Marcus, four years ago…
Several days had passed since he sent Thalia away so that their plans could move forward without putting her in danger.
When Lucas introduced him to his men and he told them that they had three months to hunt down all the gangs and crime families in New York, many of them thought he was insane.
They said that three months was not enough time to plan ahead, secure funding, and take action, to which Marcus disagreed.
“There should be no reason that this should take any longer than three months to pull off. The only thing that could possibly limit us would be the law, and right now, we’re far above that. The initial goal of this group demands that we break whatever laws we have to to achieve it, correct?” Marcus asked them.
“W-Well yeah, but what you’re suggesting just seems unrealistic. Do you actually believe we would be able to go after everyone in such a short window of time?”
“Its not a matter of whether or not we can. We have to,” Marcus said, irritated by Robert’s nervous prattling.
Nathan then stepped forward and asked, “Why is this three month period so important? Why limit us to so short a window?”
“Because that’s how long I booked my sister’s vacation for. Its the amount of time I had Stefan Romano agree to so that we could carry out this plan right under his nose. I want to finish all of this in that window of time before she gets back so that to her, it’ll look like nothing changed,” he answered, to which many of Lucas’s men grumbled and shook their heads in exasperation while Lucas’s own expression remained unchanged.
Robert noticed this and addressed him directly as he asked, “Remind me again why you’re allowing Marcus to call the shots here?”
Lucas folded his arms as he looked at Marcus before answering, “He’s not in charge, he’s my advisor and our financier. He understands the mindset and layout of the crime families better than any of us, including myself. Make no mistake, I will maintain leadership, but do not disrespect his place in this movement.”
In response to this, Robert threw up his hands in defeat while Nathan looked at Marcus and asked him, “Well, if I am to take Lucas at his word, then I’ll have to ask; if you really believe that it is feasible to wipe out all of the gangs and crime families in New York, what exactly do you have in mind to see that through? It would be next to impossible to do so openly as much of the local police are paid off by the Moronis. How do you get around that?”
“Easy. Take the Governor’s family hostage and force him to order groups of the police overseeing specific districts to go on a brief vacation to give us freedom of movement. We would have to do it in short increments rather than all at once or suspicion would arise from both the government and the crime families,” he explained, to which Robert, Nathan, and many others stared at him in stunned silence.
He stared back at them, wondering why they were acting so surprised.
“What?”
“What you’re suggesting sounds a lot like the actions of a terrorist. These kinds of tactics are what cowards use,” Nathan said, which resulted in a many voicing their agreements.
“Sounds to me like you’re too much of a coward to do what needs to be done,” Marcus retorted back at him.
All of the men present took several steps towards him as they all voiced their anger and offense at his insult until Lucas held up his hand and decided to voice his own opinion.
“He’s right. We may be soldiers, but we can’t be bound by the same morals and rules now that we had back when we served. Its just not the same. Besides, there’s no reason to believe that the Moronis or anyone else wouldn’t use the same kinds of tactics against anyone they wanted to overpower. We need to be flexible enough to use their own tactics against them. That being said…,” he trailed off as he looked at Marcus with concern on his face as he asked, “You’re not going to torture them to force him to cooperate are you?”
“No, but I can make it look like we’re torturing them,” he answered calmly.
Lucas tilted his head in confusion as he said, “E-Elaborate, please.”
“Make up can do a lot more than just conceal acne. If applied correctly, and with the right products, you can look like an entirely different person. I’ve used make up on myself as a disguise to infiltrate mansions to better assassinate entire people before. I could definitely make it look like we’re skinning her alive or beating her without actually doing it. If his family refuses to cooperate, we could always hire someone who looks similar to them and make them act the part, then send those images to him while holding his family safely.”
Lucas nodded in agreement while everyone else seemed doubtful but did not voice any disagreements.
“That might solve the issue of freedom of movement, but what about the catalyst? What starts the confusion between the three families?” Nathan asked.
Lucas waited for Marcus to answer but he waved for him to take charge and explain it himself.
“Per his advisement, we would rob a bank controlled directly by the Romano family and plant evidence tying it to the Castellanos since relations between the two have already been strained. As for the Moronis, we won’t be dealing with them until the other two are wiped out first. With this in mind, not only will this likely result in a gang war between the two families, of which we could take advantage of and kill many of them during the chaos before the could realize what is really going on, but we can also seize their assets to further fund the rest of our future endeavors.”
After hearing that, many of the voices were a bit confused but far more agreeable than when they had heard it from Marcus’s own mouth.
He turned to face Lucas and gave him a look that said, You’re the boss. They’ll listen to you better than they would me.
Lucas nodded in exhausted understanding of the situation as he asked, “How long would you think it would take for us to carry out the robbery?”
“A few days at most. I already have the layout mapped out in my head and a plan in place. The Romano family’s bank isn’t limited to a single building and some of them close at different times than others. This means that we can have one group rob a bank that’s after business hours, which will be the ones actually taking the money, while the other group puts on a sham robbery with fewer men to draw attention away from the main group. With fewer men in the decoy group, escape would be much easier. I can provide you with key cards to access the building and a way to shut off the automatic security system so that when you enter the building, you’ll appear to those that might glance your way as employees there.”
Robert raised his hand to say something in protest but was struggling to come up with a counter argument as he said, “That’s…actually a pretty good plan… Dammit.”
Marcus shrugged his shoulders as if it weren’t that big of a deal for him.
Lucas smacked his hands against his knees as he said, “Now that we have a game plan, lets get to work!”
Romano, the day of the robbery…
He was looking over his documents detailing his recent dealings with the Moronis as the thought of Marcus crossed his mind.
Ever since he dragged him along to escort him to that meeting with Falco Castellano, he’s acted even more on edge than when he initially came back from Japan.
Perhaps Marcus was thinking about the future like he was, considering that all the dealings with Castellano were for show. His real intentions were to overtake the Castellano family so that only only the Romano and Moroni families were in control of New York.
Falco had long been distrustful and aggressive towards the Romano family which made him a threat to Stefan’s plans.
Then again, perhaps Marcus was stressing over the rising tensions for the sake of his sister’s safety, leading to him asking for a vacation.
Either way, both circumstances would have made sense to him, but he found it pointless and unnecessary to ask him outright.
As he pondered over this, he heard rushed footsteps from the hallway coming closer to his office until the door was flung open and his son Julian burst inside.
Furrowing his brow in anger, he shouted, “What is it?! Don’t you know not to barge in while I’m working?!”
“Dad! Turn on the TV! One of Bronx Faithful’s branch banks is being robbed!”
What did he say…? Who in their right mind-?
Rather than wait for him to run out of the office to go turn on the TV, Julian pulled out his phone and pulled up a feed of the local news.
“We’re here live as a small group of armed gunmen have taken multiple hostages at one of the many branches of the Bronx Faithful Bank. The police have made repeated attempts to communicate with the assailants to diffuse the situation only to have a hail of bullets fired their way and it has now transformed into-” a reporter commented as Romano’s hand squeezed into a fist and he grit his teeth in anger.
“WHO THE FUCK AS THE AUDACITY TO ROB ME IN BROAD DAYLIGHT?!” he shouted as he slammed his fist against his desk, startling Julian and causing him to drop his phone.
“Dad, what do we do about this? Marcus is still-”
“He leaves for barely a week and already shit like this happens…,” Romano sighed as he rubbed his temples to try and relieve the stress.
And after I flat out promised him things would be alright with him gone, now I’m forced to drag him back out here…
This will definitely sour his mood. Its not even part of our initial agreement, but I can’t just...I can’t just allow this to happen on my watch and not do anything about it!
“I’ll have to bring him back in-,” he said, but just as he was about to make the call, Julian’s eyes widened and he went very still.
“Uh...something else just happened. Take a look at this,” Julian said as he showed him the feed once again.
“It appears that all the hostages have all been accounted for without a single fatality, but what’s more shocking is that the officers have reported that all the armed gunmen have seemingly vanished and yet none of the money inside has been touched. The officers on sight are having trouble making sense of this puzzling conclusion, but one thing is certain, this act was nothing more than a meaningless act of violence which has shaken the people of The Bronx.”
This doesn’t make any sense… Why would they walk into a bank with the intent to rob it without taking a single dollar?
Unless…
“Oh shit…no no no no. This had to have been a diversion!” he shouted as he dialed his private security specialist to send people over to check all of the different branches, including the ones currently closed.
After such a painfully long wait, eventually his phone rang as his security specialist called back and reported on the situation.
“Yes? What’s the situation?”
“Sir…, I don’t know any easy way to tell you this, but the main branch...its been entirely cleaned out. All of the funds are gone, all of it,” he said, to which Romano went very still as panic and anger filled his mind.
“Why didn’t the security system activate? What about surveillance footage? Any witnesses in the area?” Romano asked through gritted teeth.
“Um… the security system has been deactivated and as for any footage, it seems that whoever took your money planted a looped feed of the building. Regarding any witnesses, no one has come forward to report anything suspicious. I asked around to see if the local shops saw anything and they said a large group of men in business suits entered the building. Everyone who saw this simply assumed they worked there and that a major transaction was taking place after hours. Nobody saw anything out of the ordinary sir, but luckily this was the only one they cleaned out,” he said, to which Romano picked up his phone and threw it as hard as he could against the wall.
“FUCK!” he shouted, then cursed himself for destroying his own phone as he still needed to make another call.
“Uh...here,” Julian said as he offered his own phone as Romano took it and dialed Marcus’s number.
After a few seconds of dialing, he picked up his phone and asked, “Hello?”
Forcing himself to calm down so as not to agitate Marcus and make him more agreeable, he took a deep breath and said, “We...have a situation.”
A long silence went on for about fifteen seconds before Marcus answered, “I thought you said you would be alright with me gone for three months and its barely been a week. What could have happened-”
“Someone cleaned out the main bank and they barely left a trace,” he said.
“What do you want me to do about that? Why not just call the cops to investigate that? I’m not a detective,” he said.
Although he was very close to losing his patience with Marcus’s attitude, he had to remind himself that his reaction to this news was completely understandable, and he had to sell it to him to bring him back rather than try and force him to come back.
“Marcus...look. Regardless of whether or not you’re suited to investigate who took the money, you are still needed to remove the problem. Now I know that its unfair of me to ask you to come back this early, but I’ll give you a deal. If you come back, right now, I’ll expedite the end of our agreement. You’ll have only two jobs left to do for me when you come back and that’s all,” he said, to which a long silence followed.
When Marcus finally responded, he asked, “You’re that desperate?”
“THEY CLEANED OUT TWO HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS!”
“Alright, alright. I get it…,” he said as an audible sigh left his mouth on the other end before he continued, “You know Thalia is going to hate my guts for this, right?”
“Like I give a shit!” he retorted in anger, then cursed himself for it as it might make things worse.
“You better keep your damn word or it’ll be your ass, I swear to God Romano. I’ll make my way there in about ten or so hours,” he responded as he hung up the phone.
Romano tossed the phone back to Julian as he collapsed back into his chair as a wave of stress washed over him.
Julian, who was still in the room, looked at him nervously and said, “This is...pretty bad isn’t it?”
Irritated by his son’s idiotic statement, he looked down the length of his nose without moving his head as he said with a sour tone, “No shit Sherlock. What gave you the impression that everything was fine and dandy? Get out of my office.”
Marcus…
As he hung up his phone, he looked around at the men who were listening to him talk with Romano while they pulled the last man out of the manhole cover.
“I can’t believe it was that easy…,” Nathan said as he was shedding the tactical gear that they had all worn for the decoy robbery.
Marcus gave him a sinister grin as he said, “Trust me, this is just the start. The shit is going to hit the fan real fast, so I hope you guys are prepared. The real chaos starts now.”