Epilogue #4
She started closing procedures, wiping down tables and flipping chairs with movements made automatic by years of repetition. The Escalade across the street hadn't moved all day.
At 6:47 p.m., the front door opened.
Claire looked up from the register, and her stomach dropped straight through the floor.
Two men. The same two who'd put Tomasz in the hospital.
The first was built like a refrigerator in a leather jacket, neck thick enough to make his head look small. Knuckles scarred. Eyes flat and empty.
The second was younger, leaner, with a cruel mouth and a silver chain glinting at his throat. He moved like a man who enjoyed his work.
"Claire." The big one smiled, and it didn't reach anywhere near his eyes. "Mr. Daszak sends his regards."
She kept her hands on the register, steady through sheer force of will. "I paid this month. You got your money."
"This month, sure." He wandered toward the display case, examining the remaining pastries like he was considering a purchase. "But Mr. Daszak's been thinking about the future. Costs are going up. Economy's tough. You understand."
"I understand you're bleeding me dry."
The younger one laughed. It was an ugly sound.
"Fifteen hundred's the old rate," the big one continued, ignoring her. "Starting next month, it's two thousand."
The number hit her like a physical blow. Two thousand a month. On top of everything else—rent, utilities, supplies, the hospital bills she was helping Tomasz with because it was her fault he'd been hurt.
"I can't—"
"Can't's a dangerous word." The big one picked up a kolaczki and bit into it, chewing slowly. "Your grandmother made these, right? Recipe passed down? Be a shame if something happened to the recipe."
He let that hang in the air while powdered sugar dusted his stubbled chin.
"Two thousand," he repeated. "Mr. Daszak's being generous. Some businesses, he's charging three."
Claire's hands had started shaking. She clenched them into fists behind the register.
"I need to talk to him. Work out a payment plan, something—"
"Mr. Daszak doesn't negotiate with shopkeepers." The big one finished the pastry and wiped his hands on his jeans. "Two thousand. First of the month. Don't be late."
He started toward the door, then paused. Reached into his jacket pocket.
The straight razor gleamed under the deli's fluorescent lights as he set it on the counter. Old-fashioned. Pearl handle. The kind of blade a barber might use, or a man who wanted to leave a mark.
"That's for you to keep," he said. "Reminder that Mr. Daszak always collects. One way or another."
They left without another word.
Claire stood frozen behind the register, staring at the razor. Her reflection warped in the blade—a pale face, dark circles under the eyes, light brown hair escaping from its pins.
She looked like a woman who hadn't slept in weeks.
She looked like prey.
The thought snapped something loose in her chest—anger or fear, she couldn't tell the difference anymore.
She grabbed the razor and threw it in the trash, then immediately fished it out because evidence, because proof, because she didn't know what she was doing except that throwing it away felt like giving up.
She locked the front door with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. Drew the blinds. Checked the back door twice, three times, even though she knew the locks wouldn't stop anyone who really wanted in.
Then she pressed her back against the door and slid down until she was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, grandmother's razor clutched in her flour-dusted fingers.
Two thousand dollars a month.
Her margins were already razor-thin. Tomasz needed surgery follow-ups she was helping pay for. The freezer needed repairs. The building's landlord had been making noises about raising rent, and she couldn't shake the suspicion that Victor had something to do with that too.
The math didn't work. Hadn't worked for months now.
But stubbornness had carried her this far. Stubbornness and the memory of her grandmother's hands shaping dough, her mother's voice teaching her the recipes, three generations of Jankowski women who'd never backed down from anything.
Nie poddawaj si?, her grandmother used to say. Don't give up.
But her grandmother had never faced anything like Victor Daszak.
Claire sat on the floor of her deli as the light faded outside, and for the first time in eleven years, she let herself wonder if stubbornness alone was enough.
The straight razor caught the last of the sunset through the blinds, and the blade looked like a promise.
Or a threat.
She couldn't tell the difference anymore.
Chapter 3
Alpha was on his second cup of coffee when Razor walked into the clubhouse kitchen looking like he hadn't slept.
"Church," Razor said. "Now."
Alpha set down his mug. Razor wasn't a man who wasted words, and the tension in his shoulders said everything his mouth didn't.
"What happened?"
"Victor Daszak happened. Three more blocks last night."
The words landed like a grenade in the quiet kitchen. Alpha was already moving, coffee forgotten, boots heavy on the concrete floor as he headed for the chapel.
The compound was barely awake—a few brothers in the garage working on bikes, prospects sweeping the lot, the smell of motor oil and last night's bonfire still hanging in the morning air.
Alpha pushed through the clubhouse common room where Stockyard was nursing a hangover on the leather couch, and Lakeshore sat cleaning a pistol with the methodical calm of a man who'd done it a thousand times.
"Church," Alpha called out. "Five minutes."
Both men were on their feet before he finished the sentence.
The chapel filled fast. Razor took his seat at Alpha's right hand, Scout sliding in next with a folder thick enough to suggest he'd been working all night.
Fang materialized from somewhere—the man moved like smoke, appearing when needed—and claimed the chair at the far end of the table.
Stockyard and Lakeshore rounded out the core, the six of them forming the beating heart of the Windy City Wolves.
Alpha stood at the head of the table, palms flat on the scarred wood.
"Talk to me, Scout."
Scout opened his folder and spread photographs across the table. Storefronts. Shattered windows. A man on a stretcher being loaded into an ambulance.
"Victor Daszak's crew hit three more businesses last night," Scout said. "Dry cleaner on 35th, a bodega on Halsted, and the auto shop on Loomis. That's three blocks deeper into Bridgeport than they were last week."
Alpha studied the photographs. The bodega's front window had been smashed in, shelves visible through the jagged hole. The auto shop showed scorch marks around the garage door—fire damage, contained but deliberate.
"Casualties?"
"The bodega owner tried to fight back. He's at Mercy with a fractured skull and a collapsed lung." Scout's voice stayed flat, but his jaw tightened. "His wife watched the whole thing."
Razor leaned forward. "These aren't random targets. Victor's drawing a line straight through the heart of our neighborhood. The blocks we grew up on."
"Your grandmother's church is four streets from that bodega," Stockyard said quietly.
"I know where my grandmother's church is."
The tension in Razor's voice could've cut glass. Alpha let it hang for a moment, watching his VP wrestle the anger back under control. Razor was the patient one, the strategist who thought three moves ahead—but everyone had limits.
"What do we know about Victor's operation?" Alpha asked.
Scout pulled another sheet from his folder.
"Twenty-two men confirmed, maybe more. He inherited the racket from his uncle fifteen years ago and expanded it through arson, beatings, and strategic connections.
Half the retired cops in the precinct have some tie to his family—poker games, union favors, the usual South Side bullshit. "
"Police protection?"
"Not official, but enough that complaints disappear. Business owners file reports, nothing happens. After a while, they stop filing."
Fang spoke for the first time, his voice like gravel scraping concrete. "How many businesses has he squeezed?"
"Twenty-three confirmed. Eight probable. A dozen more closed rather than pay—moved out or shut down entirely." Scout paused. "And then there's Jankowski's Deli."
Alpha's head came up. "What about it?"
"Claire Jankowski. Thirty-six. Took over the deli from her mother eleven years ago.
She's been paying Victor's protection money for the past eight months, but it's bleeding her dry.
" Scout consulted his notes. "Her dishwasher—a guy named Tomasz—got put in the hospital three weeks ago.
Broken ribs, shattered wrist, spleen damage. He's still in intensive care."
"Message?"
"Loud and clear. She was late on a payment."