and the two tried to talk about anything besides the event that was swiftly drawing near.

The clock struck eleven-thirty and Jimmy took that as the point of action. He loaded his weapons as the others watched.

"What are we all looking at?" he wondered. "Let's go."

"Hold on," James said, moving from the map and grabbing something else he'd brought in with him, a large, black overcoat, "put your gun over your shoulder, facing out in front of you and down, like all the guys in the army do," he explained. Jimmy was quick to do this, he'd gotten more than used to it in the past. "You can throw this coat over you and it should cover the gun nicely," James put the coat over Jimmy's shoulders and pulled it together at the front The gun was barely noticeable.

"Now you can wander through a crowded night club and only bring the amount of attention the weird dude in the overcoat brings," Marco chuckled.

"Better than the attention the weird dude with the assault rifle brings," Jimmy replied.

"Sam," James looked over at her. She was dressed in a different compilation of baggy, casual attire, "look more like you're going to a club."

"How exactly do I do that?" she wondered. She'd never bothered to enter a rave-like nightclub before.

"Put on different clothes, for one."

"I only brought one's like these. I didn't expect to need anything else."

"Well at least do your hair differently," James gestured to her sleek brown locks, which were jailed in a tight ponytail.

"What, like down?"

"Down and, like, curled or something."

"I don't have an iron for that."

"Well what do you look like with it just down? Nobody in clubs wears a ponytail. It's just not the in thing, I guess."

She pulled the ponytail out and shook her head around before running her fingers quickly through her hair.

"How do I look?" She asked.

"Like Zooey Deschanel," Marco remarked comically.

"No, no," James protested, "her hair's too short for that. But if it were just a little more curly she could definitely pull off a Marion Cotillard thing."

"It doesn't have enough volume for that," Marco replied.

"Why don't we just meet in the middle and say a short-haired Zooey Deschanel," James compromised.

"Sounds fair," Marco shrugged.

"Don't you think there are a few more pressing matters right now?" Jimmy interrupted.

"She's gotta look the part, Jimmy," Marco pointed out.

"She looks fine to me. Nobody's going to notice her in the crowd anyway. And nobody should either, the point is not to stick out."

"She looks club-acceptable now anyway."

"Right, but if you get back here in one piece I definitely need to hook you up with some better tailored clothes," James gave her a once over.

"Okay, let's discuss this later, let's go," Jimmy rushed, opening the door.

Sam was the first out, more eager to get this over with than to start it. Marco drug himself out second, finding it hard to leave the couch after the long period he'd spent there. James chose to stay back.

"Seek peace, brother," he imitated a hippie again, holding up the peace sign a second time.

"I've gotta make war first," Jimmy replied before heading out.

### 10

Marco pulled up in view of the club a little after midnight. They were still a few blocks from the rusty looking, windowless structure. It was all the closer they could get as cars clogged the road, and all the closer any of them wanted to get.

"James was right, this place does get packed around now," Marco watched a flurry of people meander through the maze of cars to get through the front door.

"Look's like quite the hotspot," Sam added.

"And from the looks of some of the girls walking in there, I wouldn't be surprised if Caldero and company do a little window shopping in their little club."

"Do you think any of these people have any idea how close their getting to the worst of all the underground trades?" Jimmy wondered.

"Do you think they know how close their getting to becoming part of that trade?" Marco agreed.

"You think they Shanghai people from this place?" Sam asked.

"Seems economical," Marco shrugged, "and Rico is one hell of a businessman."

"Even more reason to burn this place to the ground," Jimmy sneered, getting out of the car. He pulled the seat forward and Sam stepped out. She held her gun noticeably in the front pocket of her sweatshirt, nervous it would fall out.

"Let go of your gun," Marco instructed. "You draw way too much attention."

"Sorry," she replied, putting her hands back into her pockets.

"Have fun, kids," Marco grinned as he pulled the passenger door shut.

The duo strode side by side towards the front door. There was a long line for the everyday partiers, as well as a significantly shorter one facing the other direction, for the VIP's. Jimmy stopped as the reached the curb in front of the club. Something brand new stood in their way, something he should've planned for. Bouncers. He could either walk up there and wait in the long line for hours with an assault rifle on his chest, or try his luck in the VIP line. Neither outcome looked particularly good.

Just then, he felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and saw he'd gotten a text from Marco.

" _James made you a reservation under Gilligan, enjoy_  _,"_ it read.

"What?" Sam wondered.

"Nothing," Jimmy returned his phone to his pocket and the two continued on their way. Up to the VIP line.

It was then they realized just how ill prepared they were to look their parts. The people standing in front of them, the VIP's, were dressed in neon clothes topped with neon clothes. They had slews of colorful wristbands and necklaces. A few of them even had brightly dyed hair, spiked and shaped into all sorts of odd and ludicrous designs. Compared to everyone else, Jimmy and Sam looked like they were attending a funeral.

The person directly ahead of them took one short gaze and gave them a sickened look.

"You guys new here?" he wondered.

"Yeah," Jimmy nodded.

"I can tell."

"What's it like in there?" Sam asked, half out of legitimate curiosity.

"Have you ever been to Raven's Rave on the north side?" the VIP questioned.

"No."

"Dubstep Dynasty?"

"No."

"Where?"

"Where? Is that a place?" Jimmy wondered, confused.

"Yeah, man, Where is _the_ place."

"Where's Where?"

"Where's right over there," the VIP pointed to another industrial-looking building down the block.

"Where's right there? Why aren't you there then?" Jimmy asked.

"Well Where's only been there for a little while, there's construction going on there right now, it really brings down the whole Where feel, man. I still don't see how you guys have never heard of Where. You sure you've never been there?"

"Positive."

"Damn, you guys really are new to this."

"So, what's it like?" Jimmy repeated Sam's question.

"It blows just about every other place outta the water man!" the VIP exclaimed. "You haven't lived until you've seen their two AM light show on ex, man. Greatest damn thing ever. You should be able to see it tonight actually, come find me if you need a hit when it comes on."

"For some reason, I don't think we'll be around for that show, sorry."

"You'll be missing out," The VIP gave a toothy grin.

Before long, everyone ahead of them had made their way in, including the man they'd conversed with. And they were up next against the tall, hulking bouncer.

"Name?" the huge man commanded.

"Gilligan," Jimmy answered. Sam shot him a look, unsure of what he was doing.

The man scanned his chart for a few moments.

"Okay," he nodded, "enjoy," he opened the velvet rope and the two of them walk by and through the heavy metal doors into the club.

The club consisted of one very tall, very wide, and very loud room. There were two stories of tables encapsulating the expansive and crowded dance floor. Directly ahead of them sat a long bar that stretched almost the whole length of the wall it was attached to. On the far end of the dance floor was a large stage covered with massive speakers and topped off with one overexcited DJ in a booth on center stage. Every chance he got he danced wildly to the music he'd put together. The whole places was coated in a hue of either bright pink or neon purple, depending on what lights were shining where. The dance floor was covered with a wide array of all kinds of disco, strobe and laser lights, as well as a few hidden fog machines, creating a thick haze through the entire crowd.

Through all the confusion Jimmy locked his eyes onto something. A door, just past the stage and hit with the same lights as every other surface, making it blend in almost completely with the wall. He figured that was his best bet.

"Stay here!" he had to yell over the music to get Sam to understand him.

"Where are you going!" her voice was barely audible, but he could tell there was some fear, or at least nervousness in its tone.

"To stir up a little trouble, be prepared!" he replied before wandering off through the crowd.

She stood still for a moment, not exactly sure what to do. She'd never been to a club before in her life and probably wouldn't be able to find anything to do in regular circumstances, much less this one. At first, she looked over at the bar and considered ordering a drink, but decided against it quickly. Then she thought a person not dancing in a club may draw attention, but then it came to her a person dancing who was as bad at it as she was would probably draw just as much. And so she moved towards a corner of the room, leaned up against the wall, and waited. For what, she wasn't sure. But she slid her hands into the pocket of her sweatshirt, preparing for whatever came.

Jimmy took a few minutes to weave entirely through the thick crowd of jubilant clubbers and fake fog. He'd feel people nudge him and he'd wonder if they'd felt the large rifle concealed in his coat. But, eventually, he got through the crowd undetected and strode quickly and quietly through the remaining partiers to the door. He looked around once as he reached it, making sure nobody was watching him. He slid one of his arms into his jacket and wrapped it around the gun as he used the other to open the door.

He made his was in and shut the door behind him in one gliding movement. Jimmy found himself in a much quieter, much darker hallway. The music could still be heard very well, which would be good for covering the noise of his steps. He unbuttoned his coat and pulled the gun back over his head, freeing it completely. Now holding his rifle at the ready he made his way down the hall.

Once he was slowly but surely making his way through, he whipped out his phone and texted Marco back.

" _I need you to call this number and tell them to come here,"_ he wrote, and listed the digits.

As he slid silently down the hall, the music faded away and was replaced by a new noise. Conversations, a lot of them, coming from the opposite side of the corridor. He put his phone away and put all his focus back on the current situation.

He soon came across a doorway. The conversations were coming from the other side. Some were in English, but most were fluent Spanish. The door leading into the other room was wide open, but the way was blocked partially by strips of clear, thick plastic that hung from the ceiling. Jimmy took a look through one of the slits in between the plastic.

What he saw on the other end sickened him. There were a few guards standing about, tall men, with automatic weapons thrown over their shoulders. In the center of the room were several people around tables piled with money and powder. Heroin.

On the far wall there were a few garage doors. One of them off to the side was opened up to the back of a truck. Jimmy could see the interior was empty, but there were many tiny cells that lined the walls of the truck. It certainly wasn't meant to carry food.

Not willing to sit back and watch anymore of this play out in front of him, knowing the people in that truck were probably still in the building somewhere, he maneuvered the barrel of his gun through the slit slowly. It parted only a minuscule amount. He built a strategy in his mind.

Just then, a new noise grabbed his attention just as he was ready to act. Faint movements and conversation from all the way down the hall. He couldn't see very well through the long, dim expanse, but he could make out a door by the minute red illumination of a near-by exit sign.

Shadows began to move around through the thin window of the door. Jimmy was now stuck between a rock and a hard place. He couldn't move without his cover being blown, and going back to the club now wasn't an option.

Jimmy concocted a plan on a whim. He wrapped one of his hands around the magazine of his rifle, and positioned his finger on the trigger of the shotgun. It was time to see if James was right about these shells' stopping power.

A group of silhouettes came through the door. They didn't see Jimmy at first. But after a few steps past the door, one of them stopped and took noticed. He reached his arms out to alert his friends of the suspicious figure before them. And that was when Jimmy pulled the trigger.

With little kickback the incendiary round bore its fiery contents down on them. The burst of flames that came explosively streaming from the barrel of the weapon lit up the entirety of the hallway.

Through the bright glare of the shot Jimmy got a split-second glance at one of the men near the back. He was unfortunately familiar. Cesar Caldero.

Streams of light so brilliant they rivaled the sun struck Caldero and his men. The ones in the front of the group were immediately engulfed; the others took the fire indirectly but still went up like wicker men. Cesar, on the other hand, had seen these rounds before and in an instant knew what'd happened. His arm was lit up but he patted it out swiftly while also trying to reach for the pistol on his hip.

With stealth no longer on his side, Jimmy pushed his way through the plastic strips and began unloading rifle fire onto the first guard his eyes caught onto. It only took a short burst for the first to go to the floor. Two others were beginning to pull their guns off their backs. Jimmy spun like a well-oiled gear and sprayed more bullets at the two remaining guards. Their guns dropped next to their bodies without letting off a single shot.

The workers around the table began to draw small guns from several different hiding spots. Jimmy turned to them and put the one most on his way to aiming in his sights. Jimmy let one round go and a ribbon of crimson came twirling out of the worker's head as his body fell limp. He turned his gun on the next man and let out a long flurry of lead. After a short array of rounds went into the final man in the room, Jimmy's gun let out a hollow click and the firing ceased.

He dropped his magazine, which knocked lowly on the cement floor, and quickly cycled in a new one as he made his way through the plastic strips once again. But as he was halfway back into the dark corridor, he halted and flung himself backward just in time to dodge a bullet coming his way. Caldero had drawn his pistol and fired a shot off from down the hall.

Jimmy took cover against the wall opposite the hall, much like he'd done in the warehouse in Cicero. He could hear Caldero's steps moving closer and closer to him, as well as frantic movements from the floor above him. Reinforcements were coming down. He swung his rifle into hall while keeping under cover and sent a blind mass of fire down Caldero's way. The steps stopped.

He poked his head out and saw Cesar had vanished, most likely ducking under his own cover in another room in the hall. Seeing his chance, Jimmy sprinted back down towards the club. A shot rang out, he could feel small piece of cement hit him from the direction the bullet struck. He turned his gun around and fired off another blind wave in the opposite direction.

Jimmy burst through the door before Caldero could let out another shot and landed in a sea of careless partiers. It didn't take long for a few guards stationed in the area to catch on to Jimmy and draw their own guns. He saw them as well, but with all the people around, he couldn't send out any safe fire. Jimmy put the muzzle of his gun towards the ceiling and put a few holes in it.

The nearby DJ quickly stopped and leapt off the stage. The music ended abruptly and the partiers who hadn't heard Jimmy's shots were certainly paying attention now. Droves of people began screaming and running every way they could, trying to find an exit. All the chaos slowed down the guards. They couldn't move, much less get a clear shot in. Jimmy ducked behind the DJ booth and weighed his options as fast as his mind could process.

While his eyes sat idle to a racing brain, staring at a maze of cords coming down to the stage from atop the booth, they took notice of something. A pedal. Different from the others on the floor, this one was connected to a slew of wires leading down and onto the dance floor rather than to the booth. Then he eyed the fading haze of faux-fog that blanketed the now nearly empty room.

Jimmy pushed down hard on the pedal and the hidden fog machines through the entire club began spurting out thick puffs of white blindness. The advancing guards began letting out shots, but now they had nothing to aim at. In seconds, visibility resembled the view through a frosted glass window

Sam had done a good job of keeping herself hidden as people barreled out of the building from every opening. But now that the dancers and drinkers had all disappeared, she felt frighteningly exposed.

There were three men that she could see firing at the stage. Two of them were nothing but blurs, but one was a terrifyingly clear figure. She drew her pistol and aimed shakily. She almost shut her eyes once more as she squeezed off one bullet. She had no clue where it'd gone, all she knew was she'd missed.

The guard close to her spun around and aimed his weapon. He fired a round of his own, but it veered highly up and off. That's when she realized that she was still in a darkened corner. No matter how badly she could see him, he couldn't see her.

He fired off another bullet and missed just as badly as before. She sent off two bullets in quick succession, missing both. Now the guard was pinpointing her position and was moving towards her. Sam began to panic as she started to see the man in better detail.

In her frenzy, she recalled what Jimmy had said. Breathing was the most important thing. She took careful aim once more, took a deep breath and tried to shut out everything outside of her, the gun, and the man before it.

"Four," she murmured to herself as she let out the fourth round of her gun.

This time around she knew exactly where she'd shot. The guard stopped walking and crumbled into a pile on the dance floor.

For a moment she stood like a statue, still unsure and appalled at what she'd done. Sam Ashton, the quiet accountant from middle-class Chicago just shot a man dead in the middle of an empty rave. Her ears began ringing and her heart raced. What had she done?

Right then, a boomingly loud racket filled the room and the two remaining guards fell to the ground. Jimmy had let out another burst from his rifle. This heavily startling noise knocked Sam out of her funk.

Jimmy jumped over the booth and onto the club floor. He sprinted over to Sam through the mist.

"Are you okay?" he wondered.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," she replied softly. "Can we get the hell outta here now?"

"We're not leaving," Jimmy said, eyeing the door to the back hallway. "Not yet."

The door swung open. Caldero and a slew of reinforcements came barreling into the club. Cesar took the helm of the stage while the extra henchmen moved blindly through the still heavy, yet settling haze.

Jimmy took the nearest shooter down efficiently, not missing a single shot. But he immediately knew the consequences of this. Caldero wrapped his gaze tightly around him.

Cesar fired one shot at Jimmy with deadly accuracy, even through the fog. The bullet came mere inches from Jimmy's head, sending him ducking for cover.

Sam somehow ignored the nearby lead exchange and was focused highly on dropping the remaining shooters. Taking deep breaths between each of her shots and mumbling a higher number to herself after each one.

Caldero looked through the room and found Jimmy had sunken too deep into cover for him to spot even a shadow. He knew the pistol he held would be no use, but he had something much better for just this kind of situation. He pulled a small, green ball that was hooked over his belt up and hurled it across the open space, leaving just a tiny metal key looped around his finger.

The green ball bounced once before rolling to a gradual halt almost perfectly between Jimmy and Sam. Jimmy took quick notice of what'd came flying in at them. A grenade.

In a flash Jimmy's mind returned to the day in Fallujah and the whole incident played out in his head in half a moment. Without another thought he leaped over the bar, knocking over a small army of glasses and bottles as he did.

Before Jimmy even hit the ground on the other side, he regretted what he'd done. Sam was left to her own devices on the other side. He prayed she'd noticed it as quick as he had.

Sam fired off another shot, putting down the last of Caldero's extra attackers, when she heard glass falling and breaking behind her. She turned just in time to see the last of Jimmy disappearing behind the bar. For a second she stood, utterly confused. But then her peripheral vision caught onto something, the green ball lying a few feet away. Unlike Jimmy, she took another crucial moment to decipher what exactly this thing was.

Her feet could barely keep up with her body as she lunged backwards, away from the grenade on the ground. Not looking, she stumbled over a table after a few large steps. She fell on top and it began to tip backwards. It tilted over painfully slow at first. But, soon it got a little help from some outside propulsion.

The grenade detonated, sending hundreds of pieces of shrapnel into every nearby surface. Shell shock began to set in, even for the far off Caldero.

Sam was thrown over the tipping table and rolled a few times before coming to rest against a pillar. She began to sit up and assess her situation when she felt an unbearable pain in her stomach. She fell back down onto the floor. Her whole body shook and shuttered. She didn't move an inch, fearing there'd be more agony if she did.

She peered down her body with her eyes, the only thing she felt safe moving. The angle was bad and the fog still lingered, but she could see still. A mangled piece of metal protruded hideously from her abdomen. Her eyes darted swiftly away and shut tight. She'd only seen it for a second, but that was all she could stand. Even with her eyes closed tighter than a vault, tears seeped through and ran down her face.

Jimmy regained his balance quickly and looked cautiously over the top of the bar. He could see Caldero had come down from the stage and was walking his way towards them. He set his rifle on the bar and fired the last of his clip out into the room. After the gun emptied, he pulled it back down and replaced the magazine, even faster than he had previously. He looked over the bar again. Caldero ducked every shot. He was now running back to the door, ducking as low as possible.

In another moment of no prior thought, Jimmy leapt back over the bar and pursued Caldero through the dark corridor. He watched as his adversary disappeared through another hall, pointing the direction of the exit sign. Jimmy turned down that way not a few seconds later and found a single door with its own, arrowless exit sign perched above. Jimmy burst through it to find he'd come out to the back of the building. Caldero hopped into his black Humvee and several other accomplices jumped into close by sedans. They sped off in an instant

This stopped Jimmy for only a moment. He knew as long as he still had this club in control, he had leverage against Rico and Caldero. He sprinted back into the building, stopping in the loading dock.

The pile of money and drugs were still there and the truck filled with cages was still wide open. He was ready to comb the whole place and find the basement entrance, but a more troubling thought kept him from his search. He didn't recall seeing Sam get back up after the explosion.

Ending the search abruptly, Jimmy ran down the hall and out into the club area. Most of the fog had gone, and he could see Sam clearly across the room. She was lying still. He stopped dead as he approached and dropped his gun, horrified.

She looked up at him with a weak, emotionless stare.

"Oh, God," Jimmy got down to the ground and moved up next to her, "I'm so sorry!" he was completely ashamed and at the same time furious with what he'd done.

"How bad is it?" she replied weakly.

"It's fine. Nothing a few stitches can't fix up."

"I'm gonna die, aren't I?"

"No! I'll make sure of that. You're not going to die on the floor of some rave. You'll be fine, we just need to get you out of here." He put his arms gently beneath her shoulders and legs.

"No! No! No!" she protested frantically. "You can't move me!"

"I have to!"

"You can't!"

"If we don't get you out of here now you're going to die!"

"What are we supposed to do Jimmy?"

"Look," he paused, "I know this is going to be hard. But we need to get you out of here. That's all there is to it."

Sam sat silently for a few moments, more tears running down her face.

"Promise me it won't hurt that bad," she fished for anything that could give her some kind of comfort.

"I can't do that."

"Then lie."

"I can't promise it won't be the worst pain you've ever felt," Jimmy said slowly, bottling his emotions as he spoke. "But I can promise surviving will be worth the pain."

"Okay," she nodded.

"Okay," Jimmy repeated, throwing his gun onto his back and collecting hers before repositioning his arms underneath her.

"I'm ready," she said, so shaky she was nearly shivering.

Jimmy lifted her up as quickly as he could. He figured it was a lot like pulling off a band-aid, the quicker he went, the more painless it ultimately was. He was wrong.

Sam let out a long shriek as he pulled her from the ground. The tone of it was filled with nothing but pain, and her face showed nothing but anguish. To try and cope with it all, she wrapped her hand tightly around Jimmy's arm and squeezed down hard. Unknowingly, she happened to latch directly onto his bullet wound.

Jimmy's knees weakened with the new pain running through his arm. He did all he could to not drop her. Despite the pain running through him and the terrible screams that came from Sam every time he moved her, they began making a brisk pace out the front doors of the club.

Once outside, Jimmy was quick to spot Marco's GTO across the street. But blocking the way was exactly the people Jimmy instructed Marco to call.

A news van was parked directly in front of the club. The cameraman was still setting up, but the reporter on the scene was already eager for answers. Jimmy brushed past the van and to Marco.

"What the fuck happened?" Marco got out of his car in a flash.

"She took shrapnel from a grenade, we need to get her someplace fast," Jimmy explained as Marco opened the passenger door and he placed Sam carefully into the backseat.

"Where?" Marco asked, disoriented by the situation.

"I don't know, I'd figure you'd know an underground doctor someplace!" Jimmy replied frantically.

"I do know a guy!" he exclaimed, and immediately pulled out his phone as he got into the car.

Before Jimmy could get in as well and they could head off, a voice came from behind him.

"Excuse me, what the hell's going on here?" the reporter called to him. She was a short, very young looking lady, hardly the type of person to be reporting anything in a neighborhood like this one.

"Okay, look," Jimmy said quickly, "go into that club and ignore everything in the main room. There's a door beside the stage, go through there and film everything down those hallways that you can before the police arrive. Find the basement though. What's in the basement of this place is gonna get you a job at CNN if you can get to it before the police do."

At that, Jimmy hopped into the car and Marco sped away.

-

Marco weaved through traffic as quickly and as diligently as possible, making sure they made every green light they came across, and maneuvered through every red one.

"I need to go to a hospital," Sam groaned agonizingly from the back seat.

"We can't take you to a hospital," Marco replied. "We're taking you to a guy James and I know about, he's a doctor."

"I can't go see some back alley surgeon for this! I need a real God damn doctor!"

"Trust me, it's a real doctor, he'll get you through this, I promise."

"I don't think I'll make it that far," Sam's tone changed drastically, it sounded weak now. "I'm gonna bleed out in your backseat."

"Don't say that, Sam. Don't even think it," Jimmy spoke calmly.

"I know how far away we were from James's at that club. We're a long ways off, I know it." she replied.

"Not the way I drive!" Marco said, swerving through a few more slow moving cars.

"Just hang in there, we're almost there, trust me," Jimmy continued.

"You told me the pain would be worth it," she said.

"Yeah."

"It's not, Jimmy. It's not worth it."

"It's not something that happens right away, it needs time and then you'll never question that it was worth it. You've just gotta trust me when I say that."

"Why should I? You don't know what the hell I'm going through!" Sam's voice had more life now. Granted it was due to her anger at Jimmy, both he and Marco saw this as a good sign.

"I took a shit ton of shrapnel in Fallujah during the war. I know how it feels," Jimmy replied.

"God damn it!" Sam didn't want to argue any further. Instead she just sat and writhed in pain for a few hour-long seconds. "How long until we get there, Marco?"

"Don't you worry about it, Sam," Marco assured. "We're en route as we speak. James said they'll have everything ready when we get there. We just need you to hang around for just a few more minutes."

-

James was true to his word when he said they'd be ready when they got there. Marco pulled out behind a small building just a few blocks from the coffee house and a hospital gurney was already awaiting them.

A makeshift hospital was in the middle of being set-up in a large, mostly empty but surprisingly sanitary looking room. As far as underground emergency operations went, Jimmy figured this looked like the perfect place to do it.

The doctor James had called looked familiar to Jimmy. He recognized him as the long-time doctor of his whole family. He was a highly weathered man, his hair was all but completely gone and his spectacles were thick. But Jimmy had seen the old man work on people before, he was certain if there was anybody in the whole city of Chicago who could help Sam, it was him.

They transferred her to a small cot set up in the middle of the room, and the doctor shooed them a distance away so he could work. He immediately inserted an IV of anesthesia before he began unpacking a small bag of shiny surgical instruments.

All Jimmy, Marco, and James could do was stand contently and watch as Sam slipped away and succumbed to the anesthesia in her arm.

### 11

High up in the top floors of a South Loop skyscraper sat a barroom that was usually bustling and aloud with activity at all times of the day. But it sat solemn on this morning. The pub was operated and frequented by Rico Terez and his men, and even this day was no exception.

A small collection of Rico's high-ranking associates sat at the large bar that formed a circle in the center of the scantily lit room, while others sat at nearby tables. But no matter where they sat, they all had their eyes on the same thing. Every television in the place was playing out the same newsreel from the night prior. In it, a young field reporter searched and scoured through the bowels of their nightclub.

The camera captured everything that everyone in the room hoped it wouldn't. It got a clear look at the illegal weapons in the guard's hands, the pile of heroin and unlaundered cash on the tables, and the truck full of cramped and dirty cages. But what sunk the respective hearts of all the men who could still watch was the footage of the basement.

That portion of the reel began with a disclaimer of highly disturbing images, and that promise was more than kept. The basement held the people fresh from the truck, as well as a few more who looked like they'd been there for days, or quite possibly weeks.

The dark and dank area was a maze created by jail-like cages smaller than prison cells. Most of them were empty, but the few that weren't remained all the more incriminating. Women entombed in some of the cells screamed so loud there was no escaping their echoes of anguish. But while some yelled as if it were their last breath, others lay exhausted and demoralized in the cells as if they were dead, and an unlucky few actually were.

But as the members of Rico's ranks stared with a mixture of disbelief and shock at the television screens, there were two who looked away. Cesar Caldero and Rico himself sat silently at the far end of the room.

Rico sat in a leather couch staring blankly out onto the low south side skyline as the early morning sun cast its golden color over it. He had sat in this spot every time he came to the bar, and every time he took a few minutes to enjoy the view. But today it all seemed different. In the past he'd look out and know the people he loomed over saw a good man above them. A saint. But now he glared out with uncertainty. What were they thinking of him now?

Caldero sat in an armchair to one side and looked down austerely at the coffee table before them. He didn't want to look at Rico because he knew Rico didn't want to look at him. He'd fled the scene with all his remaining men, leaving Jimmy and the reporters to tear their operation wide open.

His eyes held tight on the view of the chessboard sitting in the center of the table. It'd always been there, but nobody ever seemed to play it. He never even recalled the pieces ever being out and set up even once while he'd been there. But now the game was fully out and organized, waiting for the first pawn to be moved.

"He's smart," Rico spoke lowly, "I'll give him that. Him and that girl both."

"What are we going to do, Rico?" Caldero wondered, vocalizing just enough to be heard.

"I'm going to make this very simple for you, Cesar. I do not want Jimmy Brigio alive for another minute longer. So consider every minute that passes from this point on as a minute of failure. Understand?"

"Perfectly," Caldero nodded obediently, "but how do we do it?"

"What do you mean? We've been fighting wars in this town since the Clinton era and now you're telling me you don't know how?"

"Well we've always fought against Mickey's men. I know how to fight wars, not hunt a single person."

"Consider it exactly like a war against a group like Mickey's. But instead of hitting multiple places and people, you've only got to hit one man to end it. Sound hard?"

"How do I find him?"

"You don't find him," Rico leaned over the table and took his turn at peering down at the chessboard. "You need to bring him out of the woodwork to you."

"I'm not sure I understand."

"Consider it like a game of chess," Rico gestured to the board. "You need to get to the king as quickly and as effortlessly as possible. But you can't just expect to push your pieces straight across the board and get him like that. No, you need to flush the king out by removing the defenses."

"Well what defenses does Jimmy have besides the girl he's got with him?"

"He does have the girl on his side, yes," Rico aimed his fingers at the king and queen pieces. "He also had Mickey and Sherman, for the time being anyway," he pointed to the rooks and the bishops. "And I doubt he got a gun like you described in the back of a taxi, so he's probably paid a visit or two to that Grandpa James fellow they've got slinging guns up there," he directed his finger to one of the knights. "But there's one thing he doesn't have. Pawns," at that, Rico pushed all the pawn on one side off the board. "He's got less pieces, but he's learning to use them wisely. But the more of them we get rid of, the more he'll have to come out of whatever hiding spot he's in. Do you understand now?"

"But wouldn't getting rid of Mickey and Sherman start a full scale war again? Hell, wouldn't killing Jimmy start a war?"

"I can reason with Mickey about Jimmy. Don't you worry about his death causing any trouble. As for killing either Mickey or Sherman, that would indeed cause a war. But we don't have to kill them to get to Jimmy. All we have to do is to convince them to stop helping him, which shouldn't be hard to do considering what they have on the line if they let him continue."

"And what's that exactly?"

"You don't know? Jimmy has no idea about what Mickey and Sherman have been doing around here."

"Seriously?" Caldero almost chuckled.

"Seriously," Rico replied. "From what I understand he buys the legitimacy excuse entirely, just like Marco. But if he keeps on going with this charade, it won't be long until their cover gets blown just like ours," Rico scowled at that thought. "We need to make sure that they realize that. And once they do, we can manipulate just about any other piece he's got on his side with no repercussions from Mickey and his men."

"So how long until we can get their confirmation?"

"I will call them this morning and arrange a meeting as soon as possible. I'm confident I can get it all solved there."

"How can you be so sure? I mean, they just lost one family member because of us, I don't think they'd be keen on losing another."

"They'll understand just fine, I assure you."

"And what about Marco? Mickey and Sherman might go for this idea, but no way in hell Marco will."

Rico didn't say a word in response. Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, square envelope that had yet to be sealed. He handed it off to Caldero.

Cesar lifted the flap and didn't even have to pull the contents more than halfway out before realizing what he was looking at. It took a moment, but once he caught on to his boss's idea, he cocked a smirk. He slid the contents back into the envelope and gave it back to Rico, who hid it away swiftly.

Rico returned the smirk as he leaned back in and over the chessboard again. He moved one hand behind the other knight piece, curling his index finger into his thumb as he did. He released his finger abruptly and flicked the horse-headed piece soaring off the board and into the pile of pawns he'd created.

"Don't worry about Marco," he said, "just worry about finding Jimmy. I'll take care of the rest."

Just then, another man came scurrying into the pub. He was a young man who faintly resembled Esteban. Rico had sent him out a few hours earlier to get a read of how the public in his territory were responding to the news. And now he'd returned with a disappointed and frightened look on his face.

"Mr. Rico?" he spoke with a stutter.

"What's the news?" Rico wondered. He was going to address the kid by his name at first, until he came to realize that he never actually came to learn it.

"It's not good. They're cursing your name now. A few even spat on the ground when I mentioned you. They say your cleaning of the streets was a lie, and what you do is Satan's work."

"Anything else?" Rico prayed that was all.

"They call you differently."

"Excuse me?" Rico was confused by the vague response.

"They don't call you Saint Rico anymore, sir."

"What do they say?" Caldero questioned. He knew what the answer was, and he knew that Rico knew as well. He also recalled just how much Rico loathed it.

"They call you Rico "The Rican" now, sir," the kid elaborated.

Rico let out a small snarl and turned his head back out to face the view, trying his best to get lost in it again.

Cesar saw his opportunity to win back the respect of his boss, and rose from his seat. Without a word he approached the kid.

"I don't understand it, sir," the kid said, increasingly nervous now that the hulking Caldero had approached him, "I thought you were from El Salvador."

"He is," Caldero said simply, now just inches from the young man's face.

The two stood and stared at each other for a moment. The whole bar had now turned from the televisions and was watching this confrontation. Cesar looked down with distain at the kid, who returned a look of utter fear and knee shaking unease.

Without warning, Caldero snatched the kid's neck in his vice-like grip and swung his other arm up and began violently and viciously pummeling the young mans face. His massive fist quickly began to wreak a hurricane's worth of havoc.

After just a few swings the kid's nose was broken nearly beyond reasonable recognition and teeth were flying just as much as blood was. The deep red drops that trailed Cesar's fist with every backwards cocking went further and further with every punch. It extended to the point where several droplets were even reaching the window where Rico continued observing the skyline.

In just a matter of seconds the kid had lost all balance and power to keep himself standing. Caldero kept him up by his neck and got a few more finishing blows in before finally letting him crumple to the floor, where a pool of red quickly formed on the dark hardwood. His face looked like it'd taken hits from a cinderblock.

Caldero's hand looked like a hammer had gone to it. Several fingers were broken and bent out of place, and the entirety up to his wrist was coated with a glistening crimson. But he didn't seem to mind in the slightest, he simply stood and glared down at his seemingly lifeless victim.

Rico knew what was happening the moment it started, but only after it had finished was he rising up from his seat to get a look at the carnage Caldero caused. He sauntered over to stand next to his right hand man before speaking out to the stunned onlookers.

"Go now," he instructed collectedly, "let this man lead you and point you to what you need to do," he patted Cesar on the shoulder. "I see you all sitting here and pondering what it is we're going to do next. Now is not the time to sit and ponder, now is the time to do. I have given instructions to Caldero, who, upon my word, will pass them to you. We're going to find the man who uncovered our business and ruined our image," he drew out his platinum plated blade, "and we're going to cut him up so badly his soul will have to go to hell in pieces," he grinned as he admired his gleaming knife. "Be prepared to go into a full scale man hunt. In the coming weeks we're going to show him exactly what happens when you fuck with Rico Terez. We're going to cut down his help, and burn his infrastructure. We will get our city back."

Rico's speech came out with a heavy amount of gallantry and leadership. The small audience had gone from shocked to electrified. They applauded loudly and cheered at their leader's call to war.

With a single gesture of his hands the group began flooding out of the bar. He patted Caldero on the shoulder once again.

"Go on, lead our men, Cesar," he instructed.

Caldero gave a confident smile and strutted out the door just as the last of the others faded out as well.

This left Rico by himself in the large, dark barroom. He took another look down at his knife. The glimmer of the precious metal plating still brought a smile to his face. But he knew he couldn't hope to get through a situation such as this with just a knife on his person.

He recalled something he hadn't set his eyes on since he first set up this bar when they began to operations in Chicago. He wandered his way over to and behind the bar. Sure enough, on the bottom shelf there sat a dust covered metal box. It looked like it hadn't been so much as nudged since he'd set it there well over a decade before. He picket up the box slowly and placed it on the bar. Rico flipped the box open and his eyes lit up.

With glee, he removed a long, flawless Luger pistol. He grabbed one of the magazines that sat with it in the box and slip it up into the grip. For a moment his stood and admired it just as he had done to his knife so many times in the past. It wasn't quite platinum, but the dark steel still showed a decent resplendence.

Rico would've stood and contently stared at the gun for hours had he not been interrupted. His concentration was broken by several loud, wet coughs coming from across the room. Despite his savage beating, the kid was still alive and now conscious.

With a light smile still budding on his face, Rico waltzed back over and stood above the mangled kid. He found it a pity that the kid probably missed it his speech.

A few more coughs came and he began slowly shifting around. Rico doubted he'd be able to stand up, or even survive for much longer. But he figured the kid was a problem nonetheless.

Rico raised his rediscovered weapon with a jubilant sentimentality and let two shots go into the body below him. The coughing and shifting ceased, and the two spent casings bounced around the floor with a collection of metallic pings.

For another moment he just looked down at the body on the floor of his bar. He didn't even bother to learn the kid's name, and that didn't bother him. Nobody calls him that name in his presence. Ever. But now the thought of the public of his territories calling him that entered his mind. Could he even walk down the street now without being heckled as "The Rican" or as some worker of the devil?

This had to be fixed right now. He could heal wounds with the public through his lawyers and a corrupt judicial system ruling in his favor. But he needed to make sure something like this never happened again.

Rico pulled out his phone and punched in the numbers quickly. He held it up and stood uneasily as he waited for the other line to pick up.

" _Hello?"_ Mickey Brigio answered sternly.

"Mickey, I think we ought to have a meeting," Rico suggested straightly.

" _I'm open to negotiation. I don't want anymore of my family harmed, Rico. And what I'm seeing on the news is telling me that Jimmy's giving you more than a few good reasons to want him dead."_

Rico felt at the envelope in his pocket.

"There's a few more things I think you might want to know about all this, my friend."

" _Well where ever we choose to hold this meeting, I want it to be public, understand?"_

"Very understandable. How about your restaurant at three eleven Wacker?"

" _My territory?"_

"Seems only fair. You're not the one calling this after all, why should I bring you to a dangerous situation?"

" _When?"_

"Today, noon?"

" _You don't like to waste any time do you?"_

"With your brother in a situation such as this, I don't think you'd like to either."

" _Alright, three eleven Wacker at noon then. Just know I'm not doing this as a favor to you, I'm doing this for my brother."_

"You should just know that I'm not doing this for me either," Rico replied. "See you then,"

He hung up.

Still pondering on the conversation, Rico's eyes went over to the chessboard across the room. He glared down at the full side. His side. Then his gaze went to the pawn-less side and he stared down the bishops and the rooks. Mickey and Sherman's representations. He imagined what the board would look like if those pieces were gone.

He could get them off the board without losing a single piece of his own. He couldn't help but smile once more, it was strategy at its finest.

### 12

Mickey and Lathrop rode up the elevator to their restaurant near the top of the Three Eleven Wacker building. Neither of them was sure what to expect. They hadn't had a sit down with Rico since the end of the last war. Did this mean wartime had started once more?

"What exactly are we walking into Mickey?" Sherman wondered.

"Don't worry Lathrop," Mickey replied, "Rico isn't a stupid man. He wouldn't try anything at this point. That'd just be more reason for Jimmy to come after him."

"Well, just in case, I've got some assurance. I always like the restaurants with the big steak knives at every table."

"What've I told you, Lathrop? Any wise guy worth his salts doesn't use steak knives. They've either got a pistol in their coat or one hell of a hunting knife, or a switchblade at least. And don't you remember what happened the last time you drew a weapon on Rico Terez?" Mickey tapped his finger lightly on Sherman's cane.

"If he's as smart as you always seem to think he is, he won't be carrying a gun anyway,"

"For your sake I hope not."

The two exited the elevator and walked in a matching stride through the lobby of the restaurant.

The Three Eleven Wacker restaurant was the finest they had. Gold chandeliers hung down from the high ceilings, and all the tables were covered in elegant tablecloths that were always freshly washed and brightened to a nearly blinding resplendence of white.

The duo arrived almost a half an hour early, but found that Rico was already there. He'd placed himself at the far end of the room in a chair facing the door. But that didn't seem to matter to him anyway. He was spending his time staring out the window just like he had earlier and rubbing the condensation of the glass of ice water the waitress had poured when he'd been seated.

They both sat down directly across from him, but he paid them no notice, he just kept on looking out at the skyline.

"Well?" Sherman wondered pushily.

"I'm sure you've seen the news by now," Rico replied.

"We have," Mickey nodded.

"There's no deal that can be made anymore," Rico finally turned away from the window and faced Mickey. "Your brother has to die. There is no other reparation."

"Did you forget that the only reason Jimmy is doing this is because of something _you_ did?" Sherman remarked snidely.

"My men picked up the worst possible target. For that, I apologize on their behalf. But I gave Jimmy a chance to run and you two a chance to pay for the damages he'd caused. But you did nothing to stop him from continuing his rampage and now look what's happened. My public image is forever distorted. I can get out of the legal portions of this, but the public will never look at me the same. Before this I was a revered man, now the people of the South Side would probably kill me in the street if they got the chance."

"Why is the opinion of the public so important to you?" Sherman asked.

"It adds so peace of mind to know that the people who live in the neighborhoods where my men work see me as a savior. I took away their drugs and in turn they don't inform the authorities when they see my guys doing a few less than legal things. They'd be happy to look out for my men and I, because they knew I was looking out for them by freeing them from at least the worry that their children might be off somewhere dying from a bad batch of heroin or getting a disease from a filthy needle."

"But now they found out that you never got rid of the drugs, you just diverted it all into the arms of the women you kidnapped," Sherman added.

"And no matter how many 'not guilty' verdicts are passed down on me, I will never be Saint Rico to them again," Rico went back to looking out the window. "And your brother continues to exacerbate this situation. I can't have him around any longer."

"Well I can't have him killed either, Rico," Mickey exclaimed.

"Either you kill him, or I do," Rico replied. "But that is the only possible outcome now."

"Just give me time and I'll talk him away from this. You've got to trust me." Mickey tried his very best to sound far from pleading.

"Do you remember my wife, Mickey?" Rico veered off topic, still staring blankly out at the city's canopy.

"Alicia? Why?" Mickey recalled, confused by the change in direction.

"Do you remember what happened to her?" Rico questioned.

"Come on, Rico, what does that have to do-" Mickey began.

"Do you remember?" Rico cut him off.

Mickey paused for a moment before replying, "Yes I do."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Sherman asked, simply wanting to get down to the bare business of their meeting and get out of there.

"What happened to her?" Rico simply ignored Sherman's remark.

"She was killed. Murdered by a burglar back in Los Angeles," Mickey recalled.

"She was indeed, but not by a burglar."

"I thought you told me it was a burglar."

"Because that's what I'd originally thought. In truth I would've much rather had that be the case instead of what actually happened. You see, that man broke into my house not looking for jewels or money. He was looking for me. It was a hit called out on me by the enemies we made down there. And when he didn't find me there, he found Alicia. I was careless back then, I figured nobody could ever get to my family or I even if they wanted to. But now I know, even the most powerful and most feared men on the planet need to look over their shoulders. And ever since then that's exactly what I've done, but as I get more and more hands-off with my business, keeping every aspect secure to my liking gets more and more difficult. But every time I look out at the South Side from up high like this, I can see all of it, and I get a feeling that everything is running securely and there's a reason to have peace of mind. But now I look out there and I just see your brother out there amuck and destroying everything I've worked for and built in this city. Not only has he halted my operations and exposed them to the world, he's taken my peace of mind and sense of security. I will not rest until I can peer out these windows again and not feel anxious. And he leaves me no other way to do it other than to simply do away with him. Now I'm making you an offer here. You can do it, or I can."

"I can't kill my brother, Rico," Mickey stood his ground.

"Well then I will," Rico shrugged. "I'll send him your regards before I put a bullet in his head."

"Look," Mickey let out a heaving sigh as his eyes sunk low, "there's got to be something, anything, you'll take."

"I could've taken something before. I made you an offer before, but you did nothing. Now the only thing on the table is your brother's head. And either I can be the one to take it or you can. I'm tired of this bargaining, you need to give me an answer right now, Mickey."

Mickey didn't say a word. His eyes sunk lower, now aimed directly at his feet. His shoulders slumped and he went into a state of deep thought.

Sherman simply glared at him. He knew that it needed to be done; he'd known and prepared himself for that since this began. He'd tried to teach Mickey this in the past, but he was seeing now that obviously none of that lesson had stuck.

"Maybe this will sway your opinion," Rico pulled the envelope out of his pocket and slip it slowly across the table to Mickey. Sherman made an attempt to reach for it but Mickey snatched it up quickly.

He opened it slowly and pulled the contents all the way out. It was a small stack of photographs. At first he look confused, not sure what to make of them. But as he flipped through more of them he came to realize exactly what they meant. His face first showed a look of complete horror. The gravity of the situation he'd gotten into was finally coming to fruition.

Mickey sat in a look of shock for nearly a minute as his mind processed what he was seeing. But the more he thought about what these pictures showed, the more the shock and awe of it all faded. It was replaced with only distain and furiousness for his brother. Jimmy had just made the worst of this situation an unfathomable amount more terrible. His face began to show a sneer.

Sherman peered over and got a look at the photos for himself. He wasn't as much filled with anger as he was not at all surprised. He figured this would be an outcome, but he'd spent every moment before now hoping that it wouldn't be. But, just as before, he'd prepared himself and was ready to act.

"Well?" Rico wondered, coming back from the windows to get a read of their reactions.

"You can have Jimmy," Mickey replied swiftly. "And don't send him my regards when you kill him, that man isn't my brother anymore."

"We should've known this would happen," Sherman sighed, his tone making it obvious that 'we' meant Mickey.

"Goddamn it, Jimmy," Mickey shook his head, trying to contain the volume of his voice. "Goddamn it."

"And what about that?" He nodded at the envelope.

"I do this," Mickey waved the envelope in his hand. "Not anybody else, understand?"

Rico nodded.

"This is going to hurt our operations almost as much as a war would," Sherman observed. "I hope you understand that."

"I know," Mickey said somberly. "But I just want this bloodshed to be over with. We just need peace."

"But since when does peace involve bloodshed?" Sherman replied. "I still don't quite understand your stubbornness," He addressed Rico. "I get you're looking for all your security and that, but wouldn't sending the kid to Egypt be just as good?"

"Let me teach you something about peace," Rico explained. "In a time like this, against a guy like that, there's only one way to get it," His hand disappeared beneath the table and spent a few seconds hidden before reappearing tucked almost entirely into the sleeve of his coat.

It took Sherman a second to notice, but once he set his eye on the pistol in Rico's palm, he reached for his own piece. He had it wrapped around his fingers and ready to draw when Mickey put his arm in front of him abruptly. After a moment of sitting frozen, Sherman's fingers eased up on the grip of the gun and his arm when back to his side.

Rico didn't so much as twitch at the obvious move Sherman had just made. He knew from experience that he was miles faster than that unseasoned man.

"What would you say this is?" Rico wondered with a smile.

"A pistol," Sherman snipped.

"A Luger P.08 Parabellum nine millimeter," Mickey elaborated.

"Precisely," Rico gave a small nod of commendation at Mickey's intelligence. "Do you know how it got that name?"

"From Luger, the man who created it," Sherman said.

"Not the maker. The model," Rico said.

"Parabellum, it's Latin," Mickey replied. "It comes from the phrase, 'si vis pacem, para bellum' if I remember correctly."

"You do," Rico nodded politely once more. "Do you know what it means?"

"Not off the top of my head, no."

"It means, 'If you seek peace, prepare for war'. Now we're all obviously looking for complete peace between our sides, so you two better batten down your hatches. If you want peace, you know what you've got to do now. You let me worry about hunting down Jimmy, and I'll let you worry about that," Rico pointed down at the envelope still in Mickey's hand as he rose up from his seat. "But, you'd better make good on the promise you make to me. If you say you'll get something done, I'd better not have to be the one to do it, otherwise you two will have a whole new war on your hands. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Sherman replied with a scoff.

"What if I have second thoughts?" Mickey inquired, already feeling them beginning to come on as his agitation settled.

"I'll tell you what," Rico compromised, "I'll give you some time to think it over and I'll call you. If your mind's changed, I'll oblige. But you need to let me know if and when it does. I can't act in a good, peaceful conscience without your go-ahead on this, so I need a response soon. Of course, I have to have time for this heat to come off me, or at least my men. So I suppose you've got until then."

"What about the girl?" Sherman recalled.

"I'll take her as well, unless you'd like to," Rico shrugged.

Sherman and Mickey shared a quick look of indecisiveness.

"We'll get back to you," Sherman said.

"I understand this is a difficult decision for you, Mickey," Rico placed his hand comfortingly on his adversary's shoulder. "Don't feel too rushed into this. If your brother is smart, he'll lay low for a while, that gives us some time to figure this out in a civil manner. But don't take this as an invitation to abuse my courtesy. I may have my patients now, but it'll wear thin sooner or later."

Without another word, Rico departed in a brisk walk, leaving the both of them in silence. For a few moments they sat and looked at their empty placemats and thought over the options they were given. Then, they looked up at each other simultaneously to see if perhaps they could tell by facial expression if they saw eye-to-eye on the situation. They could both tell they were far from on the same level.

"Let's get out of here before a waiter tries to take our order," Sherman suggested. Mickey agreed.

At that, they both rose from their seats and strode out of their restaurant. Mickey was sure to slide the photos back into the envelope and conceal it in his coat pocket as they departed.

-

When they arrived outside they found their limousine was already parked and waiting for them. As soon as they got in they both poured drinks for themselves out of the expansive bar the luxurious vehicle had included. And for what felt like forever, the two just sat and drank with nothing more but the sounds of cars outside and the patter of ice in their glasses to accompany their ride.

Mickey had begun to second-guess his decision even further now. Jimmy was, even through all this, still his kid brother. His mind was taken all the way back to their school days. In elementary school Mickey would always need to keep the bigger kids from picking on Jimmy and Marco both. But now he was just supposed to let one of those bigger kids _kill_ his brother? Then his mind returned to the present, and to the envelope in his pocket. He couldn't possibly see anyone other than him taking care of that business. And he certainly couldn't bring himself to do both. Rico had clearly stated there were no other possible outcomes. Mickey let out a silent sigh. He couldn't make this decision in a single day, but he'd have to anyhow.

Meanwhile, Sherman's mind went into planning for the future, as it often did. He'd already seen how poorly Mickey prepared himself for future problems and he knew if Mickey had any hope of doing what he needed to do before any of their businesses were torched or any of their men were killed he needed to start preparing him now. But how would he get a point like that to a guy like Mickey? How would he convince the man to let another one of his siblings die?

"What the hell am I gonna do, Lathrop?" Mickey finally spoke up before taking a large sip of his drink.

"What needs to be done, Mickey," Lathrop replied simply. "We need to protect our business, not to mention the lives of us and our guys."

"This is a little bit more than just protecting a few fronts from getting blown up, Lathrop."

"You don't get what I mean when I say 'protect our business' do you?" Lathrop chuckled quietly. "I'm not just saying we need to do this for the sake of our fronts, I'm saying we need to do this for the sake of the business we've kept to ourselves."

"What are you saying, Lath?"

"I'm saying, how long do you think it'll be before Jimmy digs far enough into this city's underworld to find out what we've been doing during this whole 'legitimacy' period?"

"He's not going to find out," Mickey assured. "We hide it all too well. Hell, Marco doesn't even have any idea and he's in business with us!"

"Don't bullshit me Mickey, you know full well if Jimmy can blow Rico's operation out of the water, he can find out what we've been doing all these years. And when he finds out, do you think he'll keep quiet about it? Hell no! The first thing he'll do is tell Marco the whole damn thing. Then he'll get the cops and the press in on all this and we'll be in the same boat as Rico's in right now, except it'll be worse because we don't have the same judicial corrections that that asshole does. Don't you understand what the consequences are? It's not just a few businesses or a few of our soldiers, it's everyone we have working for us, it's every front and business, it's everything that we've worked for. He could bring it all crumbling down and we could end up in orange jumpsuits, getting a fucking lethal injection!"

"That's easy for you to say Lathrop, he's not your brother!"

"He may not be my brother but it's my life he's ending if he keeps on doing what he's doing!" Sherman downed the last of his drink.

"There are still other ways out of all this, I still have a chance to talk with Rico tomorrow," Mickey figured.

"Mickey," Sherman replied, "I'm saying this only for your greater good, there is no other way out. Absolutely none. If you think there's some way to rescue Jimmy from this, or to negotiate some dollar amount to spare his head, you should know that you're wrong. This is the only way left to go. He dug this grave, so now he's got to be buried in it. That's just how it's going to be."

"We should've just let him stay in Israel shouldn't we have?"

"That would have made everything a lot easier and a lot simpler. But we can't sit around any longer and just dwell on the past, on what we should've done. It'll be easier for you and me both if we do like the Latin saying says and prepare for what's coming."

"But how the hell am I supposed to prepare for something like that?" Mickey shook his head in despair. He pulled the envelope from his pocket, "How do I prepare for this?" he waved it in Sherman's face.

"I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if we can find a good way," Lathrop shrugged.

"And if not?"

"Then it'll be all the harder to face when it comes to be that time."

"God damn it," Mickey sighed, putting his head into his palms.

"It's the right thing to do, Mickey," Sherman did his best to assure his partner. "It's the right thing."

"I don't know, Lathrop," Mickey didn't raise his head up, "I just don't know."

-

The limousine dropped Mickey off alone. He needed time to think about everything, about Jimmy, about the photos, about it all.

He sauntered slowly into his house and didn't bother to turn on any lights or open any drapes. The midday sun proved an ample amount of brightness throughout the entire house. He poured himself another drink from his own bar, Blue Label. This time it was taller, stronger, and straight. Mickey slowly made his way to his study, but by the time he'd gotten there he'd finished off half of his drink. It was slow going heading back to the bar to grab the entire bottle before returning and completing his journey into the study.

Mickey let out a loud, almost echoing sigh when he was finally able to collapse into the chair behind the desk. It was far from the most comfortable place to sit in the house, but it was the place he wanted to be more than any other. He always sat behind the desk when he needed to make a decision of basically any kind or he just needed to think for a while. In this case he had to do both, and it meant more than all the other past times combined.

He shifted uneasily and tapped his fingers quickly on the hardwood of the desk. His eyes scanned the nearby bookshelves. They were just a lot of leather bound encyclopedias and first editions of transcendentalist literature, most of which he'd never even read a single word of. They were all just there for show and to gather their fair share of dust.

He finished off the last of his drink and quickly poured out another, this one coming nearly to the brim of his glass. It was so full in his unsteady hand he was forced to remove his gaze from the bookshelf to set his liquor on the desk. As he did he caught a glimpse of something else. A framed picture.

The picture had been in that same place on his desk ever since he'd moved into the house, and just like the books it was gathering its layer of age. The photo was an old one, a family portrait from their childhood years. Their mother and father stood while he, Jimmy and Marco sat on well-hidden stools of varying heights. Mickey's was highest, Jimmy's was mid-sized, and Marco, who was still little more than a toddler then, was in the smallest. They were all wearing clashing and completely hideous clothes that somehow passed for formal style of that time. It was all set in front of some generic background of a New England forest in the wintertime.

Any other day Mickey would've gotten a chuckle out of this picture. In fact, that's what he'd placed it there for. But now he looked at it with a scowl and a death stare. He felt the eyes of his parents looking at him, judging him for even getting in a position where he needed to make a decision like this, much less actually trying to make it. The smiling face of Jimmy's young counterpart judged the same, even the still fresh face of Marco and the much younger version of himself passed along hateful amounts of judgment. He took solace now in the fact that Anna hadn't been born at the time of that picture, he didn't want to know what kind of hell her infant face staring back at him would do to his head.

Unable to take anymore of the faces of his quickly crumbling family, Mickey tilted his head up and took a large swig of his drink. His eyes closed tight and his head came back down, savoring every aspect of the taste. As he opened his eyes once more, he found the faces still looking back at him, almost mocking him now.

In a fit, Mickey shot up from his chair, almost sending it falling backwards. He brought his glass up but this time didn't drink from it. This time around he brought it back down in a swift swing. The picture frame cracked as the heavy glass came into contact with it. As the frame went hurtling towards the far wall, Mickey released his grip on the glass in mid-swing, sending it flying in its own direction, sending fast streams of amber cascading through the air and down to the floor. The glass hit the wall hard and shattered, many of the pieces fell behind a leather couch that sat mere inches from the wall.

The frame crashed against the door and Mickey could hear shards of glass fall from it and clatter to the floor, some of the larger pieces breaking further as they touched down. The frame itself broke apart on impact and fell away from the picture, leaving it to sail down and atop the wreckage. It landed face down, which Mickey almost yelped with excitement over. Finally he was free from the glares of his family. But his head still sunk as he leaned over his desk in melancholy. He knew they were right in their judgment. But it was too late now, he had to decide. And he now had less than a day to do it.

"I don't know," He muttered, "I just don't know."

### 13

Sam awoke in a daze; her vision was reminiscent of the view through frosted glass. It took her a moment to regain an idea of what had happened and where she was. An end table was set-up beside her cot. On it sat a tall glass of water, a tiny cup with two red pills in it, her cell phone, her gun, and an illuminated lamp, which was now the only light in the whole room. The doctor sat a short distance away, packing up his instruments.

"Who are you?" Sam wondered, finding it to be work in itself just to open her mouth to speak.

"My name is Dr. Burchfield, James called me to come and help you," The doctor replied with a smile.

"What'd you do?" Sam was immediately sick with worry over what condition she was in. She lifted her head up slowly to see if the shrapnel was still stuck in her.

"Don't worry," Burchfield walked over and knelt beside her, lifting up her shirt slightly to reveal a long line of surgical staples in her stomach, "it was a pretty simple procedure actually. The metal didn't strike any organs, and internal tissue damage was surprisingly minimal. You should be able to get back out into the world in a few days. Although I don't recommend coming in contact with any more grenades in your future."

"Pretty sound advice, doc," She chuckled weakly. "So I'm going to be okay?"

"Oh, yes indeed. Take it slow for a little bit and you'll be able to get back to one hundred percent normalcy."

"But...why do I feel so weird?"

"Your anesthesia takes a little while to wear off," Burchfield explained. "My suggestion would be to just sleep it off."

"What are those for?" She peered over to the pills.

"Those are pain meds. That reminds me," Burchfield got back up and rifled through his bag for a small orange container, "here's the rest of them," he set the container filled with pills on the table as well. "And here's my number as well," he pulled out a bland looking business card and set it close to her on the table. "If you need anything, just call."

"Wait, you're just gonna leave me here? What if something bad happens?"

"Don't worry, I'd never leave a patient unless I was sure that they're stable. Besides, my practice isn't too far away, and I've actually got some on the book patients that need my attention. But, you'll be fine I assure you," He said with a warm, toothy grin. "Just sleep off the anesthesia. I'll be back to check up on you at around nine."

At that, Burchfield gathered up his things and disappeared into the thick shadows that engulfed much of the area. He gave her one more reassuring look before leaving the room.

For a moment, Sam sat and tried to reach up to find the switch on the lamp. She quickly found she was too woozy and uncoordinated to do so. So she just accepted the brightness of the nearby lamp and laid her head back down in the single pillow provide for her. It was tiny, seeming more at home in an airplane than in a makeshift hospital room, but to her it did just grandly. Just seconds after her head settled into the pint-sized pillow, her vision faded out once again and she drifted off into a deep sleep. She hoped all the anesthesia would be worn off by the time she awoke.

-

Sam slowly came back to reality after what felt like the fastest catnap she'd ever experienced. Her vision was far clearer now, her mind was without a cloud, and her movements felt much freer. Lifting her head was still an issue; the small pillow hadn't done much for neck support.

It didn't take long for a new feeling to come across her though. A throbbing pain was coursing through her entire midsection. For a moment she was afraid. What'd she done to herself in her sleep to cause his pain? Then she recalled she hadn't taken a single one of the pain pills Dr. Burchfield had given her. She quickly snatched the tiny cup and the water from the table and gulped down the pills. She want to take even more to ease the pain quicker, but feared the consequences.

Sam picked up her phone and checked the time on it. It was nearly seven o'clock. She'd slept through the entire afternoon and probably missed her share of pill popping, not to mention meals. With a long sigh she laid her head back down and tried to lull herself back to sleep, finding that to be the only way around the piercing pain in her abdomen. Despite the hardly ignorable pain, Sam managed to drift back off into dozing after a few minutes.

She woke up again from what felt like a catnap to a rather peculiar sight. The lamp had been turned off. The windowless room was now completely dark. She reached around on the table for her phone once more. Had Dr. Burchfield come back and shut it off? Her phone read eight-thirty.

Now genuinely concerned, she grabbed for the switch and this time found it easy to flip the light back on. But that raised a new question, and a much more dire concern. The little orange pill container had gone missing. Her eyes darted all around the surface of the table, searching desperately for the drugs. The pills she'd taken were already beginning to wear off; she could feel the throbbing returning.

She laid her head back down, hoping Burchfield would return soon enough and locate her missing medication. But as she did, something odd came into the corner of her sight. She turned her head to the other side of the cot to find a dimly lit figure sitting in a chair no more than a foot away from her. Her eyes shot open wide into a startled and frightened look, and without a sound she grabbed the pistol off the table and aimed it at the person sitting before her.

"Who the fuck are you?" She demanded, not recognizing the face on the man in front of her, but she had the strange feeling that she'd seen him before. She tried to sit up as much as she could, but could only manage a few inches off the cot before the pain became too much.

The man simply sat in silence, staring blankly at her. He looked down at the gun, aimed at his chest. He took a single pinky finger and pushed the gun upwards slowly, aiming it now just a few inches from his face.

Now more scared than ever, Sam pulled the trigger without another thought. The gun released nothing but a quiet click. She pulled it again with the same outcome. She went on trying frantically in vain to get the gun to fire.

The man sat still and straight faced through the whole of her attempt. After nearly a magazine's worth of pops he held up his other hand to be clear in her view. He opened it up slowly and turned his palm to the ground, sending a collection of bullets clattering to the floor.

The empty gun began trembling in Sam's hand.

"Who the fuck are you?" She repeated.

"Drop the gun," The man replied in a dark monotone.

Without a moments hesitation Sam let go of the gun and it to clattered loudly onto the floor at the man's feet.

"What do you want?" Her voice shook.

"My name is Mickey Brigio."

"Mickey...Brigio," Sam muttered as she sat in shock for a moment. She realized why he looked familiar now. Wide cheekbones, a deep, digging stare, he was a Brigio sure enough. "How'd you find me?"

"Nobody in this town can stay hidden from me for too long," Mickey said. "And as for what I want. That's very simple. I want you to know exactly what you've done."

"What _I've_ done?" Sam was confused.

"If you hadn't have been in the picture, my brother would've left town when we told him to, he would've just gone back to Israel and this all could've been avoided. But he stayed here to help you. He escalated this entire thing, because of you!" Mickey's voice began rising with obvious fury. "He just kept pushing and pushing and now there's no deal left to be had! My brother is a dead man because of you!"

"He can still live," Sam said swiftly. "We can still make it through this!"

"Obviously you don't understand the type of person you're dealing with. Rico Terez is a man of immense power and unmatched influence. You haven't seen anywhere near a fight yet. But now he's not going to rest until you spend your last breath suffering. He will use every ounce of power he's got behind him to find you. And when he does, he's not going to kill you until you're begging for him to do it."

"I'm not scared of him," She replied, trying to sound strong. But her still shuttering voice told otherwise. "And neither is Jimmy. Jimmy has taken an army of Rico's guys and not been so much as scratched by them. So why don't you just tell Rico he ought to be ready to run, because Jimmy's gonna hunt him down. And that's that."

"That's that, huh?" Mickey scoffed. "Why don't you say that's that to him when he's driving woodchips under your fingernails and water boarding you with gasoline," Mickey could see the fear return to her eyes. "You think you can handle it? You can't. I've had men more loyal to me than they are to their families or their God buckle under The Rican's special brand of interrogation," Mickey reached down slowly as he spoke, picking up the pistol and a single bullet. He pulled the slide back and set the single round gently into the action before pushing the slide forward. He pointed the now loaded gun at Sam. "So you think you can stand up against that man? Why don't I give you a little introduction to exactly what you can expect from him," Mickey reached into his pocket and pulled out the orange container of pills. He stared at her as she stared at the container, not sure what was about to come, and praying she didn't have to find out.

In one swift swing Mickey lifted his arm up and brought the butt of the gun down right onto Sam's stomach. She screamed in pain and keeled into a ball on her cot. She didn't stay in that form for long. Mickey rose from his seat and brought his knee down onto her abdomen, causing her to let out a prolonged cry of agony. He wrapped one of his hands firmly around the top of her neck and turned her head up to face him.

"This all could've been avoided," Mickey explained calmly. "He could've left you there in that warehouse and I wouldn't have to lose another one of my siblings. But he just had to save you, and you just had to need saving. So now I'm going to show you exactly what making it this far gets you," He popped the top off of the pill bottle. Not taking his eyes off of Sam, who was weeping but made no noise. Mickey shifted all his weight to his knee, causing her to yelp once more. That was all he needed. He shoved the open end of the bottle nearly down her throat and let the plethora of pills tumble into her mouth. He pulled the bottle away and immediately covered her mouth with his hand and pressed the gun up to her head. "Swallow them," he instructed, still completely calm in his tone. She didn't comply. He opened two of his fingers and slid the gun between them. He pressed the muzzle down so hard she could feel it against her teeth, "Swallow them, or swallow this."

Seeing no other option, Sam did as she was told and swallowed the pills down with an audible gulp. Mickey raised himself off of her, removing his knee from her stomach and his hand from her mouth. She quickly went back into the fetal position and began sobbing loudly.

"You piece of shit!" she screamed.

Mickey didn't acknowledge her cries. He unloaded the bullet from the gun and watched it join the others in the pile on the floor before throwing the gun into a far, dark corner of the room.

"I was never here, you understand?" he said sternly. She didn't respond, but he went on anyway. "And I swear to God if I hear a single word about you shooting up another building you're gonna wish Rico had gotten you."

At that, Mickey strutted into the shadows of the room and disappeared through the back door.

As soon as she heard the door close behind him, Sam rolled slowly over and off the cot. She landed much harder than she'd expected to, a massive amount of pain shot through her body. She also began to notice the effects of the drugs she'd ingested. Once she felt her mind begin to cloud up she knew she needed to act, and fast.

Steadying herself as much as she could on her elbows to avoid letting her stomach touch the ground, she lifted one of her hands up and jammed her finger swiftly down her own throat. With one loud gag and one heavy heave, Sam vomited the majority of the pills back up onto the floor.

She began to tremble and felt her elbows weaken. She knew more pills were left in her stomach. She gagged herself once again and vomited up several more of the little red meds.

Even now that she'd gotten nearly all the remaining pills out of her system, the drugs that gotten to her already were beginning to take their full effect. One of her elbows slipped, but she was quick to catch herself. Her vision went hazy and she began to see two of everything. She tried to count in her head again, prime numbers and square roots, to try and keep her brain active and conscious. But no amount of math was going to keep her mind from succumbing to the drugs. He elbow slipped once again, only this time she made no attempt to catch herself. She fell over onto her side and as her mind floundered away from her. Her eyes fluttered and shut.

-

Jimmy and Marco leaned over the railing of the safe house balcony as they smoked away a pack of cigarettes. Jimmy thought it was odd to see his baby brother smoking, and found it more peculiar still once he realized that Marco was burning through his cigarettes much faster than he was.

"You hit 'em hard last night, Jimmy," Marco complimented. "Rico's never gonna be the same after that."

"At what cost though?" Jimmy replied somberly.

"Don't think about that. It was a tiny grenade in a foggy room. You didn't see it; there wasn't anything you could do. So there's no sense in blaming yourself about it."

Jimmy took a long drag from his cigarette.

"I did," he said with a sigh of self-hatred.

"You did what?"

"I did see the grenade, Marco. I saw it, and I saw that she didn't see it. But instead of running to help her, or even just yelling to get her attention I just hid. I left her behind and I just hid. Everything just left my mind, all I could think about was how I was going to get away from that bomb. Not how she was, or what it'd do to her if she didn't see it, all I cared about was myself. All I could think about was that day...that day in Fallujah."

"What the hell happened over there anyway?"

Jimmy was taken back to the street in Iraq. The bullets flying above him, the feeling of blood running down his arm and the pain shooting through his shoulder. And the deep hazel eyes of the woman with her child, the eyes his brother possessed as well.

"I don't want to talk about it," he shook his head as he flicked the butt of his cigarette of the edge.

"Well obviously something happened that's gonna effect the safety of you, the safety of Sam, and hell, even the safety of me if it just so happens another grenade gets thrown around. Which, in case you're wondering, is a very distinct possibility."

"I know, Marco, I know. I just...I just need a little bit of time is all."

"I hate to burst your bubble, but time is pretty much a scarcity right now. You've got the most powerful man in all of Chicago hunting you like a deer in the forest. And let me tell you, he's got a lot of hunting dogs by his side, and they're all the very best at what they do. The time for thinking passed by a long time before you had the idea to blaze through that nightclub, so it sure as hell isn't gonna make a reappearance now."

"Shut the hell up, Marco, okay! I will figure this out. Burchfield said Sam will get better pretty soon, and soon enough she can be back out there with me and we can keep on going at these guys until they're running for the fences," Jimmy exclaimed, lighting another cigarette.

"Well, somebody's confident," Marco chuckled.

"I know what I'm doing. I've taken down warlords and I've burned entire terrorist compounds down on my own, I think I can take some psychopathic socialite and his knuckle-dragger errand boy."

"You haven't seen what you're in for yet. Prepare for one hell of a fight. I'm saying this not from just belief, but from personal experience, they were going at you with pumping brakes. Now, they'll be no brakes left. Rico's gonna send a train barreling your way full speed. I just hope you know how to stop it. Otherwise ever one's going down. You, me, Sam, Mickey, Sherman...everybody."

"Don't worry about it. Something I learned from my time in overseas is that no matter how big the army is, or how untouchable their leader might be, every organization has a hierarchy. Remove some pieces from that hierarchy and you slow down their progress. Remove enough pieces, and you can stop them dead in their tracks. If I can remove enough rails, I can stop that train of yours. And I can do it as painlessly as possible."

"And how do you hope to accomplish that?"

Before he could answer, Jimmy's phone began ringing. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the number, it wasn't one of his contacts, nor one he recognized offhand.

"If it's Mickey, I'm not here," Marco said.

"Hello?" Jimmy answered.

" _Jimmy, this is Dr. Burchfield,"_

"Hey, doc. How's our girl doing?"

" _That's what I need to talk to you about, Jimmy. You need to get down here right away."_

"Wait, what? What the hell for? What happened?"

" _Look, she's alive, but I need you to come down right away."_

"We'll be there as soon as possible," Jimmy hung up. "Come on," he gestured Marco to follow him into the apartment, "we need to go."

"What happened?" Marco wondered worriedly.

"He didn't say. All he said is that she's still alive but something happened and we need to get down there right away."

Without another word, Marco put out his cigarette and followed Jimmy through the apartment and straight out the door.

### 14

"What the hell's going on?" Marco burst into the warehouse. The front room of the building seemed just as wide open and plain as the room Sam was in, only better lit and somehow even more devoid of furniture.

"Easy, alright," Burchfield soothed.

"Everything's all right now, Marco," James appeared in the room.

"Why is it that Grandpa James gets a call in before we do?" Jimmy wondered, entering as well.

"It's my warehouse, shouldn't I be the first to know if somebody dies in it?" James replied.

"What the hell is going on? Who died?" Marco said demandingly.

"Nobody," Burchfield assured, "Sam is fine and stable now. But I didn't find her in the best of states."

"What happened?" Jimmy wondered more calmly.

"I found her on the floor next to her bed, she'd taken every single one of the painkillers I gave her."

"Jesus Christ," Marco began pacing around slowly, running his fingers through his hair as he wandered in a moment of disbelief.

"Did she say why she did it?" Jimmy asked.

"She said she didn't do it, but refuses to say who did," Burchfield explained.

"You think she's lying?" Jimmy said.

"What other explanation is there?" James shrugged.

"Can I talk to her?" Jimmy inquired.

"Sure, I suppose," Burchfield gestured to a door behind him. "One at a time though, we don't want to get her overly excited right now."

Jimmy followed the doctor's direction and went through the door and into the open room when Sam's cot was still set up. There were more lights on now. They'd done all they could to make the room more inviting and seemingly livable.

He walked over and sat in the same chair Mickey had sat in a few hours earlier. Jimmy saw now that she was completely conscious and even looked to be on a kind of alert.

"Anything you want to talk about?" he asked quietly, not exactly sure what to say.

"No. Nothing," she replied swiftly, her voice sounded almost frightened at Jimmy's presence.

"Look, I can understand if you're in kind of a bad place right now. Hell, I don't think anybody is really in a _good_ place now, but I can't do this alone and nobody else can help me."

"Why not Marco? Or James? They'd be more capable than I am."

"Marco can't be seen killing south side guys with me, Mickey would kill him," Jimmy explained, he noticed that she winced slightly at the mention of his older brother's name. "And James is a seller, not a fighter. You're the only person who can help."

"Well I'm not going to," Sam said firmly.

"What?"

"I said I'm done. I'm going to get through this and spend the rest of the time back in the safe house, because I guess that's the only place I can go to now."

"No, you can't do that. I need you out there taking on Rico and Caldero with me."

"Why the hell do you need me? All I do is weigh you down. Did you forget what happened the last time I went out there with you?" she gestured to the wound in her stomach. "You don't need me out there. I'm going to stay in the safe house until this is all done, then I'm gonna go back to being a lonely accountant at an office where I'd bet good money nobody's noticed I'm gone yet! That's it, that's all that's happening! I can't go out and do this with you anymore! Why should I? When you can't even protect me from a god damn grenade!"

"I'm sorry about that, Sam, I truly am. You have to believe me, I had a lapse in judgment. I'm sorry," Jimmy's eyes went to his shoes.

"What happened to you in Iraq?" Sam questioned as she analyzed Jimmy's expression.

"Excuse me?" he looked up slightly, taken off guard by the question.

"My brother, Brandon, who I told you about, he came home a few times during the holidays before he died. And every time someone asked him something about the war that brought up some bad memories, he'd make the exact same face that you're making," she took quick notice of all the queues. His eyes were turned sharply down, his face showed a blankness of emotion, minus a slight hint of sadness and guilt, more than likely the guilt of a survivor. It was subtle, yet grossly powerful.

"I told you," Jimmy said quietly. "I saved a few guys after an ambush. That's it."

"That doesn't seem like something to be ashamed about, so why are you?"

"I'm not, I just don't want to talk about it."

"All I need to do is look at you and I know that you're lying. What happened? Really?"

"Alright," Jimmy sighed lowly and sat back in his chair, seeing no other way around it, "if you want to know so badly. It was right after I dragged those guys back to safety. I noticed a woman and a child hiding under heavy fire in the middle of no mans land. So, without thinking I went out there to try and save them too. I immediately took a bullet to the shoulder. But I kept on trying to get to them, and I got so close, Sam, so close," he shook his head and looked further downward as the guilt and self-loathing built up. "But it wasn't enough. They dropped a grenade in front of me, right in between the woman and I. I could've swatted it away. I _should've_ swatted it away. But I didn't. I rolled into a ball and took cover as much as I could. I got out with more than a few piece of shrapnel in my back, but I was still the lucky one.

"I've never forgiven myself for that, not once. And not a day goes by that I don't think about it. I thought about it in the club, when that grenade came down. I spent my whole life promising I would never make that mistake again, that I would never give up the opportunity to save someone because I was too busy saving myself. But that's exactly what I did, and words cannot describe how much I hate myself for it and how sorry I am."

"Do you see how that effects me now?" Sam wondered. "I'm lying here with staples in my stomach because of a very important detail you decided not to share with me. You're damaged goods Jimmy, I can't go back out there with you. You wanna know the truth? I did swallow those pills. I did because it's the only way out. I can't go out there with you anymore and you can't do it alone. I'm going to die now anyway, why not have it be on my own terms?"

Jimmy looked up and took his turn analyzing her expression. Her eyes spoke complete seriousness, but not directed at what she had said. He saw something more in them. Something hidden.

"All I need to do is look at you and I know that you're lying," he mimicked her.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," she replied. "But one thing you should know I'm not lying about is that I'm not going back out there. I can't. So you're gonna have to find some way to make this work without my help, because I can't give it anymore."

It didn't take long for Jimmy to find in her face that this was full-heartedly true.

"I need you to reconsider, Sam," Jimmy said. "But until then I'll try my best to rework a strategy with James and Marco. And I'm sure those two will be happy to keep you from going stir crazy in the apartment," he joked.

"One can only hope," she laughed tensely.

"How long did Burchfield say you needed?"

"A few more days now. But I think he's more worried about my mental state than anything else."

"Do you blame him?"

"I suppose not. But just know you don't have to worry about me. About this happening again."

"I know you'll be fine," he gave her a pat on the shoulder as he rose from the chair. He figured if she could handle being locked inside the dungeon in Cicero she could handle this. "Just reconsider what you've said, humor me at least."

She gave him a small nod.

"Thank you," she said as he began to walk away.

"For what?" he wondered.

"For telling me about Iraq."

"I thought you probably needed to know at this point. But you're welcome anyway. Now then, I've got a lot of new planning to do if I'm going to hit Rico before he hits us."

"Good luck," Sam gave him a wave off.

With that, Jimmy departed from the room and joined the other three in the front room.

"How'd it go?" Marco wondered.

"Just fine," Jimmy said simply.

"You might want to give her some resting time now, fellas," Burchfield suggested, ushering them towards the door.

"Fair enough," James checked his watch. "If anyone wants to stop by my place for a coffee or two you're more than welcome."

"I'm up for it," Marco replied. "And I guess Jimmy is too seeing as we took my car here."

The two of them walked out the door casually continuing their conversation as they went.

Burchfield stopped Jimmy as he began his way out.

"There's something else that you ought to know, Jimmy," he almost whispered. "A few of her staples had come out. That in itself isn't uncommon for someone who could've fallen on the wound like she very well may have. But there was significant bruising around the area that I didn't notice before, and up around her face too. It's just a little odd to me. What do you make of it?"

"Bruising on her face?" Jimmy looked confused, he hadn't noticed anything earlier.

"It's slight. Hardly noticeable unless you're trained to see it. But there's bruising all the same."

"Could it be from falling off the cot?"

"Impossible. Like I said, it's all just a little bit odd. It looked like the kind of bruising a person gets from tight grips, like the bruising you'd see on strangulation victims."

"So someone was there, grabbing her face?" Jimmy didn't quite know what to make of the doctor's observations.

"It looks that way. But that in itself doesn't make any sense. Nobody knows she's here except us."

"Well we're dealing with powerful men here, they could find the world's smallest needle in the world's largest haystack if they wanted to."

"Well if there was anyone here, she's certainly not telling us. I guess if their goal was intimidation, they succeeded."

"So what do we do about it?" Jimmy wondered.

"There's not much we can do about something that's already done. But she'll only be here for a few more days. After that you can keep a close eye on her at the apartment I'm sure."

"But is there anyway to know who could've done this? Don't you have cameras or something in this place?"

"I'm afraid not," Burchfield said. "James doesn't believe much in security. He's only got friends, you know? But if she recognized who did it, all you really need to wait for is for her to say so."

"Probably one of The Rican's thugs," Jimmy sneered.

"If it was one of them, why didn't they just kill her?" Burchfield wondered. "Pills are far from a sure thing when it comes to death. And any criminal worth their share would know a person would do everything possible to get the pills out of themselves before damage was done. I don't think this was The Rican's doing, Jimmy. I've been dealing with mob hits for a long time now, and Rico's men tend to use knives and guns to kill and intimidate. But for the life of me I can't think of anyone who'd use the pills."

"You'd have a better idea than I would," Jimmy replied.

"Funny you say that, because I haven't got any idea in the slightest."

### 15

After his conversation with the doctor, Jimmy joined up with Marco and James and they all went back to the coffee shop. They sat together at one table with just a single light on above them. All the other tables had their respective chairs stacked on top of them and the remaining lights were dark. Jimmy managed to sit a distance away from the other two, quiet and alone with his thoughts.

He'd never told anybody the full story about what happened in Iraq before. He never thought anybody ever really needed to know. Sam definitely needed to know, he only wished he'd known that before they went into that nightclub. Then maybe she'd still be willing to go on working with him.

But the more he thought over the road in Fallujah, the more he knew he would've never been able to talk about it even if he wanted to. He told the story now because it was essential to Sam's safety. He hoped he'd never have to tell the story again.

The sound of the grenade exploding echoed in his head. Sharp stings of the metal piercing his back emanated through his long-healed wounds. The shell-shocked feeling came back into his body. He could feel himself almost vibrating in his chair, his ears ringing as voices yelled in the distance and bullets continued to fly past just mere inches above him. He could see the dark roasted coffee in his hand begin to rumble about with his increasing tremors.

"Hey Jimmy!" James called to him loudly, apparently not being the first time he'd called out to him. Jimmy turned to his friend and the tremors and ringing ceased. "You okay, man?"

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine, James," Jimmy nodded.

"Good then, you can help us out in this debate," Marco said.

"What debate?" Jimmy said, puzzled and still not completely back to reality.

"GTO or Chevelle?" James said with a grin. "For me it's Chevelle all the way."

"GTO, no contest," Marco objected.

"But you can't be fair, Marc, you drive one for Christ's sake."

"Exactly, so I should know!"

"No, that means you just can't be objective."

"Well what does Jimmy think?" Marco gestured over to his brother, who was now once again miles away.

Jimmy always knew Marco to start up childish debates like this, and James was always one to get in on them. But he never cared for them and had learned to tune out, especially now when the sounds of war resonated in his head.

"If he were paying attention he'd agree with me," James replied.

"Take a look at that car out there and tell me what's not to love?" Marco took a prideful look at his vehicle parked in front of the building.

"The paint job for one. It doesn't exactly fit, you know?"

"Excuse me? That powder blue is classic. It's original!"

"You're telling me you haven't touched up that paint job even once? Because I recall noticing quite a few bullet sized dents and chips in it before. Just be glad the damn thing's bullet proof otherwise it'd be scrap by now."

"I mean the color is reminiscent of classic."

"Whatever you say, bro," James chuckled, casually turning his attention to Jimmy. "You sure you're alright Jimmy?" his question got no response.

"Hey Jimmy!" Marco pounded his hand once on the table to get his brother's attention, which proved effective. Jimmy almost jumped out of his seat before he came back to the conversation. "What's up with you?"

"Sorry," Jimmy explained. "I just noticed that," Jimmy pointed to a small television hooked up behind the nearby counter.

"Oh, yeah," James nodded, "I put that in a few months back so all the on-the-go business types I get in here could watch the news while they bought their brews."

"Mind if we see what's happening?"

"Not at all," James got up and walked behind the counter to flip the TV on. It buzzed to life and in a few seconds a national news channel appeared on the screen. They were reporting on a seemingly serious European economic crisis.

"What did you wanna watch this for?" Marco wondered.

"Just give them a second," Jimmy replied, watching the television contently.

"Maybe they'll bring up a bulletin about how much the Chevelle is better than the GTO," James joked as he sat back down.

"By this time tomorrow they'll be reporting on how Marco Brigio murdered James McGovern," Marco retorted playfully.

"How would you plan on killing a man who's got enough fire power to supply an army?"

"It's quite simple actually, James. I'm gonna find the biggest emerald in that isle of yours, and I'm gonna beat you to death with it."

"Hey guys," Jimmy called to them, pointing to the TV, "this is why I wanted it on."

The reporter on the screen had gone on to bring up the story about Rico's broken open operation.

"National news. Awesome," James smiled.

Now the three of them sat silently and stared at the screen.

" _The shocking reports of an American human trafficking operation have been constantly developing since yesterday."_ the reporter explained. _"As many of our viewers already know, the operation was uncovered after a deadly shootout in a southern Chicago nightclub resulted in a news crew gaining access to the back rooms and basement of the facility. The team on the scene gathered incriminating evidence including stockpiles of drugs, millions of dollars in unlaundered cash, and worst of all, seventeen badly tortured and terrorized victims from the basement of the complex, which seemed to house a makeshift prison of sorts. Along with the frightened survivors, authorities also claimed the bodies of five other young women who, unfortunately, didn't make it through their ordeal."_

"I don't get it," James said. "I thought Rico had an iron fist on the police force around here. Wouldn't they cover as much of this up as they could?"

"No, they can't, don't you see?" Marco replied with a big grin. "The news crew got footage of everything before it was a closed crime scene. They reported it live too. People all over the city recorded that stuff at home. Even if the cops got the reels the crew collected, the footage is still out in the world now. No news channel with their right minds will show all that stuff on national television, but that doesn't mean it's still not out in the public eye. And as long as it's made it to the public, they'll all be watching the police in town to see what they do about it. The cops have to act now if they want to keep their jobs, allegiance to Rico or not. Same with the judges and the lawyers and the politicians, they've all got their hands tied on this one."

"Damn, Jim, you really got him good," James laughed.

Jimmy only nodded, not wanting to take his undivided attention away from the TV.

" _Although Rico Terez and Cesar Caldero, the owners of the club, haven't been reached for comment their lawyers assure to us that they were unaware of the underworld happenings of that establishment and neither of them had been there in over three years. However, several witnesses and club regulars are claiming they see Caldero at the club often, a point that the lawyers and Caldero have vilified as not having any basis in truth."_

"Such bullshit," Marco scoffed. "They know once more of the operation gets dug up by the cops and the media their ignorance defense is gonna go out the window."

"They're just buying time, that's all. That's all they need. If they can buy time they can have time to kill all of us before we make an even bigger mess," James explained.

"All the more reason to make as big a mess as we can as fast as we can," Jimmy spoke up.

" _The survivors from the basement of the building are under police protection and cannot currently be reached for questioning,"_ the reporter went on. _"However, our sources say they all are being extremely helpful and cooperative with the investigation. All this extra information is critical to police and investigators as they continue on cracking open what could be one of the biggest human trafficking rings in the entire United States, if not the world."_

"Their public's gotta hate them by now. Finding out your neighborhood's savior sells people like slaves can't be very fun," James figured.

"Oh, I'm sure they wanna tear them both limb from limb," Marco agreed. "Of course that's not gonna stop Caldero from coming after us. The public's too scared of him to even look him in the eyes, much less go after him. Even Rico might be safe in some places. Some people just respect that guy too much to believe all this."

"Can you blame them?" James replied. "I don't think people's opinions change from saint to Satan all that quickly these days. But if we let them stir in it a while, they'll go off. That's just how people operate, man. They're machines with a lot of processes."

"But once the processes get through, they're deadly effective."

"You think Rico knows they'll turn on him?" Jimmy wondered.

"Most definitely," James said. "He's not a dumb man. He knows by now he's basically ruined in this town."

"So why should he keep doing all this? Why should he stay here and keep trying to kill me? To kill us?"

"Well, if his old philosophy is still in effect, he always explained it like a game of chess. He may lose a few pawns or a knight in the process, but it's all worth it if you capture the king. But let me tell you, this is one hell of a loss he's got, so he's gonna want one hell of a victory."

"That doesn't sound good," Marco spoke almost nervously.

At that, the television captivated their attention once more. The reporter had gone on to explaining the conditions of the women who survived.

" _All seventeen survivors are currently in stable conditions and are all expected to make full physical recoveries. However, as several psychologists have noted, mental recovery can often be more of a battle. And, what remains more tragic in all this, are the ages of the women involved. Not a single one of them is over thirty years old, and the youngest of them is a truly saddening sixteen years old,"_ the reporter, trained not to give out much emotion when on the air, was visually disturbed and disgusted by this portion of the story. _"Even worse still, is that many authorities and experts in the organizations of human trafficking say that this age is hardly uncommon and that the age can dip even lower still. That leaves this reporter wondering, what horrors of this event haven't we seen?"_

"That man thinks this is a big loss?" Jimmy rose up slowly from his chair, standing tall. "He thinks this is big? Then I'm going to show him biblical. We're going to send him to the deepest and darkest layer of hell. With or without Sam, we can't let him go on."

"Without Sam, what the hell are we supposed to do? She's your only back up," Marco said, unsure of his brother's plan.

"Without Sam, it'll be harder. But we can still do it. James, can you still find out more meeting places and operation houses around town?"

"Yeah," he nodded in confidence, "but they'll be guarded up the ass now. Think you can handle it?"

"I've taken on entire terrorist organizations, I can handle a few extra strongmen who pretend to know how to work machine guns," Jimmy exclaimed. "Now, Marco, I need you to keep Mickey and Sherman's noses out of my business. They're slowing me down enough as it is."

"I'll see what I can do," Marco gave a shrug, "but Mickey's a stubborn man."

"Stall him at least. And in the mean time if you could keep Sam from going nuts all alone in the apartment while she recovers, that'd be great."

"So wait, James gets to help you out with all the strategic stuff, while I'm on nurse duty?"

"Look, this is just the beginning, but right now I need someone to keep an eye on Sam. She can't really be left alone for too long. Just please do this for me first."

"Fine," Marco conceded, finding it hard to ignore the sincerity in his brother's tone.

"I still can't see any possible way one man can take on The Rican's army," James said skeptically. "I don't even think Rambo could pull it off."

"Did you hear that reporter, James?" Jimmy wondered rhetorically. " _Sixteen years old_ for God's sake! That girl can barely drive, what makes you think she can handle something like this? And where there's one, there's a lot more! Rico Terez is a monster that thinks torturing a sixteen-year-old girl and selling her into slavery is just a business venture! Not to mention all the others he did that to in that building alone! I don't care if you don't think it can be done, it has to be done. This man has to die, and it looks like I have to be the one to do it."

### 16

After three days spent in the warehouse hospital, Burchfield saw it fit for Sam to return to the safe house. He took her there himself to ensure she could move about in the outside world as well as he hoped. She appeared to be doing just fine for the status of her condition, although she had some trouble with the stairs leading up to the apartment.

Once she got herself safely back into the apartment she set her gun on the piano and collapsed onto the lumpy couch. It wasn't comfortable and it certainly didn't feel like home, but it was a huge improvement from the unsupportive cot.

At first, Sam just wanted to relax and forget all about what'd happened in the warehouse, or at least try to. Her first thought was to watch TV, but she took quick notice of the remote control placed atop the television, all the way across the room. Not wanting to move, much less get up, she gave up that thought. She settled instead on napping.

She'd spent most of the past several days sleeping and had become quite good at it. Despite all the comfort of a gravel road and the soothing stench of what was probably close to a decade of dust, it only took her a few minutes to leave all of that behind her and drift off into light but restful sleep.

Her dream returned her to the night Mickey paid a visit. She relived the entirety of the experience in near perfect detail. The pain of her wound as he brought his knee down on it, the inconceivable fear she'd felt, being sure she would die there, and the wooziness and lack of balance that came before she'd passed out from the drugs.

Sam's gasped quietly as her eyes shot open. She was drenched in a cold sweat and she'd shifted herself near the point of rolling right off the couch. The thought of how it felt to fall from the cot came to her mind. She swung herself hard backwards and saved herself from the thought as well as the fall.

For a minute or two she just stared up at the ceiling and tried to regain her composure. The ceiling was a dull and thoroughly uncleaned excuse of a view. All it managed to do was remind her that she was probably the furthest from home she'd ever been, despite the fact it was really only a few miles away.

As her mind settled Sam discovered she was still more than a little tired even after the nap. But now, not wanting to lull back into a dream that could be simply another replay of her encounter with Mickey, she got up from the couch. She winced slightly in pain as she did, finding the movement rather awkward with the still healing stomach incision.

Once she stood up, the corner of her eye spotted something she hadn't seen before. Beside the door there sat a large black duffle bag with a small, white envelope on it. Sam approached it cautiously, half expecting for there to be a bomb or something of that nature inside it. As she got close she decided to go for the envelope first.

The envelope itself was entirely blank and not even sealed. She pulled out a piece of paper that was folded into fourths. She opened it up, half expecting it to be full of anthrax or small pox. Instead she discovered a letter written in flawless calligraphy.

" _Dear Sam,"_ it read, _"I noticed from our few encounters of each other that you dress rather blandly. Jimmy informed me that this was due to your rushed packing schedule and you left a large amount of the finer articles of clothing you had at your house. I first tried to figure out a way to get into the house and get whatever you left there back for you. But I guess with two dead cops outside, the CPD wouldn't be too keen on that idea. So I went for the next best thing, I had James tailor you a few new outfits. Nobody around seemed to have any idea what style you wore, so I just paged through a Boston Proper catalog and found a few things. I hope you like them. If not, James always seems to have a lot of time on his hands and can always make more. Cheer up, kiddo. Your pal, Marco."_

"Kiddo?" she mumbled to herself.

She set the letter aside and opened up the bag. She almost took a step back when she saw what was in it. Light and dark, bright and dull, striped and spotted and solid colored. It was as if he had managed to fit the entire magazine into one bag. She pulled one shirt out from the top of the bunch, a mild colored green affair with a few decorative sequins designs along the middle-cut collar.

"Tailored?" she examined the top. It appeared as if it would fit her perfectly. "How the hell did he do that?"

She set the shirt back into the bag and stood back up. By the time she'd gotten all the way back up she felt slightly unstable. She was still tired and hadn't eaten much of anything in what was going on days now. Without another thought she went for the kitchen to see what could be made up.

After rifling through a few cupboards and finding nothing, Sam finally came across some relief. There was a fresh and unopened bag of coffee grounds with another finely written note on it.

" _I got shot once, and for some reason I was tired for days afterwards. Hope this helps you as much as it did me."_ the note said.

Sam shrugged and smiled as she opened up the grounds, courtesy of James's shop, and prepared a pot of coffee. While she waited for the coffee to brew, she wandered back out into the living room. She intended to look through the clothes some more, but the sight of her gun stopped her.

She approached it slowly. There was yet another note left under it. She pulled it out and with a warm smile read it quietly aloud.

" _You scuffed it,"_ it said, and ended off with a perfectly drawn heart.

This note confused her. She'd barely even used the gun, how could it possibly be scuffed. She picked up the weapon cautiously and examined it. The first side looked fine. But as she turned it over, a large nick in the metal of the slide just above the hammer came into view. Sam had no idea how this had happened. She didn't think it happened in the club, James probably would've noticed it already if it'd happened then.

But, in an instant, it all came back to her. Mickey. He had her gun that night. He and thrown it across the room and into the corner.

"I didn't scuff it," she whispered to the piece of paper. In a distraught mind, she crumpled up this note and tossed it aside. She closed her eyes tight and rubbed her head. Now it was all coming back, just as vividly as before. Only now it wasn't a dream.

She tried to count her way out of her anguish. But she could barely put numbers together in her mind. And so she resorted to biting her nails once more. A disgusting habit, and hardly effective, but it was all she could do.

After a while of simply standing there, eyes clenched and teeth running against her nails, Sam finally peeked through her eyelids. Surprisingly, she found herself staring right back at herself through a tall mirror on the wall perpendicular to the piano. For a moment she just looked at her reflection. Her hair was a mess, her face was without make-up and her clothes remained plain and baggy. Then she took notice of the pistol in her hand.

Sam looked down once again at the scuff Mickey had made on her gun. She thought about what she wished she could've done that night, what she would do if she ever got the chance.

She looked back up into the mirror and slowly wrapped both her hands around the pistol and raised it up, aiming directly at her reflection. She even took time to line up the sights as well as she possibly could.

Instead of seeing herself, Sam imagined a vision of Mickey staring back at her through the tall mirror. She wished she could get just one more chance, just one more opportunity where she could get the upper hand. She'd been kidnapped, beaten, injected with drugs, shot at, hit with shrapnel, threatened and poisoned all over the course of a few days, and Mickey was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Although she focused much of her vision on the weapon in her hand, she could see in the reflection that her face had become almost unrecognizable. She looked diabolical; somebody ready and willing to kill, and somebody who had a damn good reason to. Her stare was piercing and dark, and the fact it was pointed down the sights of a gun made it all the more menacing.

Her expression had gone into a deep, hateful scowl. All these powerful men treat others like possessions, and now all she wanted was to show them exactly the same amount of pain that they caused to her and to all the others that'd been subjected to their torture. She wanted Rico to suffer, and now wanted the same for Mickey. How dare he make her out to feel so powerless. She wasn't powerless, and as she stood tall and aimed the gun at the mirror, Sam finally knew that for sure. She was ready to take on the whole world.

As Sam got further and further into her thoughts, she found herself toying and messing with the hammer of the gun. For some reason or another, it gave her a rush knowing that with a simple flick of her finger the gun could become that much more volatile. She knew it'd fire without pulling the hammer back, but still the idea sent the adrenaline flowing.

After her fair share of harmless tampering with it, Sam put her thumb firmly against the small piece of metal and began to pull back on it. In a few tense and invigorating moments, the hammer was almost all the way cocked back. She could barely contain herself from how badly she wanted to hear the locking click of it setting into place.

But, just before that point came, her finger slipped up a little. That little bit was all that was needed. The spring-loaded hammer fell from her grasp and swung itself back up and into the gun. The firing pin came down hard on the primer of the chambered round. In an instant the gun went off.

The glass in the mirror shattered into large and jagged pieces that all came tumbling down into a pile on the floor. The sound from the gun had been much more severe than when she'd fired it in the club. The tiny room kept all the noise around, and it shook her to the bone.

Ears ringing, body trembling, and mind not believing, Sam dropped the gun like she had at the firing range. It clattered loudly to the floor, but she could barely hear it over the high pitch drowning her eardrums.

Unable to hold herself together any longer, she crumbled to the floor herself and began shedding a few tears of overwhelming surprise and a return of the old fear. Maybe she wasn't as powerful as she thought she was. How could she hope to fight anybody, much less men like Mickey and Rico, if she couldn't even use a gun right. All these realizations made the tears fall harder. Disarmed and powerless, there wasn't much more she could do.

-

Marco arrived at the apartment about twenty minutes later to check up on her. At first, he was completely unsure of what he'd walked into. The first thing that caught his eye was the huge pile of reflective glass jumbled underneath the bare frame still dangling on the wall. He then turned and noticed the pistol on the floor not a few steps away.

"Sam?" he called out, preparing himself to reach for the gun he kept around his ankle.

There was no answer to his call. He made his way to the kitchen with silent, slow strides. Around the corner and into the kitchen, he saw Sam sitting on the floor, back against the cupboards, holding a coffee cup in her hand.

"There was enough for one cup at least," she said in an almost raspy softness.

Marco looked at the counter above her and noticed the coffee maker had a hole in it as well. The bullet went straight through the wall and stuck itself somewhere inside the mechanics of the machine. Sam seemed to be grateful the bullet hadn't shattered the pot itself.

"What the hell happened here?" Marco asked frantically. He was still ready to draw his gun at any time.

"I don't know," She shook her head distraughtly, "I don't know. The gun just went off is all."

"What do you mean by that? How did it just go off?"

"I don't know, Marco, I just don't know," her voice cracked and she began to tear up again.

"Hey, hey," Marco got down by her side and wrapped a comforting arm around her, "don't worry about this. The mirror was old as dirt and the coffeemaker cost eight dollars. Nothing to worry about."

"It's not that. I'm supposed to be this person who can give Jimmy back up if he needs it. I'm the only person who can give him back up apparently. But I can't. For the life of me, I just fucking can't! I'm expected to be this efficient and trained killer, and I'm supposed to give him some protection. But I can't even protect myself!"

"Let me ask you a question, if you can't protect yourself, how'd you get out of that club alive? If you weren't able to protect yourself at all, you'd have been dead long before that grenade came along," Marco knew while he was speaking that this was far from the right thing to say, but he didn't know what else he could do. He wasn't all that great at thinking on his feet.

"You don't get it, Marco," Sam sobbed, "you're never going to get it."

"Well then talk. Help me understand."

Sam couldn't think of any possible way to tell Marco that it was Mickey who'd made her feel like this. It wasn't the club, or Jimmy, or anything else. Mickey was the reason she felt so defenseless and weak. She couldn't tell him that, even if she wanted to.

"I can't," she tried her best to explain, "there's just no way. I'm sorry, Marco."

"Well, even if you won't tell me, I'm gonna try and help anyway," he exclaimed, hopping up and offering his hand to help her do the same.

"Where are we going?"

"My guess is one cup of coffee didn't do a justice, so you probably need some sleep. It'll be good for the emotions too. All this gun nonsense and all this sadness can be helped with just a little bit of sleep."

"I'm not tired."

"Don't give me that! I've lived through this stuff too, I know you're tired."

Sam groaned and took his helping hand back up onto her feet. She knew she couldn't trick him. Like his note said, he'd been shot before. And will all else aside, she still was dog-tired.

"So," She wondered as he led her through the kitchen and the living room, "how exactly did you get shot? If you don't mind me asking."

"I took a bullet from one of Rico's competitors back when we worked together in Los Angeles," he recalled. "One shot right to the gut. But don't worry, he gave me a pistol round, I gave him a shotgun shell in return."

For some reason, at that moment Sam began to chuckle. It didn't take long for that chuckle to become almost uproarious laughter.

"What's so funny?" he couldn't help but smile as he watched her hilarity.

"Just the thought of you, little Marco, killing somebody. It's funny is all,"

"What the hell is 'little Marco' supposed to mean?" he asked without any noticeable offense as he brought her into her bedroom and laid her atop the covers. She appeared too tired to go through lifting them over herself. But she didn't seem to care.

"I don't know, you just come across as the runt of the litter. Hardly a fighter, much less a killer. I mean, Jimmy is like the guy you see walking down the street and you just know he's probably killed someone before. And now I know that's actually true, I've seen him do it. But you, you just look like...like," she stopped to think on that for a moment, "like a young lawyer or something. The rich young guy who probably talks big but never actually has to walk to match his words. You know?"

"Not even at all," he chuckled.

"You're not really scary. You're the kinda guy grandmas wanna pinch the cheeks of."

"Okay, well, I'll keep that in mind. But if you think Jimmy's scary, you should meet our older brother. If that guy doesn't like you, he's the devil in an Armani suit."

"I'll remember that," Sam said exhaustedly. The bed was much more comfortable than the couch, and the mention of Mickey just made her want to get away from the world even more. She just prayed she dreamed of something slightly more pleasant than before.

"See, now don't you feel a little better now that you're in bed?" Marco wondered, stopping on his way out of the room.

"No," she replied. "But it's a start."

At that, Marco left the room, retrieved her bag of new clothes from the other room and dropped it in the bedroom before quietly shutting the door.

-

A few hours past and Sam awoke, now feeling much more refreshed than after her nap on the couch. And thankfully whatever dream it was she had, she didn't remember. She got up and a dull pain ran through her left side. She hadn't taken any medicine for the wound in a long time, and Burchfield wouldn't allow her any prescriptions anymore. So now she prayed this apartment had ibuprofen hidden away somewhere.

She took tiny steps away from the bed and towards the door. She was about to go out when she noticed the bag sitting on the floor beside her. She looked down at her clothes, and decided a change would probably behoove her.

After nearly twenty minutes spent finding the best outfit and fixing her hair as much as she could without a brush, Sam exited into the rest of the apartment looking almost like a whole new person. She'd chosen the green top from earlier and a pair of surprisingly well fitting dark blue jeans. The whole outfit fit her amazingly, bringing back her wonderments of exactly how such tailoring was possible.

When she walked into the living room a very peculiar sight halted her. Marco had opened up the piano and was working on the insides of it. But he stopped what he was doing immediately once he saw she'd awoken.

"Hey there," he exclaimed, walking over, "I got a lot done already. I got a new mirror," he pointed the new décor that was graced in a new frame as well, "and a new coffeemaker too. It's really quite something, it makes one cup at a time, but it only takes about a minute and it's delicious!" It seemed as if he'd tried out the new machine more than a few times in her absence.

"But what's with that?" she pointed at the piano, puzzled.

"Oh, yeah, I'm tuning it."

"Tuning it?"

"Yeah, I tune pianos every now and then. I've got one of my own that always seems to need a good fix. Oh, and another thing," he scurried out to the kitchen, but quickly returned, "I got you a bunch of food, and a hairbrush," he tossed her the brush. "I figured you'd need it."

"Thanks," she found it odd that he'd have foresight for something like that, but appreciated the gesture anyway, quickly beginning to run in through her underdone hair. "No chance you got any ibuprofen did you?"

"Oh, no, sorry. But don't worry, I can always go out and get some soon," he said, making his way back to the piano.

"Don't you work someplace?" she wondered. "I usually spend time at one of the restaurants we've got around town. But it's mostly sitting around and pretending to do things at this point. I used to be a full fledged manager, but I hired people to do that."

"So what do you do all day?"

"Anything really. Like today I'm fixing your piano and buying a new coffeemaker."

"So," she peered into the innards of the instrument and watched him work, "you write calligraphy, tune pianos, and kill people."

"That's about the gist of it," he chuckled. "Although I don't do so much of the latter anymore."

"Maybe you ought to stop tuning the piano too. I sure as hell don't know how to play it."

"But I do."

"Well why don't you just go play the piano you've got at your place then?"

"Because Jimmy told me to come and keep you company, so that's what I'm doing."

"Oh did he now?" Sam raised an eyebrow at this. "Don't you have something more important to do?"

"You don't find yourself important? Nice self-esteem."

"Well shouldn't you be out with him shooting people? Or whatever it is that he's been up to."

"He's laying pretty low for the time being, planning his next move and all that," Marco explained. "He's putting all that military strategy to good use finally. But he's got James to help him with that. So he left me to keep you from going stir crazy and to keep Mickey out of his business, and surprisingly Mickey and Doc Sherman haven't been all that much trouble." his face grew a look of unsure suspicion.

"Well, if they are, I guess that only gives you more reason to hide out here," Sam joked.

"Indeed. Hide out here and fix your piano."

"Technically it's James's piano. We're just borrowing it."

"Well then I'll do it as a favor to him, for all the free cups of coffee and all the loaner guns he's given me. Seems like a fair trade."

"Oh, come on," Sam groaned, "if you're supposed to keep me company, fixing the piano isn't helping. Entertain me."

"Well aren't you demanding today," Marco grinned. "I bought you a new mirror, food, and a coffeemaker, not to mention brought you a whole bunch of new clothes, which look like they fit perfectly by the way," he took notice of her new garb.

"Yeah," She cocked her head in slight confusion, "how exactly did you do this?"

"James sizes everybody he meets up the moment he sees them," Marco explained. "I honestly don't know how he does it, much less how he does it to everybody in line at the shop when he works the register."

"Well if you see him before I do, tell him he did wonderfully," Sam replied, a smile appearing as she noticed herself in the fancy new mirror on the wall.

"Well then," Marco rose from his seat on the piano bench, "if you want me to give you good company, I've got an idea. Do you still need painkillers?"

"Yeah, why?" She felt her scar gently. She'd actually forgotten about the pain until he brought it back up.

"Because I did happen to buy the handiest of all painkillers," Marco wandered out into the kitchen. He returned with a tall bottle of amber liquid and two glasses. "Nothing kills pain quite like Blue Label."

"Better than nothing," Sam replied with a shrug. She went to sit on the couch but stopped as Marco swaggered past the living room and over to the sliding door.

"Come on," he said. "Let's give some use to this balcony."

"It's winter," she replied apprehensively.

"And we've got alcohol."

On that note, she figured that was a good enough excuse, and followed him out onto the cold porch.

He set the two glasses on the ledge and poured the drinks as he looked out at the sub-par view the apartment enjoyed. The late day rays of the sun improved the view, if only slightly. Sam, on the other hand, paid more attention to the highly noticeable sight of her breath waving around listlessly in the bitter winter weather.

"Why are we out here exactly?" she asked, beginning to shiver.

"Fresh air will do you some good. Enjoy it. My dad always said, 'there's not any fresh air when you're six feet under, so might as well enjoy it all you can now.'" Marco said.

"He sounds like a wonderful man," she laughed.

"Oh, God," Marco sighed humorously, "he had a million of those little piece of advice. Granted a lot of them were stupid, there were a few good ones."

"Was that one of the good ones?"

"For sure. Gave me good reason to get out of bed everyday. Suck up as much fresh air as you can."

"Got any other nice tidbits of his?"

"Well," Marco thought for a moment, "there's always the old classic of his, 'the early bird may be the one to get the worm, but it's the second mouse who gets the cheese'. He always said that whenever one of us got up late for breakfast as kids, and all the good food was gone. I never understood what it was supposed to help in a situation like that, but I suppose it'd be something along the lines of a dime-store epiphany. They always were. And people always seemed to remember one or two, even if they only met the guy once. Hell, even Rico took that chess ideal of no victory coming without its share losses from something my dad told him way back when. I wish I remembered more of them myself. Anna was always the one who took time to memorize them all."

With that remembrance, Marco became more somber. He began to sip his drink in silence. And for a long moment Sam wasn't exactly sure what to say in return.

"You know," she began slowly, "she's pretty much the reason I'm alive at all."

"What?" Marco was puzzled.

"When they brought me into the warehouse they immediately shot me up with drugs. And whenever I began to regain composure they'd do it again. She taught me to stop trying to call for help from that place. She told me to just lie still and pretend to still be doped when they come back around," Sam paused for a moment, pained to the point of a cracking voice and descending eyes. "That way we could whisper conversations to each other. Just as long as we held still they wouldn't keep doing it. If she hadn't told me that they probably would've overdosed me before Jimmy got there."

"Wow," Marco muttered in genuine amazement. He'd spent the past few days grieving in silence over how Anna had died for nothing, and never had any chance to live for anything either. But now he realized, even in her last hours, his sister still lived for something. "But," he started, but quickly cut himself off.

"But what?"

"But," he stopped again, "but why would you try and throw it all away? The life you got to continue because of her, why would you want to waste that away by swallowing all those pills?"

"Marco," she shook her head, wanting badly to just tell him what happened now. But she didn't know if he'd believe her even if she did, "I didn't want to throw it away, I didn't want to kill myself."

"So why'd you do it?"

"I..."

"You..." He gestured for her to continue.

"Look, just know I didn't try to do it. Can you be fine with knowing that and nothing more?"

"If I say no will you tell me?"

"No."

"So what's the point on pressuring? I trust you."

"Too bad Burchfield doesn't," she took a big swig of her drink to mask over the pain in her stomach.

"Well whatever happened, if you say it wasn't you, I'll take it on your word. But maybe someday you can tell me exactly what happened."

"Yeah," Sam spoke softly, "maybe someday."

"Why don't we finish this back in the apartment," Marco suggested, brandishing the bottle. "The cold's getting worse, and I've gotten my share of fresh air. What about you?"

"I'm all for inside," she nodded, still shivering.

-

As the end of the afternoon evolved deep into the night, the two of them continued on keeping good company with each other. They joked, reminisced, and continued burning through the bottle of Blue Label. Marco even found time in their conversations to finally finish tuning the piano.

It'd gotten close to the crack of midnight by the time their evening boiled down to the two of them sitting together on the piano bench and singing loudly along to whatever song Marco played. They swayed back and forth in a well-developed synchronization as they serenaded the walls, partially from the rhythm, and partially because of their high level of inebriation at this point.

After they finished swaying and singing their way through 'Let It Be' Marco stopped momentarily and raised up the bottle.

"Look," he said with a big, toothy smile, "it's all gone."

There was, in fact, not a single drop left of the high-class whiskey. All they had now was what was in their glasses. They both seemed to have a swig or two left in each.

"Well, then," Sam slurred, "cheers!" She raised up her glass.

"Cheers to what?"

"Umm," She sat for a moment, "cheers lookin' at you kid!" She exclaimed with a hearty laugh, which he joined in on quickly. At that, they guzzled down the last few drops of the scotch.

"Well," Marco got a few more chuckles out, "now what?"

Sam sat and swayed for a few moments after that. She took time to analyze the question as if it was the million dollar final on a game show. She then became more tantalized by the sight before her. She never quiet saw it before, but Marco appeared to be almost a spitting image of Jimmy, except an image that aged surprisingly better in addition to being a few years younger in the first place. She had no doubt Jimmy had done his fare share of trips to the gym during his times in Iraq and Israel, but Marco had him beat on that end. Fully taking in the man before her, she cocked her head once again and raised her single eyebrow.

"Now what, indeed," she murmured. In her drunken speech, she could barely even understand herself.

"What?" Marco replied with nearly the same slurred inflection. "Should I call a cab or something?"

"You ask weird questions."

"Only when I'm drunk. And how's that a weird question?"

Without a notice, Sam leaned in quickly, almost falling in, and connected her lips to his. After that she didn't move an inch. She was either gauging his reaction, or she'd simply forgotten the next step all together. At this point, even she didn't remember exactly what she was doing.

But, after a moment of still awkwardness, Marco responded by wrapping his arms swiftly around her and drawing her in close and actually moving his lips against hers.

In a minute lapse in judgment, Sam had momentarily forgotten where they were sitting and threw herself on him. Promptly sending them both crashing to the floor, although that didn't untwine them from each other.

As they went tumbling to the floor, something else took a dive with them. The new mirror on the wall shook off its nail and came crashing to the ground beside them.

"Damn it," Marco muttered to himself, noticing the second shattered mirror he'd come across today. But, with a simple shrug it was out of his mind, and he turned his entire attention to Samantha.

### 17

Three weeks passed by as everyone seemed to lay low. Jimmy and James spent most of their time formulating the perfect attacks on Rico and company. While, back at the safe house, Sam recuperated and enjoyed Marco's surreptitious yet frequent visits. Mickey, on the other hand, continued to grapple with what his next move would be, and every day that passed he knew Rico's patience with him dwindled. He looked over the photographs in the envelope almost religiously. Lathrop did what he could to make him more decisive, but the going was slow.

Meanwhile, on the south side, Rico and Caldero fought their ever-growing legal and publicity battle. They knew with all this attention they couldn't possibly go on the heavy offensive that they'd hoped. But they could still increase their defense and hope to could catch Jimmy off guard and out gunned with a ramped up security force.

Jimmy walked briskly, but never too quickly through the afternoon air of River West. A thick layer of new snow crunched beneath every step. He donned a large pair of sunglasses, a dark fedora and a long overcoat with a flipped up collar. To him, he was simply hiding his face away, but to the outside he looked like a run of the mill rapist. He knew he looked odd, and he hated walking around like that. He'd see the way people would avoid him and it reminded him of how they acted when Mickey was the most feared man in town, the whole reason he'd gone away to begin with.

As December had worn on, the buildings began stringing their colored lights, decorations for the holidays filled up store display windows, and Christmas music could be heard coming from some speakers in almost every shop in the entire city. Jimmy always enjoyed the holidays as a child, but after a decade of spending his Christmas season's festivity-less in Israel, he'd found the decorations and upbeat music to be rather out of place and peculiar in his mind.

He entered James's coffeehouse and immediately turned his collar down and took off his hat. He didn't want anybody in there to give him the looks he hated so much. He kept the glasses on though, on the off chance there was somebody watching him.

As had become the ritual, he slunk into the back room of the shop and joined up with James. The table in the middle of the room was now covered almost entirely by the detailed map of the greater Chicago area that was at one point stuck crudely to the wall of the safe house. In a map where there was once one single red push-pin, now there was over a dozen of them.

They'd pin pointed Midway Airport, even if they had no idea how they'd hit Rico's guys there, or how much damage it'd do to him if they did. They also put one down on the skyscraper in the South Loop that held the popular barroom, although they were sure it was Fort Knox by now, same story with Rico's house, which barely hung onto one of the far edges of the map. They also had a few stuck into known warehouses much like the one Jimmy walked into that first night. But they knew hitting even a few of those wouldn't do the necessary collateral damage to either Rico's business workings or his personnel. It appeared that no matter how far they got into The Rican's inner workings, they couldn't find a sweet spot quite like Canal.

But today, Jimmy walked in to find Grandpa James with a smile extending from ear to ear.

"What the hell made you so happy?" Jimmy wondered.

"I found a place," James exclaimed.

"Really? Where?"

"Bronzeville. There's a house down there that's a real well kept secret."

"What's in there? Money? Drugs?"

"No, no, think bigger. Better."

"More incriminating evidence of any kind?"

"There could be, but that's not the reason why it's the best place."

"Okay, I'm tired of guessing."

"Well," James pointed to the new red pin on the map, "this house is the meeting place for six of the eight captains of Rico's operation. They always keep a few out of every meeting should the place get shot up, but if you could take out the six that are there at the next meeting they have, it'll cripple Rico's business forever, and it could open up a serious chance to get bigger shots in at The Rican himself."

"Are you serious?" Jimmy couldn't believe it. "How did you possibly find this place?"

"I've got a few friends down in Bronzeville, I asked them if they'd seen any of Rico's guys around, and they all say they see a couple captains come and go from this one house once a week at least."

"You sure they're not just part of something, leading us all into a trap?"

"That's what I thought too, bro, but I went down there to watch myself. It's legit," James assured.

"You went down there? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"Don't worry about it, I was all spy-like about it, nobody could've possibly seen me. But I saw them, that's for sure. And, yeah, a few of Rico's captains all go into this one house, stay a few hours, then head out, simple as that. I've watched 'em do it a few times now, it's gotta be legit man, no way it's not."

"Well how am I supposed to take on all these guys?" Jimmy wondered. "Criminals don't become captains of a crime syndicate without some degree of defense experience. Not to mention the security they'll probably have."

"I'm not saying it's gonna be easy. It's not. But it's the best option, by far. All the other big places are way too protected by now to stand a chance. These guys think because they're stealthy about it they need less security, and you've got the chance to prove them wrong."

Jimmy peered down at the pin. It was a distance away from the Eisenhower Expressway, and he couldn't very easily take a cab all the way back after killing six people at the very least.

"I'll need a car," he said.

"Marco will take you again, I'm sure." James suggested.

"Hell no he won't, James. I'm surprised he drove us to Canal, but he's not going to take the GTO all the way to Bronzeville so I can go shoot people. And, either way, small security or not I probably can't do this without back up."

"Probably," James pointed out the word usage.

"By that I mean I need some damn back-up."

"Has Sam changed her mind yet?"

"I haven't heard anything about it in weeks. And for some reason or another she doesn't seem to mind being cooped up in that damn apartment all the time. I guess she's just the only person in the whole world entirely resistant to cabin fever."

"Well how's Marco been with keeping her company and keeping Mickey away?" James asked.

"That's another thing," Jimmy went on, "I haven't heard a thing from Mickey, or about Mickey in a few weeks. It's not like him to be this quiet about anything, especially not a situation like this. He's always got to be in somebody's business somewhere. He's always got to be in the loop."

"You think he's planning something?"

"I don't know. What the hell would he be planning if he was? Maybe a Christmas miracle happened and he finally decided to quit looking over everyone's shoulders and constantly trying to cut a deals with the bad guys."

"In his defense on that end, bro, a few of those sweet deals of his saved us a bloody war or two back in the day. That guy knows how to throw his money around where it counts."

"You say that like it's a good thing," Jimmy scoffed.

"In this business, it sometimes is. Don't blame your brother for trying to help in his own way. It might seem shallow to just fix things with money, but it's saved lives before. Why shouldn't he think that it'd work this time around too?"

"It kinda sounds like you're taking his side, James."

"All I'm saying is that it's just how he learned to deal with things the peaceful way. Would you rather have him be the bloodthirsty fear-monger you left ten years ago?" James spoke as if he knew he was bringing up a very good point.

"I don't want him to be that guy by any means and you know that," Jimmy replied. "But the money solving thing isn't exactly the best substitute. Even still, I think he forgets that I'm the one dealing with all this. I'm not exactly somebody who needs saving to begin with, you know?"

"Well I met you before you left. You barely spoke to anybody, I could tell you hated living around here. But you weren't a strong seeming person then, you just seemed like somebody who hated life. See, now you come back around and you're just this expert at all this shooting and tactics and such, how's he supposed to know that? He remembers you as the quiet little guy who sucked all the oxygen out of every room he was in."

"Gee, thanks for that," Jimmy said crossly.

"All I'm saying is, you never talked then, for good reason mind you. But you don't talk now either, and that's a bad thing, bro. If you want him to understand something, talk to him. He's stubborn, but I think more gets through to him then he gets credit for."

"You should've been a damn therapist, not a gun dealer," Jimmy joked. Although he knew James made more than a few good responses. Still he remained highly apprehensive about going to confront Mickey right now. What if he was planning something after all?

"Look," James replied, "can you go talk to Mickey as a favor for me at least?"

"Not happening, sorry. But I can send Marco out to do it. It's a lot safer for him out there anyway."

"I don't think the streets are safe for any Brigio brother right now."

"Maybe. But at least he doesn't have a group of very angry and very violent men hunting him."

"If you think he can do your job well enough, I won't argue," James shrugged, not really wanting to discuss the topic any further. There was a good enough reason he didn't become a therapist, he hated debating people.

"So," Jimmy returned to the Bronzeville subject, "if this all works out, what's the next move?"

"Well, it'll deal one hell of a blow to Rico, but he won't be down," James explained. "You're gonna need to hit their bar would be my guess."

"I thought that place was just as protected as the house."

"It is, but unlike the house, there's a guarantee some higher-ups are gonna be there. The house is a gamble. For all we know it could just be a bunch of low-level soldiers protecting a diversion. The bar on the other hand is _the_ place where Rico and Caldero's under-bosses and captains flock. It may be more secure than Guantanamo, but Caldero basically lives there. And that sure as hell isn't the case with Rico's place. There are more hideouts for Rico in this town than there are Bears fans. So the bar is the best next step. If you're lucky Cesar will be there, and it's a damn near certainty that every other necessary cog in their machine will be."

"So how do you suppose I do it?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" James smirked. "I suppose all we can do is get ideas, and then cross that bridge when we come to it."

"Well if this place is as guarded as you say it is-"

"It is," James interjected.

"Then I'm going to need back-up."

"We've been over this before, bro. Your only hope is Sam. So I suggest you get her ass back on our playing field, or we're dead in the water."

"It's a safe bet she's at the apartment right now, why don't we stop by and see if we can make any head way."

"I doubt it," James said skeptically. "That girl seems more stubborn then, well, Mickey."

"But, like you said James, even he can be taught, so why not her? Maybe we just need to talk to her," Jimmy made good use of James's advice.

With that, James gave a shrug and they both headed out. Jimmy was careful to tip his collar back up and put on his hat before they left.

### 18

Jimmy and James arrived at the apartment to find the main room oddly vacant. There was a sense of stillness in the air. But Jimmy knew better. He'd trusted his instincts for his entire life, and they brought up a peculiar suspicion in him now.

"Maybe she went out someplace with Marco," James suggested, assuming nobody was home.

"No, no," Jimmy shot down the idea, "Marco's not dumb enough to take a wanted woman out in the open. They're here."

"Well they must be playing one hell of a game of hide and seek."

Jimmy held up his hand quickly to signal a silence. James obliged the gesture, and all became quiet. Jimmy took a few small steps further into the room and began looking around slowly. After a moment, his head jerked towards a door across the room. The bedroom door. He walked with a noiseless but brisk pace that he hadn't used since his last raid in Israel.

He stopped at the door for a moment, hoping to hear whatever was happening on the other side. He heard nothing. James, who remained at his side despite an obvious amount of puzzlement, acted like he was going to speak up. Jimmy's hand rose up again and James stopped himself.

Slowly wrapping his fingers around the doorknob, Jimmy shot a look of preparedness to James, who didn't return the same gaze, although it looked like he was trying to. Jimmy swung the door open in one lighting fast motion. He still managed to not make a sound as he did.

Without a word, Jimmy simply threw his hands up and sent them limply to his sides in a gesture of disgust and disappointment at what he saw in the room.

There, Marco and Sam sat underneath the covers on either side of the bed, each with a cigarette in between their fingers. Sam made a fast attempt to cover up entirely, nearly burying herself under the covers. Marco, however, just sat confidently under what cover Sam had left for him and couldn't help but laugh at the situation he'd found himself in.

"Oh my God!" James exclaimed, catching a view of the room. "You're smoking in here?"

"Really?" Jimmy turned to him in disbelief, "We walk in on this," he waved his hands wildly at the two of them, "and all you care about is the smoking."

"Come on, Jimmy," James defended, "you left her in the care of Marco. What'd you think would happen?"

"Not this!"

"As soon as you told him he had to baby-sit her, I knew that this exact thing would happen. Sorry if I'm not too surprised."

"If you knew why didn't you tell me?"

"Because it works out for everybody," James explained. "Those two get to let off some steam, and I get to see the look on your face when you find out. It's a win-win!"

"James," Jimmy said sternly, thoroughly irritated, "go back to the coffee shop. I'll call you."

Without a protest, James wandered off and out of the apartment. Although he seemed bummed out he didn't get to stay and watch the repercussions.

"What the hell is the matter with you two?" Jimmy began lecturing loudly at the two of them as soon as he heard the door shut. "Now is probably the worst possible time for you two to get involved!"

"Chill out, Jimmy," Marco sighed, "it's not like we're doing that much. Although I do think I messed up my back last week."

"Last week? How long has this been going on?"

"Oh, I'd say about three-ish weeks," Marco estimated. He peered over at Sam for an approval, but her expression was still too shocked and surprised to be of much help.

"Three weeks," Jimmy shook his head in disappointment, "three weeks you've been at this and you never once thought this was a bad idea?"

"In the beginning there were some odd thoughts, but we got over that pretty quick,"

"Can I get dressed please?" Sam called out from her deep cavern of covers.

"Yes," Jimmy nodded, his voice still elevated in frustration. "Get dressed so I can yell at you some more," he stormed out of the room to give them a few minutes of privacy.

He spent those few minutes hoping they didn't abuse their temporary alone time. His bad feelings were eased when they both appeared, fully clothed, in the living room.

"Hi," Sam gave him a nervous wave.

"How exactly did this start?" Jimmy interrogated.

"We got a little past drunk on that first night and things kinda spiraled," Marco said.

"First night? You started this on the _first_ night?"

"Well, yeah. It didn't take long for us to run out of things to talk about."

"Couldn't you have found something else to do? Literally anything else?"

"Well, he tuned the piano," Sam added, pointing to the instrument.

"Yeah I did," Marco grinned, seeming to find some sort of innuendo hidden in her remark.

"Marco, get out," Jimmy aimed a stiff finger at the door.

"Where am I supposed to go?"

"I don't care, go to James's place. I'm sure he's dying to hear all about it by now."

"At least he'll be less uptight about it," Marco groaned as he followed the instruction. After a moment of thought he turned back and gave Sam a quick but full kiss before finally departing.

Jimmy shook his head again. He wasn't sure if Marco did that just to bother him, or if he meant something by it. But, truly, he was afraid of the answer.

"What the hell, Sam?" Jimmy said simply.

"In my defense, there's not much to do around here, and even for me standing around and doing math in my head gets old quick if I'm not stressed out."

"So sex is your solution? Lovely."

"Hey, blame James too. I look damn good in the clothes he made. That guy's an artist."

"God damn it, I ask him to do one thing, just one thing, and he fucks it up!"

"How did he fuck it up?"

"Fucking you is fucking it up! When that happens, attachments happen. When attachments happen they become a reason to not help me. When you don't help me, we all die!"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"I need you out there, Sam! That's what that means! I may know what I'm doing, but I can't do it by myself. How hard is it for you to see that I'm not some damn super solider? I know that I need help. I always had it in Israel and I got used to having it. And now, more than ever, I need it. Without you out there with me, this whole thing is going to come crashing down on us. Please, I need you. I've never begged for a damn thing in my life but that's what I'm doing now! I need you, we all need you, or we're all going to die."

Sam just stood, silent and somber for a second or two. She looked down at the floor and tried to process everything she was hearing. How had lives of everybody somehow ended up on her shoulders?

"I can't," she said softly. "I can't."

"You have to."

"I can't."

"You have to!"

"I can't okay!" she looked back up at Jimmy with a frightened ferocity. "I can't go out there! For your safety as well as mine I can't. And you can't ask me why. Ever."

Jimmy took a long step towards her, effectively closing the gap between them. Looking down at her with a fiery anger, he knew exactly what he was going to say next. He'd been waiting for an opportunity ever since he'd heard.

"Burchfield said you were bruised," he said, seeing a look of surprise come across her face. He felt almost proud knowing he had such a silver bullet against her, "around the scar and on your face. You're telling me now that I can't ask you about something like that? No. Tell me what the hell happened. You're telling me you can't go out there for the safety of you _and_ me? Obviously you're not safe, so just tell me what happened!"

"No," Sam objected swiftly.

"You know you're literally killing both of us, and Marco, and James now if you don't just start talking to me. This isn't just your life in the balance anymore. If you don't let me help, then it's over for all of us. Not only that, but Rico will go on kidnapping and torturing people. He can go on committing unspeakable horror to untold numbers of people!"

Sam didn't respond to that. She stood like a statue, so still it didn't even look like she was breathing. She didn't make a sound, trying her best to find something to say. Anything. But as time rolled passed, the silence began to make her nervous, and I no time her mind was filled with numbers and equations to fend off the stress.

Jimmy was waiting and watching for what felt like an eternity. But, in seeing that in fact he was making zero headway with Sam, he broke off his staring contest with her and stomped out of the apartment. He'd officially given up on trying to reach her, and now decided his time was better spent rearranging his strategy around this new obstacle.

With Jimmy gone, Sam was left having her contest with only the reflection returned to her off what was now the third mirror that hung on the wall across from her. She tried to look at herself for a while, hoping that would somehow take her mind away from all of this, to no avail.

Finding no other freedom for her mind, all Sam could do was collapse onto the couch and bury her face into it. How did all this boil down to her of all people? She's surrounded by soldiers and mobsters and criminals of all kinds, but some way or another the future of so many people landed on her.

She knew she couldn't go back out. Mickey would kill her, and probably Jimmy too if he found out. And if he could find her at Burchfield's warehouse he could find her anywhere. Alas, she knew Jimmy was right. Her life, as well as his, James's and Marco's all was in the balance.

But he was right about something else too. She did fuck up. Marco did too. She knew from the moment she spoke with Jimmy after Mickey found her that a final decision would have to be made. Would she go back out there with him, or hide away like Mickey told her? But ever since she and Marco had began their relationship she found it more and more quaint to simply hide away in the apartment and refrain from making a final and confident decision. And now, to make matters abundantly worse, emotion was noticeably tied into the relationship.

Since the fling started Sam liked to think of it as simply that, a fling. And she could always deny it to herself that it was becoming anything more than that. Until today that is. Marco turned around to kiss her on his way out. He hadn't done that before...ever. But now he'd gone out of his way to do it at the worst of all times. Now all she could do was sit alone on the couch and think about what she'd done. She fucked up.

-

Marco arrived at the coffeehouse shortly after James had gotten back. Business was beginning to trickle down as afternoon was becoming dusk. They took the slow business as an opportunity to talk outside of the dingy confines of the back room.

They sat at a table near the large front window. Even in the miniscule orange glow the all but absent sun radiated, their table still managed to be rather bright. The brightness was intensified slightly by the illumination given off by a detailed neon Santa Clause James had hung in the window.

"So," James started off their conversation, "how was it? It was great right?" he wondered with a big, toothy smile.

"Shut the hell up, James," Marco replied much more seriously, staring down at his folded hands atop the table.

"Come on, it doesn't hurt to wonder, does it?"

"I don't wanna talk about it, okay."

"Can I at least ask how it started?" James's humorous tone had started to wane, catching on to the mood of the conversation.

"We burned through a bottle of Blue Label together on that first night," Marco explained, reluctantly at first. "She came onto me, though. But, I guess it's kinda my fault for keeping it going. Either way, we woke up that next morning remembering it completely. Or, at least I did. But I'm guessing by the proof of liquor I've seen her drink before she probably did too. We didn't know what the hell we were gonna do. We didn't know if it was right, or wrong, or how long it would last us if we did continue it. I was the one who suggested we keep going with it. I figured that was a terrible idea then, but, to answer your question, it was pretty great."

"I knew it," James chuckled quietly.

"Anyway," Marco continued, "we decided to go on. I was just waiting for something to go wrong, for something to be said that'd start a fight that'd send it all falling apart. But wouldn't you know it that never happened. And now, this far into it and not a thing's gone wrong, I keep wondering if it's even possible for a fling to really last this long this easily. You know?"

"Based on my experiences, flings last a fourth. Or, in simpler terms, a forth of a month. A week, tops."

"It's been three times longer than that."

"Well I wouldn't call it a fling then."

"What the hell would you call it?"

"Most sane people in normal circumstances would call it a relationship," James joked. "But these are hardly normal circumstances and I'm doubting your sanity at the very least."

"But it can't go on, James. That's why it can't be a relationship."

"Why can't it go on exactly?"

"Because, like Jimmy said, now's pretty much the worst time for something like this," Marco sighed, knowing in his heart and his mind his brother was right. "I only really thought about it on the way here, but he's completely right on that, man. Maybe when all this is over we can try it again. I mean, after all this time together, I'm really starting to like her."

"Awe," James cooed, "is Marco Brigio falling in love with this girl?"

"Now isn't the time for that, James," Marco replied, the sternness returning to his voice. "Like I said, we can sort all this out when this war is over."

"Here's hoping we're all still alive."

"But I should probably talk to Sam about all this, make sure she feels the same way. And hopefully she'll be just as accepting of the idea."

"In the mean time," James got up from his seat, "I've got that package for you if you still want it. Might be a nice way to put your relationship on pause if you ask me."

"Oh, James, always the salesman."

"So, do you want it? Because I could get a pretty penny for it on the markets."

"Yeah, I'll take it. Like you said, a nice way to hit pause."

"Let's hope she likes it as much as you and I do. Because, I don't know about you, but I adore the damn thing. If she thinks the clothes I gave her are nice, this is like the Mona Lisa of things that kill people."

"I'm sure she'll warm up to it," Marco assured. "Hatred for guns or not, it'll be one hell of an improvement."

"She won't have a hatred after this, man, trust me. She'll love it."

### 19

Mickey lounged on a wicker chair on his back patio. He puffed a cigar and watched the smoke twirl up like synchronized ribbons before dissipating into the cold night air. He had to wear his thickest coat to bear sitting outside. But he didn't mind, the back deck of his home was the most peaceful place Mickey could imagine, and it did him good to come out and think over any situation he debated on.

"Mickey," Sherman came out, interrupting the serenity.

"Go away Lath," Mickey called to his consigliere.

"Sorry, Mickey, but I've been going away now for the past three weeks."

"And now you can go away again."

"Rico's been trying to call you for days."

"The heat's not off him yet, he can wait."

"No," Sherman's voice went lower, almost dark, "no he can't. He firebombed our restaurant on State Street half an hour ago. Time's up."

Mickey finally turned around to face Sherman. He could see by facial expression alone that he was dead serious. Turning back around and slinking down in his chair, Mickey needed to think more than ever now. He flicked some ash off his cigar and watched the red embers fall into the snow.

"How the hell am I supposed to do it, Lathrop?" he sighed. "I know I have to, I just don't know how."

Sherman trudged over and threw the white envelope down in Mickey's lap.

"That's how, in case you forgot."

With the reflexes of an oak tree, Mickey opened it up and leafed through the photos again. A disheartening frown appeared on his face.

"Have you been talking to Rico when he's called?" his voice grew somber.

"Yes, and I know what you're going to ask. There's no other way. This has to happen. Not just one thing or another, all of it."

Mickey had spent the past weeks preparing himself as much as he could for when the time came. The time was here now, and he wasn't anywhere close to ready yet.

"Okay," Mickey got up from his chair, being careful not to slip on the slick porch wood, "when?"

"Tonight." Sherman spoke straightly.

That word nearly sent Mickey falling right back into his seat. He hoped he could have a few days to get his mind in order. Those few days were now a few hours, possibly less than that. His head sunk and he rubbed his forehead.

"Oh, God,"

"We have an hour, at most, before we need to leave," Sherman explained, trying to be as delicate as possible.

"I can't," Mickey protested.

"Can't isn't an option, Mickey."

"I can't."

"Listen," Sherman took a step forward and braced his hands to Mickey's shoulders in an odd conjunction of comfort and confrontation, "I know you don't want to hear this, but now is the time. If we let this go on, Rico will go down, no matter how hard he can try to convince everyone he won't. And when he goes, he'll be damn sure to take us and our whole damn business with him. If Jimmy isn't stopped soon, everything we've ever built will crumble. The empire countless men have died to preserve is going to die at the hands of one."

"This isn't just about the business," Mickey sneered.

"Of course it isn't" Sherman nodded. "This is about us too, and everyone who works with us for that matter. The people who grew up respecting you, and who live to serve you, they're all going to either die on the streets or die in prison unless we act right now. But this is your choice to make, not mine. I want you to know it's the right thing to do, Mickey. So many people are depending on you right now. Don't waste this chance. Act!"

Without a sound, Mickey broke away from Sherman's grasp and meandered towards the door.

"I just need to be alone for a while," he murmured.

"Everything you've worked for is waiting on you! Act!" Sherman called to him as he disappeared into the house.

Mickey wandered into the study and locked the door behind him. He collapsed into his chair and flipped through the photos once again. As he looked them over more and more detail began to sink in. The more detailed the images got in his mind, the more real the situation became, and the more real the situation got, the more his feelings flipped from a quiet depression into a simmering distain. The frown quickly became a furious scowl as rage boiled over inside him.

He turned his attention to the family photo on the desk; still just a naked picture after he'd shattered the frame. It lay face down at the far corner of the cluttered workspace. He picked it up; afraid of how it might look to him. The faces that stared back at him no longer passed hatred on him. The piercing brown eyes of toddler Marco couldn't break through him now. He could stare right back at the photo and pass his own sense of hate onto each and every one of them.

Jimmy wasn't his brother anymore; he had no right to be in any family portrait. This was Mickey's business, Mickey's empire, what right did he have to come into town and jeopardize it? Does he think he can be the hero by avenging Anna or bringing down The Rican? Men like that, with that kind of unbroken aspiration are dangerous. They do damage wherever they go, for causes that are ultimately hopeless, just like the pursuit of Rico, Mickey figured. And what's more, those aspirations are like a virus, they spread like wildfire.

Jimmy was a dangerous man, and he was out spreading his disease. Letting him continue his rampage would be like letting Small Pox loose in the city. It would spell the end for Mickey, and Sherman, and everybody they associate with, just like Sherman said. Hundreds, if not thousands of people would go away for life, or worse, if this went on.

But now Jimmy was a ghost. Lying low was doing him well. Mickey sure as hell didn't know where he'd gone to, nor did Lathrop or Rico. Mickey knew what he had to do. For the sake of his business and for the people in it, he had to act.

He glared back down at the pictures from the envelope spread across his lap. The fury inside him couldn't be contained any further. He shot his head back up and stared into the eyes of the kids in the portrait once again. The photo crinkled as his fist closed around it. He crushed it in between his fingers until his knuckles went white.

With a ferocious growl, Mickey leapt up from his seat and hurled his arm across the desk. All the clutter immediately vanished from sight as it went crashing to the ground. Lamps, pictures, papers, and a crystal whiskey decanter all piled up into a broken and chaotic mess below.

Looking up from the desk, Mickey spotted the antique cavalry saber mounted above the door. He remembered the lupara, still sitting pretty on his mantle. His mind wandered to the coach gun above his bed, and to the New Model Army on display in the hall. But then, his mind fixed itself on one thing.

Mickey reached gently below the desk and pulled out the thin middle drawer beneath him. In the center of the drawer sat an aged metal box. He unhinged it and opened it up lightly. There, lying in a velvet tapestry was the gun of his father's, and the one that began his extensive collection: a mint-condition Smith and Wesson Number Three. The grip was original, the metal had patina but still gleamed like new, and all the parts ran in perfect harmony.

He lifted it with care from its case and looked it over with great pride. His finger inched its way up to the hammer and he cocked it back. Mickey almost laughed as he heard the familiar click of it locking in place.

One more look at the photos from the envelope, now strewn on the floor, did cause him to laugh a little. His doubts in what had to be done were fading fast. He was ready to follow Sherman's advice. No more of his businesses would burn, and no more of his men would die. He knew what he had to do and he knew exactly how to do it.

### 20

Marco strutted through the snow on his journey back to the apartment. He was always careful to park several blocks away from the building, not wanting to attract attention to the actual safe house. No matter where he was, his car seemed to stand out.

Despite the weather, Marco didn't mind walking. He never did. Before he'd gotten his car that was how he'd gotten from place to place. He took pride in the running joke that he'd never seen the inside of a bus or taxicab, because, in reality, he never had.

His mother detested his constant walks. She scolded him whenever he went out at night when he was younger, always saying something along the lines of, 'you'll get mugged or murdered out there!'. But Marco shrugged all the lectures off, throughout every single walk he'd taken, day or night, not once had anything terrible happened. Needless to say, by now he was confident nothing ever would. So he walked in a slow stroll, even saying hello to a few shady-looking strangers he passed on his way.

He wasn't too fond of coats either, which also drove his mother up the wall. Every winter he could remember he was the only one who'd be outside in short sleeves. Cold never bothered him too much. He found that, if his hands were kept warm, his arms didn't matter much. So now, while one of his hands was stuffed into his pocket for warmth, the other was forced to brave the elements in order to carry the small metal case at his side. James was certainly right when he said she'd love it. Or, at least Marco hoped he was.

When he got up to the apartment Marco was sure to enter cautiously, not sure how Jimmy would react to his returning. He was surprised when he found him to be nowhere in sight.

Sam was sitting quietly on the couch, but stood up when she heard the door open.

"You can't be here," she spoke softly but commandingly.

"Look, I just came to say something," Marco tried to explain.

"We can't keep doing this."

"That's exactly what I came here to say!"

"Really?"

"Yes! I talked with James about it and...and he gives pretty good advice," Marco smiled.

"What'd he say?"

"He basically just reaffirmed my thoughts. But still, he agreed that we couldn't do this now, that we need to wait if we're going to go any further. Just until all of this is over."

"Exactly!" Sam exclaimed. "Wait, further? What's further?"

"Well," Marco stuttered at first, now nervous that his feelings weren't mutual, "I was hoping this didn't have to be an ending, that we could just...put it on a pause."

"A pause?"

"Yeah, you know, just put things on hold until it better suits us."

"That doesn't sound like it'd work out too well."

"Isn't it worth a shot though? I don't want this to end. Not just the sex either, I don't want this," Marco made quick back and forth gestures between the two of them to signify their togetherness, "to end."

"I don't want this," She recreated his gesture comically, "to end either. But are you sure it won't end in the pause anyway?"

"I promise it won't. And besides, I don't think either of us have the time to date other people right now," Marco laughed.

"But our feelings could go away in that time. Who knows how long this whole thing's going to last? It could be two more weeks, or two more months. Or more still. Can you honestly guarantee me that neither of us will lose interest for some reason or another in that time?"

"No. I guess we've just gotta have a little hope."

"A little hope," Sam nodded, not sure what to think.

"Isn't that what a relationship is all about anyway? Having a little hope in the other person to be just as committed as you are?"

"Can I think about it?"

"Sure, take all the time you need. In the mean time," Marco led her quickly over to the couch and they both sat down, "I got this made for you," he set the metal case on her lap.

"What is it?" she wondered.

"It's just a gift is all. And don't think of it as me trying to sway you to stay. I had this made a few days ago, I was going to give it to you anyway. A Christmas gift, I suppose."

Sam lifted the top slowly, not entirely sure what to expect. She literally gasped when she caught a glimpse of the box's contents.

"Oh my God," she said breathlessly.

There, lying in a well fitting custom cutout, was a new pistol. But this wasn't just any pistol. All the metal, from the muzzle to the handle, was coated in a flawless satin black. The trigger and hammer were a gleaming gold. The grips were made of resplendent white ivory. Nearly every side and surface of the weapon was elegantly engraved with detailed vine and floral designs, all of which were decorated with their own gold. The gun looked like that of royalty, a priceless treasure.

"Do you like it?" Marco wondered.

"I," Sam paused as she lifted it from the case, "I love it," She said with a large, appreciative smile gracing her face. She never thought she'd say that about a gun. But to her it didn't look like a weapon, it looked like a very large, very beautiful piece of jewelry.

"It's a forty-five, a bit more kick to it, but you should be able to handle it," Marco explained.

"I don't even know if I should fire it at all."

"Come on, you gotta. Don't think of it as a decoration, think of it as a personal statement to the person you're shooting it at. If they survive, I'd put good money on the fact that they'd never forget the time they got shot down by a gun that's worth more than their life."

"How much does it cost?"

"Don't you worry about that. James gave me a deal on it anyhow, so I probably could only give you a rough estimate."

"It's wonderful," Sam said quietly, almost silenced by the amazement she felt as she looked it over. "I never thought in a million years I'd actually like a gun. But I love this. Thank you so much," She gave Marco a snug embrace.

"It's my pleasure, honestly. I just remembered how you hated the first gun, and when you scuffed it, I took that as an invitation to get you a new one. A better one."

"It's heavy," Sam noticed as she held the gilded gun in firing position.

"Yeah, it's not the lightest pistol ever made. But it's bearable, right?"

"Definitely."

Just then, the door swung open again. Jimmy sauntered in and immediately snarled at the sight of Marco.

"No," he shook his head, "get out."

"Just a sec," Marco said as they both stood up, "I just came by to talk to her about ending the relationship."

"Did you?" Jimmy turned to Sam for assurance.

"We decided to put the whole thing on pause. Until all this Rico stuff is done with." she explained.

Marco turned to her with a look of high-spirited surprise. She returned a confirming gaze with a warm smile to go with it.

"Pause, huh?" Jimmy said. "Just as long as we can keep this relationship from complicating this already terrible situation, I'll support it."

"Really?" Sam asked.

"Really. Honestly I don't think you two make the worst couple in the world. But you did choose the worst time in the world to become one."

"We realize that," Marco replied.

"Does that mean you'll come back out with me?" Jimmy asked Sam.

"I don't know, Jimmy," she replied with a shrug. "I just don't know if I can."

Jimmy let out a loud sigh, almost a groan, at that response.

"Look," Marco interjected, "I'm more than happy to help you in any way that doesn't put me or my car in anymore imminent danger. If I get killed out there, Mickey and Rico go into full-scale war. If my car gets killed out there, you and me go into full-scale war."

"Fine," Jimmy chuckled. "I would kill for some of Grandpa James's coffee right now, could you go get some? And while you're there pick up some more of those fire-breathing shotgun shells. I kind of like those."

"You got it, bro," Marco gave his brother a single pat on the shoulder before heading out. He almost stopped to turn back and give Sam another departing kiss, but quickly paused. "How many do you want?" he wondered at Jimmy.

"Um," Jimmy thought for a moment, not exactly sure himself, "how expensive are they?"

"No clue."

"Just call me when you get there, alright?"

"Sure will," Marco replied before finally stepping out the door.

Once Marco had gone, Jimmy turned his attention to Sam.

"So...pause?"

"Yeah, pause," she nodded. "I think it'll work out."

"I hope so. One of the Brigio boys should probably find somebody to settle down with."

"What makes you think that'll happen?"

"I don't know. I'm just saying there's a chance is all, and that's more than I've had. I move around too much, and Mickey is too much of a sociopath to meet anybody."

"I think it's a little early still to get your hopes that high up," Sam said. "So, where'd you go off to?"

"I just went to roof to get a little air," Jimmy replied. "I tell ya, a few minutes on the roof and so many things got resolved."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, I come down to find that you and Marco got your relationship thing figured out, for the time being at least. And for the first time you've replied to my question of coming back out to the field with something other than no."

"Don't hold your breath."

"I'm just saying it's an improvement," Jimmy said. He then took notice of the metal gun case Sam had set on the coffee table when she'd gotten up. "What's that?" he wondered, pointing at the case.

"Oh, wait till you see this," she said exuberantly, striding over to the case. She pulled out the gun and gave a wave-like gesture to show it off. "Isn't it great! Marco got it made for me."

"That's," Jimmy paused, "the ugliest damn thing I've ever seen," he laughed.

"Hey, I like it," Sam retorted. "And besides, what do you know about what looks good?"

"I know how guns are supposed to look, and it's not like that. It looks like something made for a queen."

"Well sometimes it doesn't hurt to let a girl feel like a queen."

"So you're going to feel like a queen every time you kill somebody now, is that what you're saying?"

"No. But I'm saying I like it a lot better than the other gun. And shouldn't I like a gun if I'm supposed to be using it?"

"Well if you don't come back out into the fight with me you won't have to use it," Jimmy pointed out.

"Oh forget it," said Sam. "I'm going to bed," she put the gun back into the case and took it with her as she headed to her bedroom, "goodnight."

"Night," Jimmy replied as he watched her disappear into the room.

As the minutes passed in his wait for Marco's call, Jimmy became increasingly impatient. He'd set his phone out on the table, like he often did when he was expecting a call from somebody, and stared at it contently.

Marco was never the one to be fashionable early, but this was getting ridiculous. Jimmy had to control himself to keep from pacing around the room in frustration. He knew it was just coffee and bullets, but he never liked not getting an expected call. So he sat and drummed his fingers on the coffee table as softly as he could, not wanting to disturb Sam. After a while longer he even tried her numbers trick, to no avail.

Just then, his phone lit up, as did his eyes. His phone always brightened a few seconds before it rang, giving him time to pick it up in time to keep it from vibrating loudly against the table. He looked at the contact calling and was instantly confused and almost shocked.

It was Mickey.

He answered it after a few rings, not exactly sure what his eldest brother wanted, or what he'd say to him.

"Hello?"

" _Jimmy,"_ Mickey's voice replied lowly.

"Can this wait, Mickey, I'm expecting a call from somebody."

" _No Jimmy, no it can't."_

"Fine, but if I miss the call because of you you'll have no idea how pissed I'll be. You know I hate missing calls."

" _Jimmy can you just shut the hell up for just a minute,"_ Mickey said in a cold tone.

"Excuse me?" Jimmy replied, offended.

" _It's about Marco."_

"Marco? What's that guy been up to?" Jimmy remembered to keep up the lie.

" _Jimmy..."_ Mickey paused, _"Jimmy he's gone."_

"What?" Jimmy only had an idea of what that meant, and prayed he wasn't right.

" _I don't know what else to say. He's gone. Rico's guys got him on the street not long ago. They hit James's place too. This is a fucking disaster Jimmy. I need you to meet me at the house, can you do that?"_

Jimmy's head sunk into his hand. He tried to keep himself contained. But the more he tried, the harder it became.

"Oh God," he whispered to himself, "oh fuck."

" _Jimmy?"_

"No. No Mickey I can't meet you. I shouldn't be going anywhere now. Not after this. Marco. Oh, Jesus, Marco...and James. Oh fuck."

" _Jimmy, listen-"_ Mickey started to say, but Jimmy ended the call and tossed the phone on the table.

Jimmy shifted around, not sure what to do or where to go. He continued to try his best to bottle his emotion. But it didn't take long for him to succumb. Still trying to be as quiet as he could, Jimmy sobbed. Wanting badly to break down, he knew he had to silence himself. But then his eyes came upon the door to the patio. Without a moments hesitation he slunk out into the cold, windy night.

He used the railing to support himself at first, finding it rather easy to just stare over at the street and let his emotion fall over the edge.

"Oh God," Jimmy wept, burying his head into his hands.

His legs began to feel weaker as his anguish took over. Unable to stand, he simply let his legs buckle and he slid to the ground. There he sat, alone and unsure of the future.

Jimmy sat there and sobbed for what felt like hours. He sat still even as it began to snow. The brisk winds stung his skin, and for a while he thought his tears would begin to freeze. But still he didn't move. He didn't have any place else to go.

As his emotions leveled themselves in a state of stable sorrow he began to think about Sam. How could he possibly tell her about this? He didn't want to think about it, but the thought wouldn't leave his head, which caused him more grief. He wanted to get up and go wake her so she could know. That's what he needed to do. But still he didn't move. Jimmy tried his best to muster up enough energy and motivation to get up and support her tears. His head fell onto his knees, he couldn't even support his own sadness, much less hers.

He sat like that for another eternity or two. For a moment he even contemplated trying to sleep on the ice-cold concrete. But a familiar sound broke his melancholic trance. He shut his eyes in despair and hoped it was just his imagination. It wasn't.

The sound he'd heard was the patio door opening, and as he lifted his head off his knees he saw a sleepy-looking Sam standing before him. At this point he grabbed the railing and used his arms to lift himself up, still not sure if he could collect enough strength to use his legs for anything. But, as luck would have it, Jimmy stood up and faced his friend, not in any way prepared to tell her what had happened.

"What are you doing out here, it's freezing," she said, not noticing the grief on his face through the darkness. "Has Marco gotten back with the coffee yet, I could seriously use some."

Jimmy brought his hand up to his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to stay collected.

"Jimmy?" she continued. He looked up at her again and this time around she almost instantly noticed the pure agony his expression showed. "Jimmy," she repeated, this time with a much more concerned uneasiness, "he's coming back, right?"

Jimmy didn't say a word. He took a few slow and shaky steps towards her. She could see all the details of his anguish now. He didn't have to speak. She knew.

"No," she shook her head, her voice beginning to crack, "no, no, no," she began to cry, and she took a step towards Jimmy and collapsed into his chest. He was quick to catch her. He held her as close and as tight as he could, and she did the same.

He stood firmly and held her weight as her cries turned to wails. At first he continued trying to suppress his grief, but found it once again to be a fruitless effort.

As they stood in sorrow together, Jimmy thought deeper into their situation. Marco was the only person who could go out into the city freely, and keep Mickey at bay. James had all the weaponry, and all the intel on Rico. Their connection to the outside was lost, their connection to weapons was lost, and their connection to strategy was lost. Jimmy wept once more. In his mind, there was no hope left.

### Click here to read Book 2 of The Brigio Series:

 Parabellum: Part II

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### About the Author

Mitchell Goth currently resides in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. When not writing, he spends his time investigating the paranormal and indulging in a good book or movie.

### Acknowledgements

First and foremost, of course, I'd like to thank my family and friends for giving their support (full or otherwise) to this lengthy and stressful project. I'd like to thank all of you for praising what you felt needed praise and critiquing what you felt needed to be changed. It was all greatly appreciated.

Secondly, I would like to extend my appreciation towards everyone who was involved directly with the production of this book, be it in the creative or publication process. Thanks go to all my beta-readers who helped fine-tune the rough drafts I gave them. I also want to give my appreciation to Abbey, my dedicated proofreader and cover designer. In addition, I would like to thank a fellow author who helped me out in the publication development and marketing stage of the book's production, Dan Fitzsimons.
