Anthony fired as he moved.
His marksmanship wasn't as flawlessly precise as John's, but [Compensatory Perception] provided a devastating tactical advantage. He could accurately calculate bullet trajectories and predict enemy movements before they happened.
An 18th Street thug cowered behind a rusted shipping container, exposing only half of his head.
Instead of trying to thread the needle, Anthony fired a single round into the angled steel beam next to the container. The 9mm bullet ricocheted sharply off the metal and buried itself directly into the man's temple.
Another gang member leapt from the second-floor catwalk, swinging a heavy machete downward in a desperate ambush.
The instant the man's boots hit the concrete, Anthony pivoted sideways and delivered a crushing low kick to the side of the man's knee. The joint shattered. As the man collapsed, Anthony casually put a bullet through his skull.
Compared to Anthony's brutal one-shot executions, John's approach was almost surgical.
John moved like a precision machine. Every step and every trigger pull was timed to a fraction of a second. No wasted movement. No wasted ammunition.
Because he didn't view these street thugs as worthy adversaries, he primarily targeted non-lethal zones: shoulders, thighs, and wrists. But every shot he took instantly incapacitated his target.
Anthony turned to face three men charging him from the right flank.
He grabbed the lead attacker's wrist with his left hand, violently dragging the man's weight downward, while simultaneously driving a savage right elbow into the second man's throat.
He ducked to let the third man's swinging blade pass harmlessly over his head, then drove his knee upward into the attacker's abdomen. As the man doubled over, Anthony slammed the heavy steel base of his Glock magazine into the back of his neck, dropping him instantly.
He finished the sequence by stepping back and putting a bullet through the forehead of the first attacker he had dragged down.
Fifty-eight seconds.
That was all it took.
Only Anthony and John remained standing in the warehouse.
The concrete floor was littered with groaning, bleeding gang members. The air was thick with the suffocating smell of cordite, copper, and loose bowels.
Aggressive reggaeton music continued to blare loudly from a battered stereo in the corner, creating an absurd, surreal soundtrack to the massacre.
Dion, Lamar, and Tyrone stared at the carnage in absolute shock.
Anthony had already cut their zip ties, but the three teenagers remained frozen in their chairs as if they had been nailed down.
"Do you just kill everyone you see?" John asked, letting out a slow, tired sigh as he dropped the magazine from his P30L.
Anthony smiled. "Even a mosquito has meat on its legs."
John didn't bother trying to decipher the metaphor.
He watched Anthony reload his Glock and said, "That's enough."
Anthony pointed at a gang member screaming on the floor, clutching a shattered femur. "They probably don't have the cash to cover the hospital bills anyway."
John quietly lit a cigarette and didn't respond.
Anthony sighed, deciding to call an end to the slaughter. He walked over to Chico, who was slowly regaining consciousness behind the desk. Anthony delivered a sharp kick to his ribs.
"Get up, Chico. Or I'll just shoot you where you lay."
Chico scrambled to his feet, trembling violently. He looked like an old man. His eyes were blown wide with sheer terror. He opened his mouth but couldn't form words.
"It was thirty dollars per person," Anthony said, plucking the cigarette from John's hand and taking a drag. "Look at the mess you made over sixty bucks."
"I'll pay you!" Chico stammered, his voice cracking. "I'll pay you right now!"
He frantically dug into his pockets and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills—maybe a thousand dollars. He held it out with a shaking, broken wrist. "Take it! Take all of it!"
"Ha!" Anthony laughed. He pointed a thumb at John. "My friend here charges a minimum appearance fee of five hundred thousand dollars."
"And considering my current market value, I'm worth at least three hundred thousand."
Chico realized he was being extorted. A final glimmer of desperate stubbornness flared in his eyes. "You can kill me right now. I can't come up with that kind of money."
"Then there's nothing left to discuss." Anthony spat the cigarette onto the concrete and raised his Glock.
Chico looked at the dozen corpses surrounding his desk and broke.
"I have a million!" Chico screamed, holding his hands up. "Just a little over a million!"
Chico led Anthony up the metal stairs to the second floor. Hidden inside a false wall panel behind a filing cabinet was a heavy steel safe.
Inside were neatly banded stacks of cash and over a dozen sealed bricks of white powder.
Anthony ordered Dion and Lamar to grab two duffel bags from the office. He instructed them to pack all the cash.
Anthony took one bag for himself. He tossed the second bag, containing roughly half a million dollars, directly at Dion's feet.
"Your startup capital."
Dion stared at the heavy canvas bag. His lips trembled. He looked at Anthony, then at John. His throat bobbed as he tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
Bang!
Anthony fired a single round into the back of Chico's head. The gang boss slumped forward over the empty safe.
"From this moment forward, the 18th Street's territory in Queens belongs to you," Anthony said smoothly, tucking his Glock into the small of his back. "You are in charge."
"I know how crews like yours operate. Small-scale drug pushing, extortion, chop shops, and armed robbery."
Anthony stepped closer, his eyes locking onto Dion's.
"But remember this rule. You do not touch hard narcotics. You do not traffic humans or organs. You do not touch schools, you do not touch children, and you do not run prostitution rings."
"If I ever find out you crossed those lines... I will come back here myself. And you have seen exactly what I do to people who disappoint me."
His tone was perfectly conversational, but Dion could feel the suffocating, chilling killing intent radiating off the man in the bespoke suit.
Dion nodded frantically. "I understand, Boss. I swear. There's a nightclub on 18th Street. We just take that over."
Anthony nodded. He looked at Lamar and Tyrone. "And you two?"
The teenagers nodded in rapid, terrified agreement.
Dion looked at Chico's fresh corpse, then down at the blood-soaked warehouse floor.
"Boss," Dion swallowed hard. "We... we can't hold this. There are other 18th Street chapters in the city. They'll retaliate. The Albanians will come for us. The Bloods..."
"How many guys do you have in your crew?" Anthony asked.
"Just the four of us," Dion admitted quietly. "The older guys from 42nd Street are running Times Square. They sent us out here because we refused to do the violent armed robberies. But... I know some kids on the street. Maybe seven or eight guys."
Anthony clapped his hands together.
"Perfect. From now on, you manage this district. The four of you are the core executive branch. Go recruit your friends. But remember: quality over quantity. Five loyal men are infinitely more valuable than fifty men who will stab you in the back."
Anthony gestured over the railing to the main floor below.
"All the weapons down there belong to you now. If anyone from the rival gangs looks at you the wrong way, do not waste time talking. Do not negotiate. Pick up the rifles and fight."
Dion, Lamar, and Tyrone looked down at the scattered AK-47s, pistols, and machetes.
Their expressions fundamentally shifted. It was the look of street kids discovering a new toy, mixed with the sudden, intoxicating realization of true power.
"Boss," Dion said, his eyes shining before anxiety crept back in. "If we start shooting, the cops are gonna swarm us..."
"Let me teach you the most important secret to survival," Anthony smiled. "If you run into the NYPD and you can't escape... surrender immediately. Don't fight them. I will handle the rest."
Dion and his friends stared at Anthony, completely bewildered by the sheer, casual arrogance of the statement.
"Consolidate this territory first," Anthony instructed. "Do not try to expand yet. Clean up your internal affairs. Figure out who is loyal and who is a liability. Keep your books clean. Hire an accountant if you have to."
Dion looked up at the man who had just butchered a dozen gangsters in under a minute.
"Boss... why are you trusting us?"
Because I don't have the time to manage a street gang myself, Anthony thought.
But he smiled and said, "Because you could have run away at the rail yard. But you chose to stay and try to collect our thirty dollars."
"Because your friend Kevin had the balls to wrap a steel pipe to his hand and stand beside you."
Anthony and John walked out of the alley and back toward their parked vehicles. Kevin was still hiding behind the dumpster. When he saw them approach, he sprinted over.
"Anthony! Uncle John!" Kevin gasped. "Dion... the others..."
"They're fine," Anthony said smoothly.
"Go back inside and help them clean up. And remember, Kevin. As of today, you aren't just kids from 42nd Street anymore."
Kevin nodded emphatically, turned, and sprinted back toward the warehouse.
John watched the kid disappear into the alley.
"You're setting a terrible example for children," John said softly.
"They were going to be crushed by this city," Anthony said, unlocking the door to his SUV. "I'm just teaching them how to survive."
"In New York, you either eat or you get eaten. They chose to eat. I simply provided the knife and fork."
Anthony lit a cigarette and leaned against the car frame.
"It's either be a wolf or a sheep. I prefer they become a wolf pack."
"They likely won't survive the month," John said.
"Perhaps," Anthony agreed, turning the ignition key. "But if they do survive, we will have an entire proxy army in Queens that answers exclusively to us. And if they die... well. It just proves they weren't suited for the game."
John pulled his seatbelt across his chest. "You are completely cold-blooded."
"I am a realist," Anthony corrected him. "And I need an intelligence network like the Bowery King's."
"Gramont is here. The Adjudicator knows. The Harbinger knows. But nobody is willing to speak his name. The disappearances are escalating, and the underworld is in chaos. Dion and his crew operate so far beneath the High Table's radar that no one will ever suspect a group of street kids."
Anthony put the SUV in drive and pulled away from the curb.
In the rearview mirror, the rusted warehouse slowly vanished into the sprawling concrete labyrinth of the city.
Inside the warehouse, Dion, Lamar, and Tyrone stood in complete silence.
They looked at the dead bodies, the scattered assault rifles, and the duffel bag stuffed with half a million dollars in cash.
After a long minute, Lamar finally broke the silence.
"Damn... are we... are we the bosses now?"
Tyrone bent down, picked up a discarded Glock 19, and experimentally racked the slide. "Looks like it."
Kevin came running through the main doors, stopping dead when he saw the massacre. "They... they're gone."
Dion nodded.
Slowly, a smile spread across his bruised face. The smile grew wider and wider until he threw his head back and let out a loud, manic laugh.
He grabbed the canvas bag of money and hoisted it into the air.
"Brothers!" Dion screamed, his voice echoing off the tin roof. "We have our own fucking empire!"
The four teenagers looked at each other. They started laughing together.
The sound echoed through the bloody warehouse, ringing with a terrifying, newly born madness.
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