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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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They didn't scream. They didn't try to negotiate. As they stared at the army of killers standing in their foyer, the Grays realized that everything they had built, everything they had plotted, and everything they had hoped to achieve was entirely futile now.
The terrifying silence that fell over the room was heavy enough to suffocate a man. It was the silence of defeat.
Caleb, who stood in the doorway, let the cold winter wind sweeping past his heavy leather duster, his piercing blue eyes analyzing the pathetic, trembling mass of humanity huddled in the center of the grand foyer.
He looked at Tavish, clutching his useless bag of wealth, and Leigh, kneeling in the dust of his own shattered empire. He saw the weeping women, the cowering servants, and the absolute destruction of the arrogant Southern aristocracy laid bare before him.
Seeing all of them acting like this, stripped of their pride, their false bravery, and their generational entitlement, Caleb let out a slow, dark, and highly amused chuckle.
The sound was low, but it echoed off the vaulted ceilings and marble floors of the mansion, carrying a weight of sheer, unapologetic mockery that cut deeper than any knife.
"Well, well, well," Caleb drawled, stepping fully over the threshold and slowly holstering his smoking, gold inlaid M-1911 pistol. He unbuttoned his duster, looking around at the shattered grandeur of Caliga Hall before letting his gaze settle back onto the two trembling patriarchs.
"I have to admit, gentlemen," Caleb said to both Tavish and Leigh, his voice dripping with venomous condescension. "I am really disappointed. It looks like the famous, untouchable Gray family only amounts to this much. You posture like kings in the South, throwing your weight around and threatening men you do not understand, but when the wolf actually comes to your door... look at you. You are nothing after all."
Tavish squeezed his eyes shut, a tear of pure humiliation leaking down his wrinkled cheek, but he did not dare speak.
Caleb took another slow, deliberate step forward, his heavy boots crunching over the broken glass and spilled gold coins. "You know, when you sent those mercenaries to Saint Denis, I genuinely expected a war. I expected a challenge. But this? Even the lowest, most undisciplined street gangs back in the alleys of Saint Denis put up a much better, coordinated fight than your expensive army just did. The Lemoyne Raiders at least had the conviction to die on their feet. You men just hide behind your women and pack your bags."
Standing in a tight, heavily armed perimeter behind Caleb, some of the Italian capos let out a huge, booming laugh after hearing that. The mockery was brutal. The scarred mobsters sneered at the wealthy plantation owners, their dark amusement completely shattering whatever tiny sliver of dignity the Grays had left.
Tavish's face pale and slick with panicked sweat, realized that standing in defiance was practically a death sentence. He threw the heavy leather bag of bearer bonds onto the floor and clasped his hands together in front of his chest.
"Please! Mr. McLaughlin! Please, I beg of you!" Tavish pleaded, his voice cracking hysterically as he looked at the cold, dead eyes of the men surrounding them. He gestured frantically to the weeping women in silk dresses and the terrified younger cousins huddled against the walls. "Keep my family out of this! Especially the women and the kids! They had absolutely nothing to do with this! They aren't involved in what happened in Saint Denis, I swear to God! Punish us, take the land, but please, let them go!"
Caleb stopped walking. He looked at the weeping women, his expression completely unreadable. The room held its breath, waiting for the Don's decree.
Caleb let out a slow, measured sigh, hearing that desperate plea. He reached into his vest, pulling out a silver pocket watch, checking the time with absolute nonchalance before snapping it shut.
"I am a man of business, Tavish, not a monster," Caleb said to him, his voice calm and terrifyingly reasonable. "I wouldn't stoop so low as to harm children. They are innocent in the foolishness of their fathers. They will not be touched."
A collective, shuddering gasp of relief echoed from the women in the room.
"But for the women..." Caleb continued, his tone suddenly turning incredibly dark, dropping the temperature in the foyer by ten degrees. He looked at Tavish's sister in law, who was glaring at him with a mixture of fear and hidden, venomous hatred. "Well... in my experience, women can be just as vicious, or sometimes even more vicious, than any man holding a rifle. A widow with a grudge and a bank account is a dangerous thing. So, I am afraid I couldn't possibly take any chances by letting them roam free."
Caleb slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at the mud-caked, blood-splattered woman standing beside Arthur Morgan.
"Isn't that right, Miss Adler?" Caleb asked smoothly.
Hearing that, Sadie Adler, who was currently holding her smoking Sweeper submachine gun across her chest, stepped out from behind Arthur's massive shadow.
Her hair was matted with sweat, her face was smeared with the red mud of the tobacco fields, and her eyes burned with the wild, unadulterated adrenaline of the slaughter she had just committed at the curing barns. She looked absolutely terrifying.
Sadie looked at the weeping, pampered women of the Gray family, and she just snorted, a harsh, humorless sound of pure contempt.
"You damn right 'bout that," Sadie spat, racking the bolt of her submachine gun with a loud, metallic clack just to emphasize her point. The sound made the aristocratic women flinch violently, shrinking back against the walls.
Tavish seeing that absolutely no mercy was going to be granted to anyone bearing his last name, felt his legs finally give out. The last remaining pillar of his pride snapped. He went straight to his knees, hitting the marble floor with a heavy thud.
He didn't just kneel himself. He frantically turned to his brother and the rest of his family.
"Kneel!" Tavish hissed, grabbing Leigh's coat and yanking him downward. "Everybody, get on your knees! Right now! Show the Don respect!"
Leigh Gray collapsed to his knees beside his brother, sobbing openly now. The women, the servants, and the surviving guards all followed suit, dropping to the floor until the entirety of the Gray household was kneeling in absolute, unconditional submission before Caleb and his Italian syndicate.
Tavish looked up at Caleb from the floor, his hands clasped together as he apologized profusely, his words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate waterfall of excuses.
"I am sorry! We are so, so sorry, Don McLaughlin!" Tavish begged, tears streaming down his face, completely abandoning his eastern backers in a desperate bid to save his own skin. "We were just pawns! We are stupid, foolish pawns! The men from the business and industries, the executives in the parlor... they forced our hands! They gave us the money and made us do it! We didn't know that this thing could happen! We thought... we thought we were going to assassinate just a normal rich man! A rival businessman!"
Tavish shook his head wildly, spittle flying from his lips. "We didn't know! They didn't tell us! We didn't know that the target was actually you, the Don of Saint Denis! If we had known, we never would have taken their money! You have to believe us!"
Caleb stood towering over the kneeling men, looking down at them like a god judging insects.
He let out another heavy, disappointed sigh. The sheer audacity of the lie was almost insulting to his intelligence.
"Do you honestly think I would believe such pathetic, transparent lies, Tavish?" Caleb asked softly, his voice echoing in the quiet room. He slowly shook his head. "You knew exactly who I was. You knew exactly who you were sending those men to kill. You just thought I had grown soft. You thought you could take my crown and build your little empire on my bones."
Caleb took a step back, gesturing vaguely to the carnage outside the front doors.
"It looks like you still need someone to remind you what actually happened here today," Caleb said coldly. "And you need to learn exactly what happens to men who lie to my face."
Caleb didn't draw his gun. He simply raised his hand and signaled for the capos.
"Vincenzo is securing the town, so I leave this to you, Dean," Caleb commanded, looking at the heavily scarred mobster. "Bring them up. Get Tavish and Leigh outside. I want them taken to the curing barns, far away from the children. You are going to torture them for information. I want to know every single name, every bank account, and every corporate contact those eastern backers possess."
Dean, stepping forward with a cruel, vicious grin spreading across his scarred face, cracked his knuckles. "With pleasure, Don McLaughlin."
Caleb clarified the parameters of the interrogation, his voice completely devoid of empathy. "Of course, the torture will be both mentally and physically exhausting. Break their spirits. But the physical torture are not to be the kind that could kill them. I need them alive to sign the deeds. Just ensure it causes a massive amount of trauma and pain. Make them understand the true cost of their ambition."
"No! Wait! Please, we'll tell you everything!" Leigh Gray shrieked as Dean and three massive Italian capos stepped forward, their heavy boots thudding against the marble.
The capos reached down, grabbing Tavish and Leigh by the collars of their expensive linen suits, violently hauling them to their feet.
The two men, driven by the sheer, primal terror of what was about to happen to them in the dark curing barns, of course tried to fight it off. Leigh swung wildly, his fist glancing off a capo's shoulder, while Tavish tried to kick his legs out, screaming for his guards to help him. But the guards were dead, and the capos were seasoned professionals.
Dean didn't even flinch. He simply reared his fist back and delivered a new, small, but incredibly precise and brutal punch directly into the center of Tavish's stomach.
The blow buried itself deep into the plantation owner's gut, instantly knocking all the air out of his lungs. Tavish doubled over, gagging and gasping for breath, his resistance completely shattered. Another capo delivered a swift, hard backhand to Leigh's jaw, snapping his head to the side and dropping him to his knees, dazed and bleeding.
That did the job perfectly to make them listen.
"Drag them," Dean ordered coldly.
The capos grabbed the two patriarchs by their hair and their coats, dragging them unceremoniously out the shattered front doors, down the marble steps, and into the muddy, blood soaked courtyard, hauling them toward the distant barns where their screams would be muffled by the wind.
With the leadership of the Gray family officially removed and subjected to the syndicate's brutal interrogation tactics, Caleb turned his attention back to the weeping, kneeling remnants of the household.
He looked at the heavy leather bags of bearer bonds, gold coins, and expensive family jewelry that Tavish had dropped on the floor, and the other bags the servants were still clutching.
Meanwhile, Caleb at this time went to order for the entire Gray family to be completely stripped of their wealth.
"Take the bags," Caleb ordered the remaining capos in the room. "The Gray family is to be taken off from the riches they just stored. Every single bond, every gold pocket watch, every diamond necklace. It is all to be taken away. Consider it a down payment on the war reparations they owe my syndicate."
The capos moved with ruthless efficiency, snatching the heavy velvet bags from the trembling hands of the women and the servants, piling the massive fortune into the center of the room.
The accumulated wealth of generations of Southern aristocracy was seized in a matter of seconds.
Caleb then stepped forward, addressing the weeping women and the terrified older cousins.
"Listen to me, and listen carefully," Caleb declared, his voice ringing with absolute, tyrannical authority. "From this moment forward, not a single one of you is to ever step outside of this mansion's immediate perimeter. You are prisoners on your own estate. The perimeter will be guarded by my men day and night. If anyone attempts to flee into the swamps, they will be shot on sight."
Caleb let a dark, highly ironic smile cross his face as he laid out their new reality.
"After all," Caleb continued, gesturing to the sprawling, endless fields of tobacco visible through the shattered front windows. "The tobacco plantation would still need workers to work the field and harvest the crops. Seeing as many of your workers were also serving as your armed guards, and they are already killed in action... the labor shortage falls to you."
The realization of what he was saying hit the aristocratic family like a physical blow.
"You will pick the tobacco yourselves," Caleb commanded. "The women, the cousins, the nephews, the nieces. You will work the dirt you claim to own. You will meet the daily quotas, and the profits will go directly to my syndicate."
Hearing that, of course, some of the younger Grays, men who had never worked a day in their lives, tried to protest.
"You can't do that!" a young cousin in a silk vest shouted, standing up from his knees, his face red with indignation. "We are gentlemen! We are not field hands! You cannot force us into labor like—"
BANG! BANG!
Arthur Morgan didn't even wait for Caleb to give the order. The massive enforcer drew his M-1911 pistol with blinding speed and fired a couple of warning shots. The heavy .45 caliber slugs whizzed just inches past the young cousin's ear, blowing massive holes into the expensive oil painting hanging on the wall directly behind him.
The gunshots echoed deafeningly in the enclosed foyer. The young cousin shrieked, instantly dropping back to his knees, covering his head and weeping in sheer terror.
The sudden violence immediately silenced them all. There were no more protests. They bowed their heads, sobbing quietly, completely broken. They followed what he said, accepting their fate as prisoners and laborers in their own home.
While the capos secured the prisoners and hauled the confiscated bags of gold out to the transport wagons, Caleb at this time stood perfectly still in the center of the foyer. He didn't just want the money they had packed. He wanted everything. In front of him, with a mere thought, Caleb smoothly opened his system map, an incredibly advanced, holographic interface which only he could see, of course.
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl MAX)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Dead Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Bow (Lvl MAX)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl MAX)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl MAX)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl MAX)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 100x100x100)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl MAX)
- Leadership (Lvl MAX)
Money: 2,772 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 283,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 74 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern, 3 Diamonds, & Important Documents & Deeds Of Cornwall
Bank: -