"She claims to be the mayor's cousin," Danny whispered to Giulano. "Also claims she once killed a man with a toothbrush."
"Which claim is true?" asked Guilano.
"Both, probably. But the one that ends in blood must be true."
Then came the twins—or at least that's what everyone called them. Knives and Bishop. Same height, same build, same half-psychotic grins that suggested they shared more than just a fondness for violence. Giulano couldn't tell if they were actually related or just bonded by their mutual disconnection from reality. Knives carried a baseball bat wrapped in duct tape like a medieval mace. Bishop had a slingshot and a bag of ball bearings, like he'd stepped out of a Depression-era gang war.
"They're weird," Danny whispered, "but effective."
"Effective at what, exactly?"
"Effective at property damage. Psychological warfare. Making people very uncomfortable."
As if on cue, Bishop started juggling his ball bearings while Knives began a slow, rhythmic tapping of his bat against the concrete.
Jesus Christ, Giulano thought. I used to command armies. Now I'm looking at the cast of a Nollywood gang movie.
But he'd built the Belar empire from hungrier beginnings than this. These kids had something his former lieutenants had lost over the years—desperation. And desperate people were willing to take risks that cautious people wouldn't.
He clapped once, sharp and loud. The sound echoed off graffiti-tagged walls, and suddenly he had everyone's attention.
"Alright," he said, voice carrying the authority he'd once used to command boardrooms full of killers. "I've seen worse crews. Not much worse, but worse."
Thirteen chuckled. Timo exhaled smoke in what might have been amusement. Knives and Bishop began synchronized slow clapping until Danny punched one of them in the shoulder.
Giulano stepped forward, dropping his voice to the conversational tone that had once made grown men confess their sins.
"Here's the situation. Friday afternoon, we're robbing a man who carries five thousand in cash and travels with two armed guards. We either move like professionals or we die like amateurs. I'm not here to babysit anyone. You want a piece of that money, you follow orders without question. You can't handle that, leave now and save us all some time."
Silence settled over the court like dust. Then Thirteen crossed her arms and grinned. "So who gets to shoot first?"
Giulano smiled back, and for a moment, Marcus Chen's face carried the shadow of the man who'd once ruled Gulac's underworld.
"Whoever's fast enough to survive. Whoever wants to live through Friday better aim first and shoot straight."
There was silence for a few minutes, each person likely lost in thought about the mission.
"So what's the plan, Marcus?" Timo's voice cut through the silence, cigarette smoke curling around his words like a question mark.
The question hung in the air because there was no plan. Not yet. Danny's promised guns were still just promises, and Friday was bleeding closer with every heartbeat.
A leader without a clear agenda was a dead man walking. Giulano had learned that lesson in boardrooms full of killers, back when his name alone could empty a street. Now, he had to rebuild that authority from scratch.
"Danny says he knows someone who can rent us two hunting rifles and a pistol for two hundred dollars," Giulano said, watching Danny's face for any tell. "Question is whether Danny's guy is worth our trust."
"My guy's solid," Danny shot back, but his eyes flickered—just for a second. "He's fronted me before."
"We hit Tony's Pizza Friday afternoon." Giulano's voice carried the former authority. "Three of us go in through the back, three stay outside for cleanup and escape routes."
"How do we split it?" Timo again, always thinking. The kid reminded him of Renato González—his young brother—too smart for his own good, asking the right questions that kept everyone alive or got them killed.
"Equal shares," Giulano said, watching Danny's expression sour. "Six ways, no exceptions."
In his former life, he'd built the Belar empire on a simple truth: money was just the carrot. The real currency was belief. Make them believe in something bigger than themselves, and they'd follow you into hell with empty pockets and hearts full of purpose. The trick was making them believe he still believed it himself.
"What about the guards?" Thirteen would've asked this question, but Timo was already three steps ahead.
"Restrepo's guards are window dressing," Danny replied. "Neighborhood muscle, not professionals. They're there to scare off junkies, not handle a coordinated assault."
That was half-true. He'd watched the pickup thrice—enough to know the guards were lazy, comfortable, probably carrying cheap pistols they'd never fired in anger. But Guilano knew that comfort could make men dangerous when cornered. Desperate people make mistakes; comfortable people make calculations.
"You all can still walk away," Giulano said, even though he knew none of them would. They were all trapped in the same cage he'd found himself in—broke, forgotten, hungry for something that looked like hope.
Danny pulled out a roll of bills. "Two hundred, right? My guy wants it upfront."
Giulano nodded, recognizing the weight of last chances in Danny's hands. Two hundred dollars was tip money. Now it represented everything they had left to lose.
"After Friday," he said, more to himself than to them, "we're either kings or we're corpses. There's no middle ground in this business."