Chapter 4 - The Currency of Fear
The scent of scorched iron and copper lingered in the damp warehouse air as Viktor Reznov wept on the filthy floor.
The arrogance that had coated his face moments earlier had completely dissolved into sheer, unadulterated panic.
He clutched his shattered knee with trembling, grease-stained fingers, gasping through his crushed windpipe.
"Castellano... please..." he wheezed, spit bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
"I was... following orders..."
"Kolov told me... make it loud... make it personal..."
I closed the silver lighter with a sharp snap.
The small metallic click sounded like a death sentence in the dead silence of the room.
"Every man who carries out an execution claims he was only holding the rope," I said quietly.
"Where is Kolov tonight?"
Viktor shook his head desperately, his bloodshot eyes darting toward the catwalks where my snipers held their positions.
"He’s not in the city... I swear to God, he’s not in Manhattan!"
"Where is he, Viktor?" Marco barked, stepping forward and resting the toe of his boot against Viktor's other knee.
"The Hamptons!" Viktor screamed, holding both hands up in surrender.
"He bought an estate in Montauk... he’s running the offshore shipments from there until the Brooklyn docks are cleared!"
"He has a container coming in tomorrow night at Pier 42... four hundred kilos of unmarked pharmaceuticals and stolen military hardware!"
"He needed your security patrol out of the way... that’s why he wanted to shake you!"
"He thought you were soft, Castellano!"
"He told us you were just an accountant in an expensive suit who wouldn't dare get blood on his shoes!"
I stood up slowly and adjusted my cuffs.
The thirty men who had worked for Viktor remained frozen against the concrete walls, their hands locked behind their heads under the red laser sights of my operators.
They were low-level hustlers, gamblers, and dockworkers who had traded their loyalty for scraps.
They were not soldiers.
They were opportunists who fled the moment the lion entered the den.
"Who else was with you in the alley?" I asked, looking down at Viktor’s swollen face.
"Just Miller," Viktor sobbed, his teeth chattering from shock.
"The loan shark from Apex... he’s the one who held her arms... I threw the punches... I'm the one who did it, not him!"
"Where is Miller?"
"He’s in the back office... under the floorboards... counting the collections from the week!"
Marco didn't need an order.
He turned on his heel, walked into the glass foreman's office, and kicked a section of the plywood floor aside.
A scream echoed from beneath the boards.
Ten seconds later, Marco dragged a short, balding man in a stained tweed jacket out by his collar.
Miller looked like a cornered rat, clutching an accordion file stuffed with cashier's checks and promissory notes.
When he saw Viktor groveling on the floor with a shattered leg, Miller collapsed to his knees, his bladder instantly letting go and soaking his trousers.
"Mr. Castellano, please!" Miller shrieked, pressing his forehead against my leather shoes.
"I didn't hit her! I tried to stop him! I told him she was just a cleaner!"
"You gave her family a loan designed to drown them," I said, looking down at the shivering man with profound disgust.
"You sent men to her house to terrorize a crippled boy and threaten a dying woman."
"You thought a family with no money had no protector."
"Take his hands," I told Marco.
"No! No! Please, God, no!" Miller screamed as Marco pinned his right arm to the steel edge of a workbench.
I looked at the accordion file in Miller’s lap.
Inside were hundreds of predatory contracts signed by desperate people across Queens and Brooklyn—single mothers, injured laborers, small business owners who were one bad week away from starvation.
"Marco, don't break his hands," I said suddenly.
Miller gasped in relief, sobbing hysterically.
"Thank you... thank you, Mr. Castellano..."
"Break his fingers," I corrected coldly.
"Every single one he used to sign those notes."
A chorus of sickening snaps filled the corner of the office, followed by Miller’s shrill, agonizing screams before he passed out from the pain.
I turned my attention back to Viktor.
He was trembling so violently his teeth were clicking against each other.
"You told Emma that you would send a message to me in a wooden box," I said, crouching beside him once more.
"Did you think I wouldn't understand the language of the gutter, Viktor?"
"I grew up in the Lower East Side when your people were still standing in breadlines in Moscow."
"I know how to deliver a message."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a solid gold Castellano family challenge coin.
It was two inches wide, stamped with the eagle and anchor on one side, and the Latin phrase Custos Fidelium—Protector of the Faithful—on the other.
I forced Viktor’s jaw open with my thumb and pressed the heavy gold coin between his silver teeth.
"Bite down," I whispered into his ear.
Viktor whimpered and clamped his teeth over the cold metal.
"You are going to take this coin to Dmitri Kolov in Montauk," I told him, my voice deadly and calm.
"You are going to tell him that every dollar of medical debt owed by Martha Carter has been purchased by the Castellano Trust."
"You are going to tell him that Pier 42 belongs to me, and tomorrow night, his shipment is being seized by the port authority."
"And you are going to tell him that if he ever looks in the direction of Emma Carter again, I will not send snipers."
"I will not send Marco."
"I will come to his bedroom myself, and I will dismantle his empire brick by bloody brick while he watches."
I stood up and looked around the warehouse.
"Burn this place to the ground," I ordered my men on the catwalks.
"Take all the ledgers and cash from the safe and distribute it to every family on Miller’s extortion list."
"Leave the building empty."
"What about them, Boss?" Marco asked, pointing toward Viktor and the unconscious Miller.
"Put Viktor in the back of his own Escalade," I said, turning toward the exit.
"Have our driver drop him on the front lawn of Kolov’s Montauk mansion with the coin still in his mouth."
"Let Kolov see what happens when his dogs bite someone who wears my crest."
I walked out of the warehouse into the freezing rain.
The sleet had begun to wash the grime from the pavement, but it could not wash away the fire that was spreading across New York.
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The war had officially begun.
And Kolov had no idea that the girl he thought was a peasant was about to cost him everything he owned.
