Chapter 168: Successful Takeover
Ricky stepped through the threshold of the heavy steel door, the soles of his polished leather boots clicking against the concrete floorboards of the MacDougal Alley warehouse. John Caldwell walked beside him, his tall frame blocking out the faint lantern light from the doorway as he slid the iron latch back into place behind them.
At the center table, Red and Sullivan froze, their eyes widening in utter disbelief as they looked from David Brians—the man they had known as Clarence—to the eighteen-year-old standing before them.
"I’m glad to see you again, boys," Ricky said smoothly, his tone as casual as if he were greeting old friends at a restaurant. "Truth be told, I was hoping that if we squeezed your collectors hard enough on Barrow Street, you’d tuck tail and run straight to Frank. That way we could follow your trail right to his doorstep."
Red was the first to recover from the initial shock. He spat a mouthful of dark blood onto the floorboards, his teeth stained crimson, though his hands remained frozen under the barrels of Henry and Peter’s revolvers.
"You... you waited months just to get revenge?" Red rasped, a bitter laugh bubbling up in his throat. "Why don’t you just put a bullet in our heads and be done with it? Even if you break every bone in our bodies, you won’t find Frank."
"I know," Ricky replied, stepping up to the table and pulling back a wooden chair to rest his hand on its back. "That’s precisely why David and the boys had to play along with you for a few days—to see if Frank still gave a damn about your crew. But now that we know he cut you loose to rot in the Tombs... well, that’s rather unfortunate for you."
Sullivan panicked, his chest heaving as sweat poured down his pale face. He clutched his bandaged, blood-soaked shoulder, staring up at Ricky with terrified eyes. "You can’t kill Frank anyway, you little bastard! He’s got Tammany Hall right behind him! He’s the Boss’s close associate in the Ninth Ward! Nobody touches Tammany and lives to tell about it!"
Ricky’s lips curved into a faint, knowing smirk. "I know. And it isn’t just Frank. I plan on eliminating every single corrupt Tammany official tied to him before this is over. They can’t touch us if they don’t know who we are or where we operate."
"Who do you think you are to say that?!" Red scoffed fiercely, glaring across the table. "There’s nothing bigger in New York than Tammany! They’ve got the state legislature, the courts, the entire police department, and every gang from the Bowery to Five Points in their pocket! They own this city! They’ll tear you to pieces!"
"They own it until the public realizes they’re nothing but parasites in fine suits," Ricky said, his voice dropping into a cold, measured register. "Do you know what politicians fear more than a rival gang, Red? They fear an angry populace standing outside City Hall with ropes and torches. There is nothing more scary to a man in power than a city full of people who are finished with his lies and ready to cut his neck. We could choose to hunt down and kill every Tammany official one by one, but that wouldn’t destroy the institution. It’s far more lethal to expose their crimes to the broadsheets first, strip away their authority, and then destroy them when nobody is left to defend them."
Sullivan stared at Ricky, his body trembling as the cold realization settled in. "Who... who the hell are you people?"
Ricky raised his right hand and flicked his fingers softly.
In unison, Henry, Peter, David, John Caldwell, and every man standing on the upper catwalk pulled stark, bone-white masks from their coats and slipped them over their features.
Ricky grinned in the dim oil-lamp light. "We’re your worst nightmare."
He turned on his heel, taking two steps back toward the heavy iron exit door. "You boys do whatever you want with them."
"No! Wait! Please!" Sullivan shrieked, tumbling off his chair onto his knees on the bloody floorboards. He reached out with his good arm, his voice cracking in sheer desperation. "Don’t leave us with them! We can give you Frank! We know his bank accounts! We know his couriers! We know his chemical suppliers in Jersey! We know everything about his operation!"
Ricky didn’t even pause at the door. "We don’t need your information, Sullivan. We’re going to dismantle his empire piece by piece from the bottom up, and end with him."
Ricky stepped out into the crisp, cold night air of MacDougal Alley. Waiting in the dark lane outside were eight more men—brothers, cousins, and close friends of Danny Brians, all wearing heavy caps pulled low. They gave Ricky a single, solemn nod as he passed. Ricky gave them a firm nod back, stepping aside to let them enter.
The heavy steel door swung shut behind them, and the heavy iron latch fell into place with a definitive CLANG.
Inside the warehouse, the room turned into a pit of absolute brutal retribution.
Red tried to dive for his fallen pistol, but David Brians caught him with a heavy leather boot straight to the jaw, snapping his head back and sending him crashing into the workbench. Two men pinned Red’s arms flat against the thick oak top while David picked up a heavy iron pipe.
"This is for Danny," David whispered, his voice shaking with pure, unadulterated rage as he brought the iron pipe down onto Red’s forearm with a sickening CRACK. Red screamed, a high-pitched, agonized shriek that echoed off the high brick rafters.
Across the room, Sullivan scrambled backward across the sawdust, but three of Danny’s closest friends descended on him like wolves. They tore away his linen shoulder bandage, driving heavy fists and steel-toed boots directly into his open bullet wound. Sullivan wept, gagging on his own spit as heavy wooden truncheons rained down on his ribs, his face, and his limbs, exacting full payment for every blow Danny had endured in the Ninth Ward cell.
By midnight, a deep, unprecedented quiet had settled over Greenwich Village.
For the first time in over three months, not a single shop window was shattered on Christopher Street. No extortionists pounded their fists against saloon doors on Bleecker, and no frantic gunshots echoed off the brownstone tenements. The neighborhood lay still beneath the stars. Deep within the hidden, brick-lined bends of MacDougal Alley, muffled, stifled groans occasionally drifted up toward the sky, but they were so faint that the few night-shift workers walking down Sixth Avenue simply ignored them, assuming it was just the rustle of the wind.
When morning arrived, bright spring sunlight washed over the cobblestones of Minetta Block.
Ricky sat in a wrought-iron chair on the second-floor balcony of Marcus’s apartment, a steaming mug of black coffee resting in his hands. Down on the street below, shopkeepers were out sweeping their stoops, milk wagons rattled pleasantly over the stones, and neighborhood children chased iron hoops along the sidewalk. A local baker looked up, spotting Ricky on the balcony, and tipped his cap with a warm smile; Ricky raised his coffee mug in a polite, friendly greeting.
The lace curtains behind him rustled, and the balcony door clicked open. John Caldwell stepped out onto the iron floorboards, holding a fresh sheet of paper and a small leather notebook.
Ricky took a slow sip of his coffee, looking out over the quiet street. "So... what was their final decision, John? I told you last night—if Henry and Peter wanted to take their men and walk away, I would still respect their choice and treat them as allies."
John leaned his forearms against the iron balcony railing, looking down at the street. "They agreed to join us, Boss. All three of them—Henry, Reggie, and Peter. They’re bringing all one hundred and fifty of their men out of hiding in the Bowery and integrating them back into Greenwich. Though... if I may speak freely, I still have my reservations about them. They’re former Dusters, after all."
Ricky set his mug down on the small iron table beside his chair. "It’s entirely natural to be suspicious, John. But you have to remember—these men are native to the Village. At the end of the day, they want a safe neighborhood for their families and their men’s families, same as the shopkeepers sweeping the sidewalks below us. Besides, our core group isn’t large enough to carry a prolonged war against Tammany Hall on our own. We mustn’t underestimate Tammany’s reach. We have the element of surprise right now, and I intend to keep it that way, but we need raw numbers to hold the ground we liberate."
John turned his head, watching Ricky closely. "How do you plan on making one hundred and fifty hardened street brawlers fall in line and follow your commands? Men like the Wells brothers are used to running their own show."
"We send them up to Pound Ridge," Ricky answered simply. "Not all at once, of course—we rotate them in small detachments of fifteen or twenty men at a time. Put them through Arthur’s six-month training regimen right alongside our new recruits. And that includes Henry, Peter, and Reggie."
John raised an eyebrow, a slight smile touching his lips. "You think those three will take kindly to being drilled in the woods?"
"If they demonstrate genuine leadership, discipline, and tactical competency during the six months, we promote them to Lieutenant ranks within our organization," Ricky explained smoothly. "We give each of them command over a full platoon consisting of ten tactical squads. That way, they retain a sense of command and authority, but they operate entirely within our doctrine, our chain of command, and our rules."
John gave a slow, appreciative nod. "That’s a clever structure. It gives them prestige while stripping away their ability to act as rogue street bosses. I’ll send word up to Arthur today so he can start laying the foundations for additional barracks at the camp."
"Might as well order more transport while you’re at it," Ricky added, picking his coffee mug back up. "Feeding, clothing, and equipping over two hundred men in the woods is going to require a constant, reliable supply line. Have Evelynn draw from the money they pooled and purchase three more Senior Mack trucks."
John made a quick note in his ledger before closing it. "Understood, Boss. Oh... one last thing. A messenger came from Harrison and Bell Limited, fifteen minutes ago. Marek wanted to see you."
Ricky took a final sip of his coffee, a faint smile touching his eyes. "Alright I was planning on heading there to see him anyway."