The rain in District 9 didn't wash things clean; it just turned the soot into a grey, viscous sludge that clung to the hem of Julian's trousers. He stood under the flickering neon sign of 'The Rusty Bolt,' checking his watch. 2:14 AM.
Most men in his line of work carried a Beretta or a switchable. Julian carried a leather-bound ledger and a fountain pen with a nib sharp enough to draw blood.
"He's ready for you,Vane," a voice growled from the shadows.
It was Silas- a man whose neck was thicker than Julian's thigh and whose intellect was inversely proportional to his strength. Silas didn't move; he simply leaned against the brickwork, the tip of his cigeratte glowing like a miniature, angry sun in the dark.
Julian didn't answer. He never did. Silence was a tool, a vacuum that forced lesser men to fill the space with nervous chatter. As he walked past the heavy steel door, the scent hit him first: stale hops, expensive cigar smoke, and the metallic tang of fear.
Don Moretti sat at the back table. He wasn't the lion the newspapers described. He was a bloated spider, trapped in a web of his own making, watching his digital accounts bleed out in real-time on a tablet screen.
"They took three million in an hour, Julian," Moretti rasped, his eyes bloodshot. "The Russians. They bypassed the shell companies. How?"
Julian sat down, meticulously placing his ledger on the table. He unscrewed the cap of his pen. "They didn't bypass them, Don. They bought the banks that owned the shell companies. You're playing checkers with a man who owns the board."
Moretti's hand drifted toward the holster under his arm. Julian didn't blink. He just opened the ledger to a page filled with neat, terrifyingly precise rows of figures.
"Kill me, and the 'Dead Man's Switch' triggers," Julian said, his voice as cold as the rain outside. "By sunrise, your remaining assets will be donated to the State Police Pension Fund. You'll be the first mob boss in history to be murdered by his own charity."
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