'Turf Wars' (Dantoon)

It seemed yet another ‘Mob Boss’ quite like the Six had figured he would try and take control of Lucifer’s city, and that was not something he was going to allow happen. A certain Roland Vincenzo or ‘The Boss’ had decided to take up a portion of Chicago and was trying to play it off that he himself owned the city and even had gone so far as to kill one of Lucifer’s men. This of course was something he could not and would not tolerate. He had played along with the fat man’s little game if only because it amused him for a while but now that he had crossed that boundary of killing a member of the Crime Syndicate, Lucifer decided it was time to pay the man a visit. A visit at his very own ‘place of business’.

It was a dainty little Italian place in the midst of Roland’s ‘part of the city’ and was actually quite tasty, he had been there once or twice himself to scout it out. Not that anyone would ever remember him going there of course, but none the less he did quite enjoy the Chicken Parm. Walking along the street with Number One standing on his right and Number Four to his left, he came up to the restaurant and walked in immediately asking to see Roland, when the request was denied as ‘Mr. Roland don’t see nobody he don’t want to’ Phantom chuckled and slammed his cane done on the fools foot. “I did say I wanted to see Mr. Vincenzo, and you will tell him The Phantom is here.” He spoke out letting everyone in the godforsaken restaurant to remember just who they were dealing with.

Moving to a table in the ‘reserved’ section he told one of the waiters to get everyone out of the restaurant as a meeting was about to take place, and when pointed at by one of Number Four’s Uzi’s he did as he was told. The place quickly emptied out, each and every person who left forgetting why they were even there in the first place and who Phantom was; only remembering that they had somewhere else to go. “I would also like a glass of red wine if you do not mind.” He said with a smile on his face, the poor young waiter was scared out of his mind and Lucifer was loving it, now if only Roland would show up and they could get down to talking business.

Roland sat in the kitchen of his restaurant, running business as usual. Not many people knew this, but his restaurant was also his base of operations. Today was a rather dull day, business was good as usual and his restaurant was very popular in this particular time of day. Then he saw one of his henchmen running over to him, looking rather worried."Some asshole's disrupting business, boss. Waving a gun around and whatnot. Said that he wanted to meet you personal like". The thug gestured towards his own gun "Want me to take care of 'em for ya?". Roland dismissed the henchman's request to take care of the problem with a simple hand gesture. He didn't want the situation to get violent. It would have been bad for business. Who would have wanted to go to a restaurant where a shootout happened? There was also the fact that the police might start investigating just why someone came into his restaurant and shot the place up. "I want to solve this peacefully, Rocco. That means keep your guns to yourselves until I defuse the situation. You got all that?". Rocco quickly nodded and ran off to tell the others to stand down. Roland adjusted his suit and took the lift to the the main level. Whoever wanted to talk to him sure could have handled the situation more discreetly, waving a gun around and whatnot. When the lift finally got to the main floor, Roland stepped out and walked into the main dining hall.

There he saw a man sitting down in one of the reserved seats alongside two goons. Not only did he barge into the place uninvited, he had no respect for other people's reservations. He quickly went over to the man and sat opposite of him. "You could have arranged a meeting a something, I would have gladly discussed business with you". Roland took out a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and gestured it towards the man. "You want one, or are you one of those non-smoking guys?", he took out one of the cigarettes and lit it up."Now let's get to business. So what brings you to this fine establishment of mine?"

“Yes, well that certainly would not have been as much fun; now would it have been?” Phantom said with a smile on his face as Number One nodded to Roland. As the figurehead leader of the Crime Syndicate, the largest criminal organization in the world and based out of Chicago, Number One had seen Roland once or twice on conflicting jobs and now he was here just to let thing sink into Roland’s ‘big’ brain. He was there to let the man sitting before them realize that there was someone bigger in the game than either of them, and that the very same person was sitting right next to John. “Besides meetings can be postponed or ignored, this way I was sure to have gotten not only your attention by having Number Four here waver around her gun, but it also convinced you to sit down and talk with me because your little henchmen felt threatened.” Phantom said with a smile.

Taking a sip of his wine that the waiter brought him he waved away the cigarette. “No no, Cigar’s are much more my style, especially the Cuban ones. Only the finest will do. But anyway, I came here to talk business and business we shall talk.” Taking out a map he laid it down on the table and unrolling it, one could see that it was the city of Chicago, but everything was silver. “You see this map Mr. Vincenzo this is what Chicago truly looks like. Here it is shown as it truly is, under my control, under the control of the Crime Syndicate. I have tolerated your thievery and mafia like run organization for seven full years now and have decided that it is high time you either join the Crime Syndicate, keeping fifty percent of your profits, and enjoy our wealth together, or crumple like the Six themselves did.” He smiled taking another sip of his wine, sure the six had only recently been taken down and their ‘organizations’ added to the Crime Syndicate but word spread fast in the criminal underground.

Sure, Lucifer wasn’t giving him much of an option but if the man knew anything about the Crime Syndicate and the lore behind their ‘phantom’ or ‘mythical’ leader, the man who gave Number One his orders than he would know who he was really dealing with. Upon the realization of that he would perhaps realize just how much truth there was in the fact of how powerful the Crime Syndicate truly was and he would hopefully come to the smart decision of handing over control of his organization to Lucifer while still being able to receive fifty percent of his profits while the other half goes to the Crime Syndicate and where ever Lucifer deemed it fit for spending. Which of course could range anywhere for children’s orphanage, children’s hospitals, or things that actually benefited the Crime Syndicate. He was a great leader but he had a soft spot for children so he wasn’t as rich as he could be.
((Six))

Roland listened to the man, who revealed himself to be head of the Crime Syndicate, and was known as "The Phantom". He had heard much about the Syndicate, about how they were the ones that were truly in control of the city of Chicago and how ruthless they were in their efforts to crush any opposition. Their true leader was an enigma, and nobody knew how he looked liked, but here he was, sitting in front of Roland. "Thievery? You wound my pride". He put out his cigarette on the tray and looked directly at The Phantom. "Join or die isn't exactly a choice, but you can never have too many friends, so I'll say yes to this little business merger". He looked at the big guy and then at the woman. "I've been trying to keep a low profile to avoid the Syndicate from crashing down on my head, but it seems that my efforts were for naught". Roland scratched his beard and stood up to shake The Phantom's hand. "So tell me, what use would you have for me in your prestigious organization? I don't mean to intrude on personal business, I just want to make myself useful". It didn't seem like it, but Roland really liked the guy.

Lucifer smiled as the man stood up and offered his hand to be shaken, it meant he had come to the right decision. The decision to join the Crime Syndicate and not have any more blood spilt in this fine city of theirs. Standing up he shook the other man’s hand with his own gloved hand before sitting back down and taking another sip of his wine, he had class and he loved to show it. The next question was one that Lucifer had suspected would come but he wasn’t exactly sure on how to answer the question, with a sip of the wine he got an idea, Mr. Roland here would continue doing everything he had been doing but would answer to Lucifer instead now.

“Well Mr. Vincenzo, you and your organization will continue to do what you have been doing, but from now on you will answer to me. You will do as I say and when I say, anything other than that if I have not given you certain information at the time can be decided on by yourself. Although, if I ever call upon you or your men to do something though I expect it to be done. Other than that I don’t have anything else to tell you Mr. Vincenzo, also call me Lucifer or Mr. Mercury.” He said standing up and dropping a thousand dollars on the table. “I don’t think it will cover as much money as you usually make here but its cleaner than half the stuff you get.” Lucifer said with a smile as Number One and Number Four rose up next to them pushing their seats in as well.