Gus spent the entire day chewing over what Chief Griffin had said the night before.
Even as night fell and the crucial time for talks with the Salamanca family approached, he still could not figure out what exactly the old cop had meant.
He was only sure of two things:
First, that he was now squarely in the man's sights. Whether it was the fried‑chicken business out in the open or the drug trade in the shadows, everything he did would be under the Chicago PD's microscope.
Second, that the old cop seemed absolutely convinced Gus would die at Rorschach's hands.
That was what baffled Gus the most. Both Griffin and Mike seemed either deeply confident in or deeply wary of Rorschach.
Now, in the car on the way to the meeting, Gus sat fingering his phone, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead.
Suddenly, the phone rang. He picked up at once.
"Did you find him? Where is he now?"
"He's gone? How the hell are you tailing him?!"
When he hung up, a bad feeling settled in his chest.
The men he had posted near Rorschach's house for round‑the‑clock surveillance had lost him.
Normally, that would not have bothered him. The man had been an elite paratrooper in a top army unit; shaking a few gunmen was not exactly hard for him.
But in half an hour, Gus was supposed to sit down with the Salamancas—with his Mexican supplier's envoy present.
Thinking of what Griffin had said the night before, Gus was sure Rorschach was scheming something again.
He snapped his head up and asked Mike at the wheel, "Anything at that bastard's friends' and coworkers' places?"
Mike shook his head slightly. "Aside from those two Irish brothers who've already disappeared, we've got men sitting on all the other locations. As soon as we get the word, they'll move in and wipe every target."
"Good."
A cruel smile tugged at Gus's mouth.
He refused to believe Rorschach could get to him with over a hundred gunmen around.
Especially not when he held the lives of everyone the man cared about.
Under cover of dark, the convoy rolled into an abandoned park.
A place even the homeless rarely bothered with was now packed with people.
Outside the concrete‑and‑rebar arch at the entrance, rows of hard‑faced gunmen patrolled, most of them with Latin features.
Deeper in, the park was full of heavily armed men from both crews, all staring coldly at Gus's arriving cars.
Once he got out, Gus did not rush to meet the Salamancas.
He took his time looking around. Aside from a few scraggly trees and some broken exercise equipment, the only things in sight were patrols. There was nowhere to hide.
"Hahaha, Gus, this is your city. What are you so jumpy about?"
A mocking voice drifted over from ahead—the envoy sent by the Mexican kingpin, a mustached Latino named Fernando.
Gus nodded to him, then strode toward the two waiting factions with his men around him.
Eight hundred meters away, up in the fork of a big tree,
Rorschach was fine‑tuning his scope, fingertip brushing the wind meter, eye calm behind the glass as he watched Gus's position.
A shame—there were layers of bodyguards around the man.
No clean shot to take his head in one go. Not yet.
"Hector, I can assure you—your nephew's death and your warehouse going up had nothing to do with me."
Gus cut straight to the point, facing the old man whose vulture eyes had never left him, and laid out his version of the story.
"It was all that cop, Rorschach Butcher, from CPD. He wants us to tear each other apart."
Hector was unmoved, gaze ice‑cold.
True or not, both men standing in front of him had committed unforgivable sins.
One had cut into his market. The other had gotten his nephew killed and taken out two of the family hitmen he had sent after him.
Both of them had reasons to die. Both of them deserved it.
"I didn't come here to talk about that cop," Hector rasped. "I came for you."
"You've shown my family zero respect. Even if this was all a misunderstanding, my nephew is dead because of you—yet you show no remorse. You come here with an army, to show off?"
Fernando chimed in, "Gus, Hector's right. This is a sit‑down. Showing up with this many guns isn't exactly appropriate."
Gus's expression did not change. As a Black man, even if he brought in more profit for the supplier, these two Mexicans would never see him as one of their own.
He did not explain his show of force. After a brief pause, he simply said, "Twenty million dollars. Compensation. In return, I don't want to see your people on my turf again."
Fernando blinked, surprised.
He had been briefed on their beef before coming and knew it all started with the Salamancas' greed.
He had not expected Gus to make the first move toward peace. It did not match the Black dealer's usual style.
He gave Hector a small nod—time to take the win and walk.
Hector, though, saw nothing but insult in Gus's cool tone. His anger boiled over.
He shoved Fernando aside and snarled, "You think money fixes this? You should be on your knees apologizing! Chicago was built by me and my family! You're the outsider who stole our business!"
Fernando bristled. "Careful, Hector. We all put in work here."
"Shut up!" Hector cut him off without a glance. He jabbed a finger at Gus and Fernando, shouting, "It's the Salamancas' business!"
"Salamanca money! Salamanca blood!"
Gus swallowed his fury and looked at the stubborn old man one last time, then shook his head and turned to leave.
Trying to reason with that attitude was a waste of oxygen.
Almost as one, the Mexican gunmen around them drew, black barrels swinging toward Gus's crew.
Gus's men reacted instantly, steel flashing into their hands as they aimed back.
"Have you lost your mind, Hector?" Fernando roared, face going gray.
The old man acted like he had not heard. His eyes stayed locked on Gus's back. "Today, you either bow your head and admit you were wrong, or you don't walk out."
The air snapped tight as wire. Two hundred gunmen faced off, the whole park suddenly a powder keg waiting for a spark.
Seconds ticked past. No one fired. No one lowered their gun.
"Jesus, what a pain in the ass."
Up in the tree, Rorschach muttered under his breath.
He had been one heartbeat away from getting Gus's head in his crosshairs.
But now, it did not matter.
He nudged the barrel, picked a different target—
And squeezed.
Boom—
The shot cracked like thunder.
In the front rank of the crowd, Hector—still glaring fearlessly at Gus—had his head burst like an overripe watermelon.
Blood sprayed across Gus from head to toe. Before he could process it, several of the Salamancas' men dropped in turn, each with a neat new hole in the skull.
"Sniper! He's with Gus!"
The Salamancas finally snapped. They opened up on Gus's side in a blind rage.
The standoff blew apart in an instant.
Under Mike's and his men's cover, Gus sprinted for the armored car.
His eyes were ice as he scanned the chaos. "It's Rorschach. It has to be that son of a bitch."
Mike had no breath to spare. They might have had more bodies on their side, but getting out of a ring of enemies was a different story.
They finally muscled their way back to the car. As the doors slammed, Gus yanked out his phone and sent a mass text.
Two words, one order: Move out.
He peered through the bullet‑resistant glass, eyes raking the treeline.
Rorschach was here.
The bastard had to be here.
Trusting in the armor and the firepower they could bring to bear from inside, they forced the car forward, guns hammering behind them, toward the park's exit.
They were yards from freedom when a deafening blast ripped the night.
The concrete arch over the gate collapsed in a roar, crumbling into a heap of stone and rebar that sealed the exit tight.
Click—
Rorschach dropped from his perch, racked the charging handle on his rifle, and brought it up.
Sniper Mastery at sixty points only got him so far. It was time to switch to what he did best—CQB and solo close‑quarters work.
At the same time,
gunmen posted all over Chicago chambered rounds and moved on their assigned addresses the second they saw Gus's text.
In particular, in a high‑end North Side apartment building, more than a dozen disguised hitters jammed into an elevator and punched in a target floor.
Their mark lived there.
His current partner on the job—the rookie cop Ginny.
(End of Chapter)
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