Chapter 7 - THE GATHERING STORM
While Knox and Jolene shared their quiet revelation inside Maize, a mile away in a high-rise downtown office overlooking the Mississippi River, Sal Marcone was pacing furiously across a Persian rug.
Marcus stood near the door, an ice pack pressed against his bruised throat, his face pale with humiliation and lingering terror.
"You let a thug in a suit throw you out of a laundromat?" Marcone roared, slamming his fist onto a glass mahogany desk. "Sheridan is slipping! He’s spending his days eating comfort food in a slum just to play house with some waitress and her kid! If we strike hard enough, we can take his entire logistics chain while he's distracted!"
"Boss, you don't understand," Marcus stammered, wincing in pain. "Sheridan isn't just visiting. He's connected to them. And Perry... Perry looked ready to snap our necks without blinking an eye. If we push him directly, he's going to come after our warehouses."
Marcone sneered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits of greed and arrogance. "Let him come. We have the harbor union in our pocket, and we have enough firepower to turn Lamar Street into a parking lot. Tonight, we send a clear message. Burn the restaurant down. Make sure Sheridan knows what happens when he plays in our city."
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Unbeknownst to Marcone, however, loyalty in the underworld was fickle, and not every man under his command was willing to wage war against the legendary Knox Sheridan over a petty vendetta.
One of Marcone's junior enforcers, a young man named Leo whose mother had once been saved by Knox's medical fund years ago, overheard the order from the hallway. As soon as Marcone dismissed the room, Leo grabbed his phone, ducked into the stairwell, and dialed a secure number that led straight to Perry's private line.
