Chapter 8 : Protection Money
Mrs. Chen stood in the warehouse doorway, clutching her purse with both hands.
She was small—five feet at most—with gray-streaked hair pulled back in a practical bun. Her grocery store sat at the corner of my territory, three blocks from the warehouse. She'd paid her protection money every week without complaint.
Now she was here, and she was afraid.
"Someone else is asking," she said. Her English was careful, accented. "Young men. They came yesterday, said I have to pay them too. I told them I already pay, but they didn't listen."
Terry stood behind me, arms crossed. "What'd they look like?"
"Young. Black jackets. One had—" She touched her eyebrow. "A cut here. Fresh."
Not any crew I recognized. Not Marco's remnants—those had scattered after the warehouse fight. Someone new trying to carve out a piece.
Or teenagers playing gangster, which was almost worse.
"When are they coming back?"
"Tonight. Six o'clock. They said—" Her voice caught. "They said if I didn't pay, they would break things. Break me."
Heat climbed up my spine. Not rage—something colder. More controlled.
"This is my territory. My responsibility. My reputation."
"Go back to your store, Mrs. Chen. Keep it open until six, then close early. We'll handle the rest."
She looked at me for a long moment, then nodded. Something in her expression shifted—the fear was still there, but hope had joined it.
"Thank you," she said. "You are not like the others."
She left. I turned to Terry.
"Get Pat. We're going grocery shopping."
Mrs. Chen's grocery was cramped and clean, aisles packed with produce and canned goods and imported items I didn't recognize. The smell hit me the moment I walked in—ginger, dried fish, something sweet that might have been lychee.
Terry positioned himself near the back door. Big Pat stayed by the front, his bulk blocking most of the window's light. I waited behind a display of rice bags, out of sight from the entrance.
Six o'clock came and went.
At 6:15, the door banged open.
Three kids walked in. Kids—that's what they were, despite the tough postures and hard expressions. The oldest might have been nineteen. The youngest looked barely sixteen.
The one with the cut eyebrow—their leader, apparently—swaggered up to the counter where Mrs. Chen stood frozen.
"You got our money, lady?"
"I—I already paid—"
"You paid the Broker." The kid said the name like it tasted bad. "We ain't the Broker. This is our corner now. New management."
I stepped out from behind the rice bags.
"Is it?"
All three spun. The leader's hand went to his waistband—no gun, I noticed, just reflex. The youngest stumbled backward into a shelf of canned vegetables.
"Who the hell—"
"I'm the Broker." I kept my voice level, my hands visible. "And you're in my territory, threatening my people."
The leader tried to puff up. "Man, we don't answer to you. This corner's ours."
"No." I took a step forward. Just one. "It's not."
Big Pat moved. Not fast—he didn't need to be. He just loomed, emerging from the shadows near the door like a mountain deciding to relocate. The youngest kid made a sound that wasn't quite a whimper.
"Here's how this works," I said. "You leave. You don't come back to this block, this store, any business under my protection. You find somewhere else to play gangster, or you find honest work. Those are your options."
"Or what?" The leader was trying to sound tough. His voice cracked on the second word.
"Or I stop being reasonable."
Silence. The canned goods rattled as the youngest kid backed further away, knocking another shelf.
The leader's face worked through several expressions—defiance, calculation, fear. Fear won.
"Whatever, man. This corner ain't worth it anyway."
He turned to leave. His crew followed.
"Wait."
They froze.
"Empty your pockets. Money, phones, everything. Consider it a tax for wasting my time."
More silence. Then, slowly, the leader reached into his pockets. His crew did the same. Crumpled bills, cheap phones, a pocket knife that looked like it had never been used.
Terry collected everything. The three kids slunk toward the door.
"Hey."
The youngest one looked back. Tears were streaming down his face, silent and ashamed.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked. "The shakedown thing. Why?"
He didn't answer. The leader grabbed his arm, pulled him toward the door.
"His mom's sick," the leader said quietly. "Cancer or something. Medical bills. We were just trying to..."
He didn't finish. They left.
I stood in Mrs. Chen's grocery, surrounded by the smell of ginger and the ghost of three kids who'd probably started the day thinking they were hard enough to make it in this city.
"They're not bad. Just desperate. Just doing what they think they have to do."
"Boss?" Terry's voice was careful. "You good?"
"I'm fine."
I wasn't fine. Something was twisting in my chest, an emotion I couldn't name.
"In my old life, I might have been that kid. Wrong circumstances, wrong choices, same desperate math."
The next morning, someone knocked on the warehouse door at 7 AM.
The youngest kid stood outside—alone this time, eyes red, hands shoved in his pockets.
"I want a job," he said. "A real one. You said—you said we could find honest work. I'm finding it."
I studied him. Sixteen, maybe seventeen. Small for his age. Looked like he hadn't slept.
"What's your name?"
"Marcus."
"Your mom's really sick?"
He nodded, not trusting his voice.
The system pulsed.
[RECRUITMENT OPPORTUNITY: MARCUS]
[LOYALTY POTENTIAL: HIGH]
[RECOMMENDATION: Investment in family welfare increases retention]
I reached into my pocket, pulled out two hundred dollars. Half of what we'd taken from them yesterday.
"There's a clinic on Fourteenth Street. Low-cost, decent care. This covers a few visits, some basic meds." I pressed the money into his hands. "You work for me now. Deliveries, messages, nothing dangerous. You show up on time, you do what I say, you stay out of trouble. Understood?"
Marcus stared at the money. Then at me.
"Why?" The word was barely a whisper. "We tried to rob you."
"Because I remember waking up in an alley with nothing. Because someone gave me a chance when they didn't have to."
"Everyone deserves one chance," I said out loud. "Don't make me regret yours."
He showed up the next day with coffee—cheap, gas station quality, but hot. He remembered how I took it: black, no sugar.
Maybe this one would work out.
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