I have no idea what to call this.

Chapter 0: Prologue

	“Boss?”
	It was a cold, somber winter evening. I was sitting in my chair, my hands steepled as I took in the bad news. Today was supposed to be a good day, but the kid in front of me was actively darkening my mood with his presence. He was scrawny and barely a day over seventeen, and his hair stuck up in spikes that were colored in different shades. He was little more than a grunt; too stupid to see the bigger picture and too incompetent to do anything but pack heat. And this kid was in the middle of a story that couldn't ever have a good ending.
	I cleared my throat. “How in the hell did this happen?”
	The kid's eyes were all over the place, and he was clenching his fists on and off.
	“I don't know, boss. They just showed up out of nowhere and raided the safe house. They had a warrant and stuff, so it was all official-like. Danny and James tried to fight back, but they were killed in the blink of an eye. Some other guys got arrested trying to fight back too. They took everything, and it was all the rest of us could do to make ourselves scarce.”
	I stared coldly at him. “Ten of your boys guarding the safehouse couldn't stand up to three cops?”
	The kid's jaws worked furiously, trying to get the words out. “They had better guns than us, boss. It was suicide to try, and you can ask Danny and James how well that worked out.”
	“So, what I'm given to understand is this. Three Morgenian cops showed up at four in the afternoon. They flashed a warrant at your crew. Two of your boys got shot in the face trying to kill them. Several more got arrested. The safehouse that I told you was important to my operations got taken over. None of the cops were harmed by so much as a stiff breeze. And you're one of five who came back to tell the tale.”
	The kid took a step back. Asshole probably wasn't even aware of it.
	“...yes, boss?”
	Anger rose from my belly. I wanted so badly to hurt something right now, but as stupid as this mouth-breathing moron was, teaching him respect via percussive maintenance was not in my best interest. I attempted to squash this particular violent urge by taking deep breaths and slowly, very very slowly, counting to ten.
	At the count of ten, I re-examined how I felt. I found that I didn't want to brutalize the kid in front of me, but it was a very near thing.
	I rose slowly from my chair, smiling widely.
	“Richie Rich, I don't believe I've emphasized the importance of that safehouse enough to you.”
	Richard---that was his name---gulped loudly.
	“You see, when I tell you something is  important to me, I'm not talking with my tongue in my cheek. I'm not having fun with you. I'm not telling a joke. I mean what I say. It is important to me. After all, that safehouse alone had a hundred thousand dollars worth of drugs, on top of a counterfeiting machine and a stockpile of weapons. Do you know how expensive it is to own a counterfeiting machine, let alone how much it costs to employ an expert counterfeiter who can make these things from scratch? How much it costs to even have a weapons stockpile?”
	The kid shook his head slowly.
	I laughed derisively. “Of course. You don't know. And I bet your boys don't know, either. Bet you just figured I was kidding when I said this safehouse was important and futzed around doing nothing. Bet you boys had a good laugh over it. 'Haha, check out this funny joke Boss just told me!' Something stupid like that. So you didn't actually take it seriously.
	“Which would explain why, at four in the afternoon,” I said, my voice steadily rising in heat and volume, “when the cops came calling, instead of just laughing in their faces and shooting first when they flashed a warrant at your faces, your crew just sat there with your thumbs up your asses, wondering if I was playing a joke on you! And when they started using their muscle, you ran like a cockroach instead of fighting back with everything you had! BET YOU REALIZED IT WASN'T A GODDAMN JOKE AFTER THE COPS SHOWED UP, HUH?! YOU MAGGOT-BRAINED, PANTS-PISSING, MOUTH-BREATHING MOROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!”
	I banged my fist on the table, leaving another dent in the wood. In my anger, I had accidentally set my fist on fire with magic. Fortunately, the fire wasn't hot enough to burn the wood outright, but a few embers came to life before my eyes, threatening to blossom into a fire. I impatiently brushed them off and stared daggers at Richard, who had fell to the floor and was gibbering incoherently. And of course he pissed his pants. Good job.
	“Get the hell out of my office before I get violent, Richie Rich. Just looking at you makes me sick.”
	The kid seemingly snapped back to reality and scurried out of my office as fast as he could, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. I sighed out loud as I willed the fire to dissipate from my fist and I tried to think objectively about the situation. The fire hissed, leaving behind a bit of scentless smoke.
	Okay. So I lost a safehouse and five people. I couldn't replace the safehouse, but I had seven other safehouses. And while this particular safehouse was a blow to my income, I could make up the difference in a month with change to spare. The Morgenians might be some badass super-power nation or whatever, but they're not omniscient; they don't know where the rest of my safehouses are. And I can always replace the guys I lost with new blood. It's not like there's a shortage of that on the streets. My name still carries weight, after all.
	Goddamn Morgenians. Self-righteous bastards think they're the center of the world. But they got another think coming. They won't be so arrogant when I, the esteemed Don Baird Carmine, single-handedly dismantle Morgen from the ground up with my criminal empire. They'll be begging for their lives as I look down upon them and pull the trigger on their bullshit society.
	For you see, it takes two to play this game. And in this game, the winner takes all.

---

	After taking a moment to compose myself, I left my office, shutting the door behind me. I suspected that I would need another table shortly; it had been dented several times over the months, and it looked as if it would break if I banged it forcefully again. I suspected that would happen sooner or later, especially with how this day was going.
	First things first, though. I walked down from the third floor of my mansion to the second to see my cash guy. It's not that I don't have a head for numbers, but running a criminal empire shares a lot of similarities with typical high-end businesses. Naturally, this meant a lot of things demanded my attention, and I could hardly spare all of my time tending to these things while still staying on top of the underworld. So, I have a rough estimate of how much my property is worth, and I have a cash guy to deal with the hard cash my operations rake in.
	I knocked twice on the door. I heard a chair falling to the ground, then hurried footsteps, then the door opened.
	Leigh, my cash guy, is an oddball. He's a guy in his late twenties and used to work as a banking clerk in Morgen before the government screwed him. Though, how they screwed him is a mystery, and he won't ever talk about it in detail. I just assumed they fired him and put him out on the street with nothing except the clothes on his back. He's the best cash guy I know, a practical wizard with the numbers, and he owes me a debt, but he's so goddamn weird that sometimes I regret having to deal with his company. Right now, I was looking at a mousy-haired guy who hadn't cleaned his glasses in god knew how long.
	“Oh, oh, Don Carmine! What brings a man of your great status here to my humble abode?”
	Leigh shook my hand with both hands vigorously. I attempted to ignore it as I took in the office of the cash guy. The office was a complete mess; books were strewn on the floor, papers were stacked up or hanging from random places, and paper cranes were hanging from the ceiling. How the hell he ever got anything done here was a mystery.
	“Settle down, Four Eyes. You heard about the safehouse getting taken over by the cops, right?”
	Leigh suddenly broke the handshake and bowed deeply.
	“Oh yes, I heard about it. Quite the tragedy, indeed. I suspect you'll be wanting a damage report?”
	“Yes.”
	“Well then---”
	Leigh's eyes widened and he put a finger in the air.
	“Ah! I have just thought of a great riddle. Will you hear it, Don Carmine?”
	I rolled my eyes. I was half-hoping not to deal with this shit, but it was too much to hope for, apparently.
	“Ugh. If I answer your riddle, do I get what I want, Four Eyes?”
	“Certainly. What walks on four legs, then two legs, then three legs?”
	I gave him a blank stare.
	“...a dog?”
	“Nono, esteemed Don Carmine, it is a human being. You see, a baby, when it is born into this world, crawls on four legs. Then a---”
	“Goddammit, Four Eyes, I pay you to deal with my money, not to screw with my head. What do you got for me?”
	Leigh nodded soberly and rummaged around his office for a few minutes. He let out a little gasp as he found what he was looking for and was staring at the paper intently.
	“Right then. So, the safehouse. You had four kilograms of illegal contraband, one counterfeiting machine, fifty revolvers, twenty automatic rifles, ten packages of explosive material and two grenade launchers in that safehouse alone.”
	I tapped my foot and nodded.
	“The illegal contraband is valued at one hundred thousand dollars on the street. Then, the counterfeiting machine would be valued at twenty thousand dollars. Our esteemed counterfeiter is missing the parts required to construct another machine in short order, and requires thirty thousand before he will consider the request, so that would be fifty thousand.
	“Finally, the weapons. One hundred dollars per revolver times fifty is five thousand. Six hundred per rifle would be twelve thousand. One thousand per package of explosive material would be ten thousand. And six thousand per grenade launcher would be twelve thousand.
	“In total, this unfortunate takeover would cost you exactly one hundred and eighty-nine thousand, esteemed Don Carmine. If you like, I can estimate how much that would be worth in other regions---”
	“God no. You've done more than enough here, Four Eyes. Good work.”
	Leigh smiled widely. That smile was way off-putting.
	“Thank you, Don Carmine.”
	I sighed. “If that's all, I'll be on---”
	“Ah! Before you go, I made a paper crane for when you visited again. Give me a second...”
	Leigh uprighted a chair, then snatched a hanging paper crane from the ceiling and gave it to me. It was pink this time around, and I have to admit, Leigh makes some good paper cranes. But what the hell am I going to do with a paper crane?
	“Do you like it, Don Carmine? It is for good luck in your soon-to-be legendary ventures, you see.”
	“...thanks. We good here?”
	“Certainly! I wouldn't wish to take up more of your valuable time, great and esteemed Don Carmine.”
	I nodded.
	“Don't kill yourself with these numbers, you hear?”
	And with that, I was on my way.
	Goddamn stupid weirdo garbage crap.

---

	I mulled over the damage report as I walked down the stairs to the first floor. As it was, my empire was worth a little over three million after expenses. This might sound like a lot, but it really isn't. And losing that one safehouse was inconvenient, as I was planning to do a hostile takeover of one of the criminal families tonight.
	You see, one of my boys was caught snitching to the Rooke family, on top of skimming from the monthly payday. Not only was I actively earning less than I should have, this stupid asshole also leaked secrets to the Rookes. I have never liked the Rookes ever since they came into the scene, but as of late, they had the privilege of looking strong and put-together, while I just looked like I was losing my touch. That had to change soon.
	I was still lost in thought when one of my boys bumped into me.
	I growled in anger.“Dammit, kid, use your eyes once in a while!”
	The kid just looked up at me, clearly not feeling any remorse.
	“Sorry, Boss. Just thought you should know---there's a kid asking about you downstairs.”
	“Yeah? Why the hell should I care?”
	“Says he wants to talk to you. I think you should hear him out.”
	I could've taken him to task for tone alone, but something about how he said the words made me think twice.
	“Is that right? All right, I'll go see whatever he wants, then. By the way, could you take this paper crane?”
	I handed it off to the kid. He looked at it suspiciously.
	“What for?”
	“It's uh...something to do with good luck or whatever. Look, just take it and go, kid.”
	The kid gave me a confused look and nodded slowly, then ran up the stairs. I walked down, feeling curious about whatever the mystery kid wanted. It's not as if the day could have gone any worse at this point.
	I spied the kid from the balcony I was standing on. From a distance, he didn't look like much.
	“Well, kid,” I shouted as I scaled down the steps to get a better look at what I was dealing with. “What can I help you with?”
	The kid's voice rang out, as if he was waiting for this moment.
	“You're Don Carmine, aren't you?”
	I bowed dramatically. “In the flesh.”
	I got a closer look at the kid. He still didn't really look like much; decently tall for his age, probably sixteen or something, and his hair was a natural black, not stupidly dyed or anything. The eyes were what got me, though; they were a piercing blue that said more about what I was dealing with than the brief exchange we had. It felt as if he was staring through me, as if he were looking past the surface to find...something. Most kids on the street didn't have that kind of look.
	The kid looked me over.
	“I've heard of your name on the streets. They say you're a tough Don, that you're a man to watch out for. That you're going to be on top real soon.”
	I felt a smile creeping up. “That's what they're saying, huh?”
	“Yeah. That's why I want to join your family.”
	I raised an eyebrow. Not ten minutes after I realized I needed more people, here comes this kid out of nowhere. Maybe there was some truth to what Leigh was saying just now, with that paper crane he had given me.
	But then again, I've gotten similar requests from kids who thought they wanted to be hard gangsters, but couldn't handle it when they were faced with hard reality. And it's not like Leigh's paper cranes were predictive of anything; he had no magic that I knew of, and even a broken clock is right twice a day. I had to get a sense of the kid's spirit, figure out if he was for real.
	“Hmph. So why do you want to join my family again?”
	The kid was lost in thought for a few seconds.
	“Let's put it this way. The Morgenian bastards put my family behind bars when I was eight. Then I was tossed into the streets and forced to fend for myself. I've seen a lot of bad things since; I've seen friends get killed by Morgenians and criminals alike, I've had to beg for weeks just to get scraps, and I've had no home for the past few years. I've lived for eight years feeling like shit because I was nobody and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. I'm tired of feeling that way, and I'd rather throw my lot in with a crew that isn't just full of shit and won't break into pieces a month from now. That's why I want to join your family.”
	I made a contemplative sound.
	“Bold words, kid. But I'm telling you up front, I've heard a lot of people say similar things thinking they want to be hard, that they can handle the thug life. But personally, I don't put much stock in words. Seen the worst cowards talk a lot of bullshit trying to trick people into thinking they were badass. So, you really want to join my family? I have to know for certain that you aren't just talking bullshit, that you can handle it. Follow me.”
	The kid fell in line as I led him through a nearby door, then walked down a hallway and knocked on a door in the middle of the hallway.
	It opened. A kid with a wild mane of green hair and several scars on his cheeks opened the door.
	“You done with him yet?”
	Scarface grinned wolfishly, clearly very proud of himself. “Yeah. I do really good work, boss. No one's gonna recognize his face.”
	Then his gaze snapped to the kid with blue eyes and Scarface's head jerked towards him.
	“Who's he?”
	“The kid's a potential recruit. I want to show him something.”
	Scarface scoffed. “Gotcha, boss.”
	Then he stepped out of the doorway, and we walked in. The room was a bare square that was lit with a single orange light bulb that flickered periodically. I could have replaced it, but there wasn't much point, and it did add to the intimidation factor. There was the snitch, sitting in the middle of the room and tied to a chair. True to his word, Scarface had done a number on that snitch. His clothes were torn and bloody, and his face was a mess of bruises. One eye was swollen to the size of a snow globe, and he was whimpering piteously, drooling blood in the process. He had been sliced several times with a knife, and the wounds were bandaged shortly after. The bandages were brown with blood and had started to smell strongly. Not that anyone would have spared the effort for him.
	The blue-eyed kid's eyes had widened a bit, but he was otherwise impassive. That was a good sign. I turned to him.
	“Now you hear me very well, kid. I don't suffer people who betray me. This asshole was snitching on me for the Rooke family, and skimming money from the monthly payday on top of that. This is what you can look forward to if you try that shit on me. Understood?”
	He nodded.
	I called out to Scarface. “Scarface, you got your gun?”
	“Yeah, boss?”
	“Hand it over.”
	Scarface took out his revolver from his back pockets and handed it to me. It was small in size, yet deadly and imposing. The metal was a white silver, the cylinder and barrel coated in a steel-blue gunmetal that shimmered very faintly. The oaken wood handle was scratched in several places, looking quite unpolished compared to the rest of the gun. Knowing Scarface, that part was intentional; he was keeping a tally of people he had personally killed with his gun.
	I placed my thumb at the base of the cylinder and swung out the cylinder, exposing the six bullets still inside. I then shook out the bullets until one was left, then snapped the cylinder back in place, spinning it until the bullet was seated inside the barrel, and pulled back the hammer until it made a satisfying click. Then I pocketed the bullets and handed the gun to the kid.
	“You want to be hard, kid? Fine. But you have to show me that you can handle it. I want you to look this dirty son of a bitch in the eyes and kill him.”
	The kid nodded grimly. Then he walked up to the snitch, gun at his side.
	The snitch begged for his life, as I expected him to do. It was quite funny, watching him trying to talk with blood in his mouth and tears running down his eyes.
	I have to hand it to this kid, though. Most people who do this hesitate for a long time. They then inevitably tell me they can't deal with this, and they leave. But this kid? He didn't wait longer than two seconds before he raised the gun to the snitch's head from three inches away and pulled the trigger. No bullshit speech, no ceremony, nothing. Just the click of the trigger and a loud bang as blood spattered from the back of the snitch's head on the wall and the floor, and the life in his unswollen eye died out. That was the difference between a kid and a man.
	Scarface and I looked at each other meaningfully. We laughed out loud for a few seconds.
	The kid didn't laugh along with us. There was something dark and unpleasant in his eyes, something that I liked.
	I got myself under control in short order. “That was good, kid. Most people never actually shoot, they just give me bullshit moral ground speeches and leave. You're different from them. You're going places with me.”
	The kid's voice was quiet. “Thanks.”
	“Say, though. I never got your name?”
	“It's Joe. Just Joe.”
	I scoffed. “Joe, huh? You look more like a Johnny to me.”
	Then I willed magic into my fist. Instead of setting it on fire like before, I had a flame protruding from my palm. I poured more into it, then more, then even more until the flame became white and the effort had me blinking stars from my eyes.
	Truthfully, I'm not a strong magician. Never gave a shit about becoming a magician or expanding my talent or anything like that. Everyone has some innate magic, but most people don't bother because expanding their talent is a lot of time and effort, and usually isn't worth it if they don't already have a ton of innate magic lying around. The time and effort it takes to expand your talent is significantly lessened the more innate magic you have. Hence, most people with high innate magic, and a few with next to no innate magic but more determination than sense, go on to become magicians; the rest just either let their talent waste away until it becomes really hard to do even the simplest things, or they keep it fresh but never actually strengthen the magic they have.
	 I'm kind of a lightweight when it comes to throwing around magic. I get tapped out really fast when I do stunts like what I was doing right now, or keeping the fire going on my fists for longer than four minutes, compared to a high-end magician who can literally conjure a bolt of fire that's accurate from thirty yards away and not really break a sweat. But for this occasion, I couldn't afford to look weak.
	The kid moved wordlessly out of the way as I approached the snitch's corpse. I slowly, deliberately poured the white-hot fire all over the corpse. Then I stepped back.
	It took a bit, but the corpse caught fire. The conflagration blazed brightly, consuming the corpse. You could hear snaps, crackles and pops as it worked at the skin, the muscles, the bones, the organs of the corpse. The light bulb flickered, then died out, leaving only the burning corpse as the main source of light. It was a pyromaniac's dream.
	In a little over three minutes, the corpse had burned out to nothing just as the light bulb came back to life. Only ashes were left behind, and the rope had fallen to the floor; there were no remains otherwise, not even bones. And because I'm good like that, the chair was left intact, with not even an ember threatening to set the chair on fire.
	I once again turned to the kid with a cold smile on my face.
	“Welcome to the Carmine family, Johnny.”

---

	Four months had passed since then. Spring had set in, and Johnny proved to be worth his salt since that pivotal moment in my mansion; he not only had a good head on his shoulders, but was exceptionally good with a gun. I hadn't even needed to teach him how to shoot a revolver or maintain one properly; he was able to do that with no assistance whatsoever.
	In these four months, Johnny had quickly moved up the ranks, becoming one of my bodyguards. He was easily worth at least six of my men, and seemed highly trustworthy. He was someone I could confide some of my secrets to, including the locations of my safehouses. And it wasn't a coincidence that since he joined the family, my income had sky-rocketed; in just four months, my name was worth twenty million after expenses, and the number of family members had doubled from two hundred to four hundred. This included the previously mentioned hostile takeover of the Rookes (take that, you arrogant sons of bitches), and the subsequent property grabs shortly after that.
	But all was not well in paradise. Several people had personally come up to me to tell me that Johnny was 'acting weird'. They wouldn't go into specifics, just vague stuff about how he was becoming distant recently and couldn't be trusted, that no one had seen him on the streets before and someone that good would be the talk of the underworld. As the people involved were kids, I just brushed it off as childish jealousy. I had no time for that crap; I was running a goddamn business, Johnny was one of my best men, and he was directly responsible for my recent prosperity. That was the end of it.
	Though, one does not become as successful as I without having a healthy amount of paranoia. So even though the childish bullshit didn't deserve my attention, I had considered the possibility that Johnny might not be on the level. After all, one person says something about another dude, that guy is biased. But when several people all say the same thing about the same dude, there might be cause for concern. And as good as Johnny was, he was perhaps too good for someone his age. Most of the people I know who can handle themselves around guns have been using them for ages, and are usually a bit older than the grunts I have employed. Scarface, for example, is one of my best gunners, and he just turned nineteen last month. And it was suspicious that Johnny had known how to handle himself around guns so quickly.
	It was a dangerous line of thought, though. If Johnny wasn't on the level, that would be bad, as he already knew a lot more about my business than most people I have employed right now. And that would mean I had made a grave mistake picking who to trust. I didn't have hard proof one way or another. And in truth, I didn't want to entertain that train of thought. Perhaps I was just getting soft.
	Instead, I walked down to my cash guy's office. I knocked twice on the door.
	The door opened. Leigh had cleaned his glasses recently---thank god---but he had bags under his eyes. The mousy hair was disheveled, sticking up straight in some places and a mess in other places. And apparently, he had been wearing the same clothes for a week straight. They were stained and creased noticeably.
	He was still a weirdo, though.
	“Good morning, good morning, Don Carmine! What brings you here today?”
	“Four Eyes, what the hell happened to you? You look like crap. Have you been taking care of yourself?”
	Leigh looked down at himself and tilted his head.
	“Oh. This? I've just been pouring myself into my work. You yourself have been very hard at work, so it didn't seem right to not match your effort.”
	I groaned out loud.
	“God's sakes, Four Eyes. You're the best cash guy I've ever had, but if you work yourself to death over these damn numbers, it won't mean a thing otherwise. I need you alive so I don't have to hunt down another cash guy, and you know very well how crap most of these are at their own jobs.”
	Leigh put his hands up in a pacifying gesture.
	“Of course. I apologize; I meant no offense whatsoever, esteemed Don Carmine.”
	“Why the hell are you---”
	I cut myself off before I finished that sentence. With my luck, it'd go off into some stupid time-wasting tangent, and I didn't feel like dealing with that.
	“Screw it. What do you have for me?”
	“I'm glad you asked, esteemed Don Carmine. As you are aware, your business has grown by 666% in only four months. With the acquisition of the Rooke family, you now own twenty percent of the capital of Morgen. There is still the issue of the remaining crime families; the Crowes, the Blacks, the Seawolls and the Richters. But with your new-found successes, these families dare not make a move against you.”
	I whistled. Twenty percent was pretty good, considering how huge the capital was.
	“Though, as an aside, esteemed Don Carmine, I would like you to hear another riddle of mine.”
	The whistle died out, instead replaced by a sigh.
	“Well, what is it then?”
	“Very well. I have thirteen arms, ten legs, two heads and smell like burnt cotton. What am I?”
	I blinked. This was one riddle I had heard before.
	“...a liar?”
	“Exactly, Don Carmine. I fear that your new-found success will come to an end very soon, and all by the hands of the one you call Johnny.”
	It was my turn to tilt my head in confusion.
	“Four Eyes, what do you have against him? The kid is practically the only reason I even have any success to brag about!”
	“Yes, yes, I understand that, great Don Carmine. But I have a sneaking suspicion that he is not who he says he is. Granted, I have not a shred of proof, but I feel he will bring us to ruin in short order.”
	I was rattled. Several people were saying more or less the same thing, even though it was all unfounded suspicion and 'feelings'. And Leigh may not be the straightest arrow in the mental department, but he usually never passed judgment on anyone in my family by virtue of never interacting with them to start with.
	But instead of confirming his suspicion, I just brushed it off.
	“Dammit, Four Eyes. You're only saying that because for whatever reason, you've been staying up for several days straight and your head isn't screwed on straight. Look, just go home, take a shower, take a day off, do whatever the hell you do in your free time, and you'll feel better.”
	Leigh just blinked twice. Apparently, that didn't do it for him, but he didn't press the matter further.
	“If you say so, great Don Carmine. Let me give you another paper crane to commemorate this meeting.”
	“Sure, whatever, why not.”
	Leigh snatched another paper crane from the ceiling. It was green this time around, and more haphazard than his usual creations.
	“I fear this is not my best work, but I hope you like it anyway, great Don Carmine. It is green, you see, for fortitude in the face of danger.”
	“Yeah, thanks, Four Eyes. You better remember what I said, though.”
	Leigh smiled creepily. “Indeed, great Don Carmine. Auf wiedersehen to you.”
	The office door closed. I was left holding the paper crane and scratching my head. Why did it have to be a decision between incompetent or eccentric when it came to cash guys?
	I tossed the crane into a nearby trash can, and I was about to head back up to my office when Johnny opened the door to the stairs. He looked concerned.
	“What is it, Johnny?”
	“Boss, we got a situation. There's a government official asking for you.”
	Son of a bitch.
	“God's sakes. Johnny, you got your gun?”
	He nodded.
	“Okay. It's showtime.”

---

	It was four in the afternoon. In seconds, Johnny and I were on the floor of my mansion. Six of my boys, Johnny included, had taken positions in front of me. And ten feet away from me was the representation of everything I hated about Morgen.
	She was a woman in her early thirties. Everything about her was professional; brown hair tied back in a ponytail, blue beret, navy blue dress shirt, white gloves, grey skirt, black leggings, black boots. Her hands were laced behind her back. And of course, she had an arrogant smile on her face. It was like she thought she was legitimately better than me because she was born in better circumstances and 'made something of herself' by whoring out the Morgenian ideals. Stupid bitch.
	“Good afternoon, Mr. Carmine. I don't believe we've had the pleasure of meeting before.”
	I bared my teeth threateningly.
	“Look at that, boys. She thinks it's a pleasure to meet a Don. It's DON Carmine to you, by the way, if you have anything up in that pretty head of yours to remember that.”
	A burst of derisive laughter. The woman kept that stupid smile on her face.
	“My name is Clarimond Kirsche, Mr. Carmine. If you prefer, you may call me by my last name, Kirsche. I---”
	I laughed out loud and clapped my hands forcefully.
	“'Bright protector of the cherry'? Lady, the way you're dressed, you're not fooling anyone!”
	She bowed her head gracefully and kept talking.
	“I am given to understand that as of late, your perfectly legitimate business has underwent an impeccable growth in just four months. I congratulate you on your success. Unfortunately, as with everything, all good things must come to an end sooner or later.”
	Her hands came out from her back. She was holding what looked like a warrant from where I was standing.
	“I have a warrant for your arrest. We have enough information about your dealings to put you away for quite a long time; we know about the safehouses, the drug and weapons trades, the illegal property acquisitions, the numerous crimes committed by you and members of your organization.”
	We stood there for a few seconds. I tapped my foot, waiting to see if there was more.
	“That's it?”
	The Kirsche woman said nothing. I scoffed.
	“And here I was thinking that you actually had something on me. I mean, a warrant is all fine and good, and I'm positively amazed that you were even able to get one. But when it comes down to it? A warrant is just a damn piece of paper. It means nothing to me. And I am quite given to understand that you came here, alone, with nothing but a piece of paper. I don't see your army anywhere, unless you count your hundreds of imaginary friends as an 'army'. While right now, I count six people right here, and three hundred ninety-four more if it has to come to that. Try something, bitch.”
	The woman folded up the warrant and crossed her arms. She nodded at me.
	And suddenly, the impossible had just happened. Johnny was on my far right, and in less than one second, he had drawn his gun and shot the guy next to him in the leg. Then he stole the revolver the kid was holding, and in only so many seconds, he had just incapacitated all five of my bodyguards with impossible speed and accuracy, never once getting nicked. All of them were hit with leg or shoulder shots, never both, and no one had been able to react in time. Johnny kicked away all of their guns as well.
	And then Johnny was pointing the revolvers at me from two feet away with a shit-eating grin on his face, while the kids were groaning in pain.
	The woman cleared her throat.
	“I believe you are mistaken, Mr. Carmine. I count two people here; myself and the young man with the guns. Your so-called three hundred and ninety-four are being detained as we speak.”
	Animal anger overtook reason, and I rushed Johnny with a war cry. Instead of shooting me, he just slapped me down with the revolver in his left hand. I fell heavily to the tiled floor, too stunned to do anything. Goddammit, that hurt.
	Kirsche was walking over to my downed body. I heard the clinking of handcuffs, then a cold, metallic, binding sensation as the handcuffs were slapped over my wrists. Then I was drawn up forcefully---no woman should be that strong, what the hell?
	“I regret to inform you that you are under arrest, Baird Carmine. You have the right to remain silent, but I suspect that won't be of much help. And you have the right to a lawyer, though it may go easier if you deny that right. Do you understand your rights?”
	Instead of answering her, I screamed obscenities at Johnny.
	“Traitor! Traitor! I trusted you, you goddamn son of a whore, and this is how is you repay me?! You mark my words, when I get out of prison, I'm coming straight for you! I'll kill everyone you ever cared about, and I'll kill your dog! And when I get to you, I'll cut off your fucking arms and legs, one by one, and leave you out to die! You're dead, you hear me, Johnny?! You're fucking dead, and your days are fucking numbered, you fucking half-chub cocksucking ass-cancer bitch!”
	Johnny shook his head sadly.
	“My name isn't Johnny, actually. It's Joshua.”
	My eyes widened in shock and I was instantly silenced as I was dragged out of my own mansion to the ear-piercing sirens of what looked like hundreds of police trucks and the yawning wake of a government car.
	Fuck. How could everything have gone so fucking badly in the space of ten minutes?