Marcus, five years ago…
Nearly two years had passed since he had set foot in The Bronx during his time in Japan, but now he had finally returned home.
In all that time, he had left his sister, the only blood relative he had left, alone in Romano’s care.
He may have lost his memories in Japan, but he would not dare use that excuse to justify his absence. She was his responsibility alone and he had left her to fend for herself.
While he was making his way to the Romano estate he was stopped by two guards who he didn’t recognize, and obviously did not recognize him either.
Regardless, he ignored them and continued to make his way inside.
Before he could make it past the gate one of the guards called out, “Stop! This is private property, you can’t be here.”
The guard reached out to grab him by the shoulder and stop him but Marcus didn’t have the patience to deal with them as he grabbed his arm, and twisted it behind his back before grabbing his gun and shooting the other guard’s gun out of his hand.
“You point a gun at me and you’ll find a quarter sized hole in your head, got it?” Marcus said as he held the gun in his hand against the guard’s head.
They both nodded nervously but the guard with his arm twisted behind him asked, “W-Who are you?”
“I’m the Enderman,” he said to them and they both went pale with fear.
“Ah...so you do know who I am…, good. Then you’ll let me through?”
The guard in front of him swallowed nervously as he said, “Y-Yes, of course. Go ahead.”
He shoved the guard he was holding hostage forward and kept his gun as insurance as he walked through the gate and further into the estate.
When he made it to the front door, he found that no one arrived to open the door for him like they did before and he opened it himself for the first time.
This is a strange feeling…I guess this is what people mean when they say ‘the prodigal son returns’, he mused as he stepped inside.
Unlike the guards he met outside, the staff he ran into recognized him immediately, their eyes widened in shock as they quickly backed away from him and said nothing.
He didn’t speak with them either as he continued on, not even taking the time to stop by Thalia’s room as he made his way to Romano’s office to deliver his report.
The moment he opened the office door and stepped inside, Romano turned to look at him, with an angry expression on his face as he got ready to shout at whoever was interrupting his meeting. Sitting in chairs lined up around his work desk were investors and potential business partners that he was likely pitching ideas to.
Romano’s sudden rise of anger that appeared on his face instantly faded away as he realized that it was Marcus, who had disappeared for nearly two years, that had shown up suddenly in his office with no warning.
Without bothering to look at the people who had gathered to meet with him in his office and locking eyes with Marcus, he said, “Everyone get out.”
The people in the room paused for a moment as they looked at each other in confusion, wondering if he was really serious for telling them to leave in the middle of an important meeting.
However, when Romano realized none of them were moving, he glared at them and shouted, “NOW! GET OUT! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE!”
The other people in the office tripped over themselves as they left, walking past Marcus as he stepped further inside and closed the door behind them.
A long silence went on as the two of them looked at each other, with Romano processing the fact that he was really back and Marcus thinking about the job he was sent to Japan to do.
“So…you’re back then…,” Romano said, failing to find anything else constructive to say.
“The job was a bust. The chemical transport blew up in my face, literally. However, the target was killed like you wanted,” Marcus said, fulfilling his report about his job in Japan.
Hearing this, Romano was fumbling over his own words as he tried to muster up a response but eventually settled on, “I...uh…that’s fine...from how things turned out, we can chalk it up to a bad investment as it wouldn’t have-”
“Are you suggesting that I did all of that for nothing…?” Marcus asked, with a low and furious tone of voice.
Hearing this, Romano looked at him with irritation as he hadn’t seen Marcus get angry with him in this way before and did not appreciate it.
“Now listen here-,” he tried to say but Marcus took a single step towards him, turning his head ever so slightly as if to aim his ear towards him in a provocative and mocking manner to shut him up.
Seeing this, Romano sat straight up in his chair and his eyes twitched as a barely noticeable change in his expression.
He was nervous and trying his best to hide it.
“I don’t care for what you have to say about Japan but our involvement there is done, forever,” Marcus stated and Romano stood up from his seat in disbelief.
“What gives you the right-?!”
He cut Romano off with the same kind of look he gave every one of his victims right before he snuffed out their lives as he said, “Stefan...I’m not asking you. I’m telling you.”
He didn’t have to say anything else to get the message across that if he tried to continue working in Japan, he would be the next person Marcus killed.
At first, Romano didn’t take his unsaid threat seriously, but the longer Marcus maintained his murderous stare, the more he realized how serious his threat truly was.
He soon broke eye contact with him as he leaned back in his chair and sighed, sifting his fingers through his hair as he said, “Fine. I’ll stay out of there, and I’ll be sure to let everyone else know Japan is off limits too. But I have to ask, what happened to you over there that you would make this serious about it?”
“That’s none of your business.”
Romano threw up his arms like he was giving up and said, “Fine, but still...I’m surprised to see that you’re still alive. Of course your sister is still here. I made sure she was looked after in your absence and-”
“About that...I want out.”
Romano blinked in surprise as he asked, “W-What did you say?”
“I want out. I don’t want to work for you anymore. I’m done.”
Romano quickly walked around his desk and approached Marcus as he said, “You can’t be serious! I...I’ve invested so much money into you, your education, your training, everything about your life since I first met you...you can’t be serious about leaving now!”
“If its money you’re worried about, I have more than enough to pay off everything you’ve invested in me and more. I just want out and I want to live with my sister away from all of this,” Marcus said, putting his foot down on the subject.
“Its not just about money Marcus, its so much more than that!”
“It looked like you were doing just fine while I was gone, and dead for all you knew! Yet now that I’m back, you won’t let me go?!” Marcus shouted back at him.
Hearing that, Romano shut his mouth as he couldn’t come up with a response to counter his logic.
He stepped away from him and started pacing, clearly trying to think of a way to resolve this issue without it resorting to violence.
Marcus watched him walk back and forth patiently to see him try and talk his way out of this situation until he stopped and turned towards him.
“Alright,” he said plainly.
Really? Just like that?
“What are you playing at?” Marcus asked suspiciously.
“I’m not playing at anything. I’ll allow your departure but before you leave, I need you to finish some jobs that are absolutely necessary.”
“I expected this much...what do you want?” Marcus asked impatiently.
“There are some pockets of opposition I’m facing in this city that I need you to snuff out, key battlegrounds that, if anyone gains a foothold, could be detrimental to my entire operation. If you finish those jobs, then you can walk out of here with no issue. I won’t even bother asking you to pay back what I’ve invested as it would be more than enough.”
“Am I to assume correctly that my exit of this work would be my only payment for finishing these jobs?”
“It wouldn’t be wise to ask for anything more if you don’t want to owe a larger debt to me, right?” Romano asked, to which Marcus grit his teeth in annoyance but accepted it.
“Alright. I’ll do it, just give me the word.”
Before Romano could say anything more, Thalia burst into the room and looked up at Marcus before bursting into tears and threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist as she hugged him.
Seeing this, Romano looked at Marcus and said, “We’ll talk later then. Why don’t you catch up with her first.”
One year later…
“And that’s how things went,” Marcus said as he explained to Lucas the discussion that lead to Romano offering him the deal to get out of the mafia.
Lucas shook his head in disbelief as he took another shot and said, “You’ve got balls of steel man. If I had said to Castellano half the shit you did to Romano, me and my entire family would have been hunted down and killed.”
“Romano’s not stupid enough to piss me off,” Marcus said as he took a shot as well.
The two of them had met at a bar that was very active with enough noise to drown out their conversation. Lucas had even ordered shots for both of them since he knew the bartender despite Marcus’s age.
“Either way, I’m shocked at how close the two of you are, and in spite of that, you’re still willing to kill them off to get out of the business. Even by my standards, you’re a stone cold motherfucker,” he said with a smile, as if it were some kind of twisted compliment.
“Enough of this. Lets talk business. You want my help to get things started but there are two issues that need to be sorted out first.”
“And those are?”
“One, your pitch sucks. You haven’t provided me with enough incentive to take such a huge risk to launch an endeavor this large. Two, you haven’t elaborated what my role in all of this would be. The only thing I’ve proven to be good at so far is killing people, which shouldn’t be too impressive for a marine like you,” he explained to which Lucas whistled.
He appeared impressed at how deep he cut into the issue and said, “You cut right to the heart of things don’t ya… Alright then, I’ll explain. With how long you’ve been in the business, you have a better understanding of how things work and the environment of who controls what turf. With that kind of information, we could build strategies in advance instead of spending years trying to figure things out. Having you as another fighter would just be a bonus, but that’s the meat of it.”
Marcus scoffed at that and drank another shot and said, “I figured as much.”
“What do you mean?”
“Information and another body to throw at the problem would only go so far. Didn’t you also say you lack funding?”
“W-Well yeah, but how could you possibly-?” Lucas asked nervously.
“I’ve been trading stocks for years as well as buying bitcoin and accumulated at least fifty million dollars in the last eight or so years. Also, I could easily provide you with other ways to gather funds that could help in causing divide in the various crime families leading up to their destruction.”
“I mean...I’m impressed but, how would you go about doing all that?” Lucas asked, exasperated by what he was hearing.
“Easy. We rob a few banks,” Marcus answered as if it was as easy as taking a stroll through the park.
“You’ve gotta be joking.”
“I’m not. The crime families in New York all operate using banks that they own within the state. If you rob one of theirs, they’ll quickly try to blame an opposing party and a gang war could ensue from that. The Romano family’s bank alone has at least two hundred and eighty million dollars across all of the financial business assets. We could pose as a rival gang, operate by mimicking their tactics, and take the money for ourselves. Romano would point the blame at them and during the confusion, we rob a third party using that same tactic to further drive division between them.”
“That’s...actually pretty smart. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Yeah, but that’s a drop in the bucket compared to what I have in mind. Its just a tactic to start things off, it wouldn’t be our main source of income.”
“You seriously have a better plan than that?”
“I could start designing weapons more advanced and powerful than anything the United States currently has and sell the blueprints to various countries across the world, including the US. Due to their paranoia, they would want to procure those blueprints at all costs than allow anyone else to have them. I would be throwing the world into an arms race and extorting them out of money because every country would want to keep everyone else’s hands off of gaining them. With the United State’s defense budget being as absurd at it is, they could afford to throw billions of dollars at us to keep it out of Russia’s, China’s, or Iran’s hands,” Marcus elaborated, to which Lucas stared at him blankly in disbelief until he shook his head to make sure he heard correctly.
“I think I understand why Romano kept you around for so long...Jesus Christ. You really have a plan to make billions of dollars to fund all of this? How can I be certain you’re not bullshitting me right now?”
“I could ask the same thing about you.”
“Touché.”
“Although, I can prove to you my capability of designing weapons. I have one in a storage warehouse right now, although its still unfinished, I could have it completed real soon.”
“What kind of weapon?”
After taking a taxi to Marcus’s storage locker since both of them were too inebriated to drive, he took out a key, pulled up the door storage door, and turned on the light.
As soon as the light came on, Lucas’s mouth hung open and he sobered up entirely.
“Is...is that a…,” he struggled to say but couldn’t believe his eyes.
“Its not an Iron Man suit if that’s what you’re wondering because it can’t fly. It does however use gyroscopic propulsion to boost speed, maneuverability, and jumping ability. Its a power suit that I’ve been designing and building for the last eight years or so ever since I first watched Iron Man.”
“Does it work?”
“In theory, yes. However, the materials are expensive and difficult to put together on my own. That and new technology was developed while I was working on this, which forced me to innovate and redesign it multiple times. I have tested the exoskeleton that’s meant to carry the armor plating, battery, and additional systems to keep it working, but getting everything else including the titanium and tungsten has been a challenge.”
“Marcus…something like this could revolutionize the arms race. Any country that got their hands on this would be years ahead of everyone else, decades even…,” Lucas said breathlessly.
“Yeah, I know. However, this is the one thing that I can’t sell, because once I sell this, then we would lose our potential advantage and deterrent. Instead of selling this, I’ll design weapons that would be superior to what each nation has on the surface, but nothing strong enough to get through this. At the same time, while I sell those weapons, the money can be used to buy a piece of land somewhere out in the country to build a warehouse and construct weapons even stronger their theirs as well as building more of these. That way, you can arm your men with weapons and armor powerful enough to cut through entire battalions.”
Lucas held both sides of his head as if only now realizing the insanity of what he was really capable of as he said, “Marcus…with a weapon like this in capable enough hands, you could bring an entire nation to its knees.”
“Yeah probably, but I don’t want to think about that…,” he said as he shut off the light and locked up the storage locker.
Lucas was still struggling to process what he had seen as he walked away and began pacing, thinking of what to say.
“Now that you’ve seen my hand, you have to show me yours and hope to God that its convincing enough to win me over. Anything less than an absolute guarantee that me and my family will be safe after joining you won’t be enough for me. You understand that, don’t you?”
Hearing this, Lucas paused as he realized that Marcus hadn’t already agreed to work with him.
“Y-you...still haven’t decided? Seriously?”
“Decided? Motherfucker, you still haven’t convinced me! What do you mean I haven’t decided!” he shouted at him as if to drive home the fact that Lucas was not holding all the cards.
He stared at Marcus as he couldn’t find the right words in that moment to win him over, which only amounted to him losing patience as he scoffed and walked away.
“You talk a big game but you have nothing concrete to offer me. I should have figured…,” Marcus said as he turned around and started to walk away.
“Wait! Hold on! I...I know that I can’t offer you a promise that you’ll be safe, but I think I can give you something just as valuable,” Lucas said, with desperation clinging to every word.
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” he asked without turning around.
“September 21st, 2008,” Lucas said, to which Marcus turned around and stared at him with anger at the mention of that date.
It was the day Thalia was born, as well as the day their mother Hestia had been killed in a drive by shooting.
“What do you know about that day?” he grounded out with a low voice.
“I’m willing to bet that the truth for your mother’s death was hidden from you and that Romano taking you in was no accident. I can’t be too certain about it, but I bet if you dug around his business records of that day, you might find something insightful. You should look into it.”
Several hours after the two of them had parted ways, he returned to Romano’s estate and waited until everyone was asleep before he opened his computer and hacked the security system set up inside to be disarmed and play a looped feed of the halls so that he wouldn’t be caught snooping around.
He then quietly made his way into Romano’s office and started looking through his records for any mention of the day his mother died.
There were so many records along the years for so many business transactions between himself and other partners that he was shocked that so much of it was stored in his office alone.
But as he found the date, he noticed that the file that would have explored that specific day was missing.
For a moment, he wondered if maybe it was a file set up several days in advance for that week, but the days for each month had a paper for each month of every year charted down for the last ten years.
Well over ten thousand papers detailing every deal over the past ten years or more were intricately organized and tracked for every day of the years that followed, except for that day.
Hmm…
He then turned around and looked around the room to see if there was a safe in the room or locked drawer until his eyes fell on Romano’s desk.
There was a single drawer in his desk that had a lock on it but couldn’t find a single key in sight.
An idea came to him as he looked under the desk to see if there were any modifications suggesting a hidden compartment. He swept his fingers along the lower surface until his fingers felt a small deformation in the wood shaped like a small drawer but saw no handle for it.
Is it opened by kinetic energy?
With this thought, he slammed his fist on top of the desk, just above where the door would have been, and it slid out smoothly, revealing the location of the key to the locked drawer.
Taking the key, he unlocked the drawer and looked through its contents but couldn’t find the file for that day.
Shit…where the hell could he have put it…?
Just as he was about to give up looking for it in his office and started closing the locked drawer when his eyes noticed that the depth of the interior didn’t match the exterior.
A false bottom maybe?
He looked underneath the drawer and found a hole small enough for an ink chamber to fit through.
He grabbed a pen off the desk, took out the ink chamber, and forced open the false bottom with the ink side up.
As he did, he noticed that there was a contraption set up to set fire to any evidence inside had he used the ballpoint side of the ink chamber to open it.
Taking out the contents, he found a folder that held information about September 21st, 2008 and a gasp almost left him.
He quickly opened it up and read through all the dealings of that day as it listed off multiple events that had transpired, but it also explained that this was before Romano had risen to the status he held now as he had been a really small fish back then.
One of the jobs that day listed a hit on…
On his mother.
It described how the job was personally requested of Romano via an unidentified party rather than a previous partner or known crime family, but money had been wired and the job was accepted.
The most important detail, however, was that Romano himself had been the shooter.
He was the one who had killed his mother and dragged not just himself, but Thalia as well into the mess they were in today.