Chapter 32 Vince
Vince
Villain didn’t belong to the men with the sovereign crests on their lapels. The syndicate boys who thought a block of docks and a handful of guns made them kings. They were decorative monsters.
The city was Crow.
Steel, glass, water rights, tunnels, ports, every artery that mattered ran through our hands. Judges, club owners, freight bosses, pretty heirs playing gangster in custom tailoring…didn’t matter. In the end, they all answered to the same thing.
Us.
They just liked to forget it.
My job was to remind them. And to make sure my brothers learned how to do the same, hands on, where it was ugly enough to be honest.
The tunnels were best for that. Down here it was concrete, pipes, and consequences. Villain stripped to bone and nerve.
It always put everyone else on the back foot.
Bastion, Rome, and Luca were a year out from the Academy. Still, I insisted one of them shadowed me. Villain was home to beasts, in boardrooms and in alleys, and I needed my brothers to see exactly how you break those beasts. How far you had to push before fear turned into obedience.
One day, I wouldn’t be here.
When that day came, I wanted the city to already know the truth: it didn’t matter which Crow walked into the room.
Villain would remain Crow.
Rome whistled something tuneless, hands in his pockets like we were out for a stroll instead of heading toward a meeting that might end with someone face-down on the floor.
“You know,” he said, glancing at the rusted pipes overhead, “we really should get Nik to put some mood lighting down here. Bit of neon. Maybe a bar.”
I stepped over a broken pallet. “You want atmospheric violence now.”
“I want my workplace to reflect the brand.”
“The brand is we own you. The tunnels already convey that.”
He smirked. “You’re very poetic tonight, Lord of Villain.”
Lord of Villain. They’d called me that with varying degrees of respect and resentment since I was eighteen and started making decisions that cost people real money. I’d never cared what they called me, as long as they remembered one thing.
It was our city.
Crow city. Crow tunnels. Crow sky.
Anybody who forgot that ended up down here.
We turned a corner. Two of our men stood by the steel hatch ahead, guns visible. Behind them, through the small wired glass panel, I could see the glow of fluorescent light and the vague shapes of men at a table.
Rome rolled his shoulders. He nodded to the guards. They stepped aside and pulled the hatch open.
Get this the fuck over with so I could call Madeline.
Noise spilled out—low voices, a nervous laugh cut short, the scrape of a chair leg. The space beyond was one of our old storage rooms, long since emptied and gutted. Bare concrete walls. One heavy table bolted to the floor. No windows. One door. One camera in the corner, disguised as a dead bulb.
Perfect.
I stepped through first.
The syndicate boys went silent.
Three of them. The one in the middle wore a leather jacket over a shirt.
Gold chain. Hair slicked back too carefully to be his own idea.
Someone’s lieutenant, not top dog. The older guy on his left had the dead eyes that came with decades of doing the wrong kind of math.
The third was young, jumpy, fingers tapping the edge of the table.
All of them Hollis-adjacent. All of them forgetful, apparently.
Good. I liked reminding people.
Rome shut the hatch behind us with a quiet thud.
“Phones,” he said, hand out.
The young one fumbled his out immediately. The older man hesitated a fraction too long. Rome raised one brow. The man sighed and surrendered a battered model like he was handing over an organ.
Leather Jacket tried to keep his.
Rome’s palm landed down on the surface with a crack that made all three flinch
“Let’s not start with insults,” Rome easy smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You’re in our house. You play by our rules.”
Leather Jacket muttered something under his breath, but he slid the phone over. Rome piled them neatly beside the door and came to stand at my shoulder.
I didn’t sit.
I liked the height advantage. Liked looking down on them. Made the power imbalance obvious before I even opened my mouth.
“Which one of you is Leto?” I asked.
Middle one straightened. “That’d be me.”
I let my gaze travel over him slowly. No obvious weapons. Hands restless on the table.
“You run the East freight block for Hollis. You were given a three-year lease on the tunnels along D-line for your little side operations. You were told to stay off Crow ports, keep your hands off Crow staff, and pay your dues on time.”
“We’ve honored the arrangement.”
I watched his fingers twitch.
“No. You haven’t.”
A ripple went through the trio.
Rome leaned a hip against the table, all lazy interest. “So here’s the fun part. We already know the answers. This is just a test to see if you’re going to waste our time.”
The older man shifted in his seat. “There a point to this, Crow?”
Rome smiled. “Yeah. The point is my brother doesn’t like being stolen from. And he really fucking doesn’t like liars.”
I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t need to. Men, who weren’t listened to yelled.
“Three weeks ago,” I looked at Leto, “one of your men skimmed product off a container in Dock Nine. He didn’t know the cameras in that corridor were ours, not the port’s. He also didn’t know the girl he shoved into the wall on his way out had a Crow pin under her collar.”
Leto’s shoulders tensed.
“He put his hands on our runner. He took what wasn’t his. Then he strutted back to your block and laughed about it. Loudly. With Veil audio running.”
Rome tapped a finger against the table. “We have the footage. And the soundtrack.”
Only pure utter idiots record their own crimes and boast about them. The young one went pale.
Leto tried for nonchalance. “If one of my guys stepped over a line, we can handle—”
“You had three weeks to handle it. You did nothing.”
“So you drag us down into a sewer and lecture us,” the older man said. “What do you want, Crow? An apology? We can send flowers to your girl if it makes you feel better.”
Rome’s smile vanished.
I didn’t move for a second.
Then I stepped around the table.
Leto’s eyes tracked me. The older man’s hand twitched toward his waistband before he remembered we’d already swept them for weapons on the way in. The young one sat frozen, breathing too fast.
I stopped behind the older man’s chair. Rested my hand on the back of it.
“Do you know where you are?” I asked.
He tried to twist to look. I tightened my grip on the chair and he stilled.
“Under Black Vault,” he snapped. “Under your casino. We get it. You have basements. You own the sewers. Big deal.”
Rome’s chuckle was low. “People really don’t listen,”
“These tunnels run the length of Villain. Ports. Clubs. Courts. Half the syndicates in this city whisper secrets above our heads and think the walls don’t have ears. They forget who poured the concrete. Who paid for the cameras.” I leaned in. “We don’t own the sewers. We own the bloodstream.”
Silence for a moment. I straightened, fingers drumming once on the back of his chair.
“You run petty operations in one artery. We let you, because it makes you feel important and it keeps certain problems concentrated where we can see them. But don’t ever get confused about who this city belongs to.”
Leto’s jaw flexed. “Lord of Villain,” he said, the title sour. “We’ve all heard the stories.”
“Stories are for tourists. I prefer facts. Fact one: you owe us. Fact two: one of your men put hands on Crow. Fact three: you’ve been running unregistered shipments through lines that belong to us. Fact four: I decide whether you walk out of here with all your teeth.”
The young one swallowed audibly.
Leto tried to hold my gaze. “What do you want.”
“Simple.” I moved back to the head of the table. “Triple dues for the next six months. Your lease on D-line is revoked; access is now day-to-day at our discretion. And you deliver Rivas”—I watched the flinch—“to one of my men by sunrise. Breathing or not. I don’t care which.”
Shock flickered across his face. “Rivas is—”
I tilted my head. “The man who stole from us.”
“You’re asking me to hand one of my people over to you,” Leto said.
“I’m telling you what you’re going to do if you want to keep operating in my city.” I let the words settle. “Or you can tell Hollis you lost a block because you wanted to protect a thief.”
The older man shifted again. “We’re not your dogs, Crow. You don’t give us commands.”
Rome picked at something at the table, like he was bored. “You are in our tunnels, owing us money, asking for leniency. It’s a bit dog-coded, if you think about it.”
I almost smiled.
Leto’s cheeks flushed. “You threatened to pull our lease from the docks last year. You didn’t. You need us. That line takes heat you can’t afford. If Hollis pulls out, everyone notices the gap. Your whole ‘untouchable’ thing starts to—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
I walked around the table again, slow enough that the sound of my steps echoed. Stopped beside him this time.
“Stand up,” I said.
He hesitated.
Rome sighed. “Mate. If he has to say it twice, you’re going to regret it.”
Leto pushed his chair back and rose. Trying to square his shoulders. Trying to stand like we were equals.
We weren’t.
“You think I need you to protect my reputation,” I looked him over. “You think if Hollis pulls one block, people will think Crow is weak. That we’re… negotiating.”
“It’s leverage. Everyone knows that.”
“I don’t need leverage,”
Before he could process that, my hand fisted in the front of his jacket and I slammed him back into the concrete wall.
The impact knocked the air out of him. His head hit hard enough to ring, not hard enough to crack anything permanent. I’d had practice with that balance.
The younger man jerked like he was going to stand. Rome shifted his weight and the kid reconsidered very quickly.
I kept my forearm across Leto’s chest, holding him pinned.
“You think I’m sitting in those chamber meetings three days out of four because I enjoy listening to old men complain about rates,”
He wheezed. “You care about optics.”
“I care about my brothers getting home alive. I care about ensuring that when I say ‘Villain is Crow,’ no one in those rooms is stupid enough to test it. Let’s talk numbers.”
His voice came out ragged. “Numbers.”
“How much you owe me.” I dipped my head, met his eyes. “How many bones I have to break before you believe that you are not my equal.”
His mouth opened, some half-started objection.
I cut it off with my fist.
Knuckles met cheekbone with a dull, satisfying crack that vibrated up my arm. His head snapped sideways. Non-lethal. But painful. Good.
He groaned, sagging in my grip. I shook him once, to bring his gaze back to mine.
“One,” I said.
The young one flinched like I’d hit him.
“He lied about honoring the arrangement. He lied by omission about Rivas. He suggested we need his boss to keep our image clean. That’s at least three.” Rome tapped his knife on the table.
I didn’t look away from Leto. “I agree.”
The second hit split his lip properly. Blood smeared across my knuckles. Pain sharpened his focus nicely.
“Two.”
He tried to twist away. I shifted my weight, pinning him harder, my shoulder against his.
He spat blood to the side, breathing hard. “We… move weight for you. We take heat you can’t.”
His hands flexed uselessly against my arm.
I hit him a third time.
The crunch was audible.
“Three.”
He sagged, barely held up by my grip now. Blood trickled from his nose. His eyes were glassy with pain and something else—fear, finally.
The older man at the table swallowed. His hands went flat on the metal, palms up like he was showing he wasn’t reaching for anything.
“All right. Message received.”
“You want to know why Hollis deals with us,” I asked.
I eased my forearm back a fraction, just enough that Leto could drag some air in.
“Because we don’t play at being kings. We are what we are. We don’t pretend Villain is a democracy. It’s not. You get to operate here because we decide it’s useful.”
I stepped back at last, pushing off the wall. Leto slid down it.
I flexed my hand once, blood tacky on my skin, then wiped it absently on Leto’s jacket.
“Terms haven’t changed,” I looked between them. “Triple dues. D-line lease revoked. Rivas delivered by sunrise.”
The older man nodded quickly. “We’ll get it done.”
Rome clapped his hands together once. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Next time we can all save ourselves some bruises if you just listen when we talk about the numbers.”
Leto coughed, spat more red onto the concrete. “You didn’t have to hit me.”
I met his gaze. “You didn’t have to protect a man who laid hands on ours.”
We stared at each other for a moment.
Something in his expression shifted. Resentment stayed. Respect edged in around it. Good.
“Consider this. You give us Rivas. You pay what you owe. We forget your name the second we walk out that door. You stay in your lane, we don’t have to meet like this again.”
“And if we don’t,” the young one asked.
Rome grinned. “Then my brother stops counting.”
I turned away, already done with them.
We stepped back into the corridor. The hatch shut with a metal thud that echoed down the tunnel.
Rome fell into step beside me, whistling again, the tension bleeding off him like smoke.
“You feel better?” he asked after a few strides.
I rolled my hand, assessing the ache. “A little.”
“You were… extra thorough.”
“They touched our runner. They stole from us. They thought we’d shrug it off because we’re ‘busy in the chambers.’”
“And because they haven’t seen you in a while and thought you’d gone soft.”
I scoffed. “No one in this city can afford to think that.”
He bumped his shoulder lightly against mine. “Lord of Villain still has teeth. Good.”
God forbid a man has two weekends off a month.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I checked it without thinking.
One new message.
Madeline: Landed. Headache is tolerable. Ate. Hydrated. Call you in an hour, if that’s okay.
The tightness that had been under my ribs eased, just a fraction.
Rome peered over, shameless. “Your little sub checking in,” he said. “Good girl.”
I shot him a look.
“Hey. I’m happy. You’re less of an asshole when she’s checked in.” He raised both hands. “Let the Hollis boys sweat. We’ll send someone for Rivas. You should go wash your hands and be soft on the phone.”
I slid the phone back into my pocket.
“Soft,” I repeated dryly.
“For you, softer…less Lord of Villain, more Daddy of One Very Specific Sub.”
My mouth twitched despite myself.
“You’re insufferable.”
“Yeah. But I’m not wrong.”
He wasn’t. I could barely keep the stupid grin off my face knowing in an hour I would be talking to her. Finally.