The first to break was Jimmy Salerno, a mid-level runner with expensive shoes and the nervous habit of licking his lips after every sentence. At eight-thirty the next morning, he was dragged into a shuttered auto shop in Cicero and set in a chair across from Nico.
The room smelled like oil, bleach, and old metal.
Jimmy’s hands were zip-tied behind his back. A bruise was already blooming on one cheek.
“I didn’t know there’d be kids,” Jimmy blurted before anybody asked him anything.
That was enough to tell Nico he was involved.
Paulie Cress, standing near the tool bench, exhaled through his nose. “You dumb son of a—”
Nico held up a hand.
Jimmy swallowed. “I just passed a number, that’s all. One call. One address confirmation. I thought it was about the new shipment—”
“Who asked?” Nico said.
Jimmy’s breathing turned ragged. “I heard the name Roman. I never saw him. I swear to God, Nico, I never saw him.”
Roman D’Angelo.
The name landed in the room like a lit match.
Roman had once been a trusted earner in Nico’s organization—smart, disciplined, born on the same streets, raised in the same codes. Three years earlier, Nico had pushed him out after discovering Roman had been skimming from joint construction deals and leaning too hard on businesses under protection. Roman vanished into the outskirts of the city, taking two crews and one valuable grudge with him.
Now he was back.
“Who else?” Nico asked.
Jimmy shook his head too quickly. “That’s all I know.”
Nico studied him for a long moment.
Everybody in the room knew what usually happened to traitors.
Instead, Nico said, “Put him in the warehouse. Feed him. No phones.”
Paulie stared. “That’s it?”
