Chapter 5 - The Mobster's Playbook
The bodyguard didn't say a word.
He didn't need to. He simply squeezed Sterling’s shoulder.
I heard a distinct pop, followed immediately by a pathetic, high-pitched squeal from Sterling. His grip on my arm vanished as he crumpled to his knees on the concrete, clutching his collarbone in agony.
Mom came bursting out of the bakery doors, wielding a heavy rolling pin like a baseball bat.
“Get away from her!” she screamed, placing herself between me and the writhing Sterling.
The man with the scar stepped over Sterling, looking completely bored. He pulled out a sleek black cell phone and dialed a single number.
“Boss,” he rumbled into the receiver. “We got a rat by the bakery. Yeah. Tried to grab the kid. Understood.”
He hung up and looked down at Sterling.
“Mr. Kane is very disappointed in you, David. He thought you learned your lesson about touching things that don't belong to you.”
“My arm! You broke my shoulder!” Sterling sobbed, drool mixing with tears on his chin.
“That was just a courtesy warning,” the guard said. “The boss wants to see you.”
An unmarked black van pulled up to the curb silently. Two more men stepped out, grabbed Sterling by his armpits, and dragged him into the back like a sack of unwanted garbage. The van sped off before Mom could even lower her rolling pin.
The scarred man turned to my mother. “Mr. Kane requests your presence for dinner tonight. Both of you.”
It wasn't an invitation. It was a summons.
That evening, we were escorted to a private dining room at the top of one of Chicago’s most exclusive hotels. The city lights sparkled below us like scattered diamonds.
Vincent Kane sat at the head of a long mahogany table, cutting into a steak with surgical precision.
He gestured for us to sit.
“I apologize for the disturbance this afternoon,” Vincent said, dabbing his mouth with a linen napkin. “David has become a liability. A desperate man is a foolish man.”
“What did you do to him?” Mom asked, her voice trembling slightly. She hated violence. She hated the world this man lived in, even if it had saved us.
“Nothing you need to worry your pretty head about,” Vincent replied coldly.
“Don't patronize me,” Mom snapped, surprising both me and the guards in the room. “I'm your business partner, remember? If a man tries to kidnap my daughter, I want to know what happens to him.”
Vincent paused. He looked at my mother with a newfound respect. A slow, genuine smile crept across his usually stoic face.
“You have fire, Clara. I like that. The little one gets it from you.”
He poured himself a glass of red wine.
“David Sterling owed a lot of money to the Russian syndicate on the South Side. I simply purchased his debt. He now owes me. And since he cannot pay me in cash, he is currently on a freighter bound for Alaska, where he will spend the next ten years gutting fish in a processing plant I own to pay off his balance.”
Mom blinked, stunned. “You sent him to Alaska?”
“It's very cold,” I chimed in from my chair, kicking my legs happily. “I learned about it in preschool. They have polar bears.”
May you like
Vincent chuckled. A deep, rich sound that seemed to startle his own guards.
“Yes, Rory. Very cold. He won't be bothering you ever again.”
