The heavy stench of copper and cordite in Brooklyn hadn't even dissipated before a massive power vacuum formed.
DeShawn's body, along with the corpses of his few loyal lieutenants, had been dragged away by the NYPD in the early hours of the morning. Overnight, the Bloods' primary stronghold in Brooklyn became a lawless no-man's land, and the news of the Cartel massacre spread like wildfire throughout the New York underworld.
The following afternoon, three armored black Cadillac Escalades rolled up and parked directly in front of the Tarasov syndicate's main headquarters.
Three men stepped out of the lead vehicle. Guided by heavily armed Tarasov guards, Sergei escorted them directly into Anthony's executive reception room.
The leader was a Black man in his late fifties. He was bald, heavily scarred, and missing the upper half of his left ear.
His name was Luther "The Anvil" Jackson. He was the actual, overarching boss of the entire New York Bloods syndicate. DeShawn had merely been a loud, ambitious regional capo.
Luther was flanked by two bodyguards. One was a rail-thin man with dead, sociopathic eyes. The other was built like an NFL linebacker, featuring a massive tattoo of a blood-dripping dagger stretching up his neck.
"Mr. Tarasov," Luther offered a brief, utterly perfunctory handshake. "DeShawn is dead."
"You heard correctly," Anthony said smoothly, walking to the head of the heavy oak conference table and sitting down.
Sergei and Victor stood like twin mountains behind Anthony's chair, while Pavel and four enforcers secured the doorway with submachine guns.
"I also heard a very interesting rumor," Luther said, remaining standing and staring down at Anthony. "I heard that a Mexican Cartel hit squad stormed DeShawn's territory last night and slaughtered his entire crew. And then... another heavily armed element appeared and slaughtered all the Mexicans."
"You maintain an excellent intelligence network," Anthony pulled a silver case from his jacket, casually tapping a cigarette against the lid. "And?"
"And so I was naturally wondering," Luther leaned forward, planting his massive knuckles on the table, "who exactly that 'other element' belonged to."
Anthony sparked his lighter, taking a slow drag. He blew a plume of gray smoke toward the ceiling and smiled.
"They belonged to me."
The skinny bodyguard's fingers instantly twitched toward his waistband. Pavel immediately raised the muzzle of his MP5 a fraction of an inch, his finger tightening on the trigger.
"Relax, kid," Luther shot a warning glare at his own bodyguard, then looked back at Anthony. "You're claiming the Tarasov family wiped out a Cartel strike team?"
"Thirty-four elite Cartel Sicarios," Anthony casually flicked his ash into a crystal tray. "Total annihilation. Not a single survivor left to tell the tale."
"Why?"
"Because they murdered DeShawn," Anthony said, his tone adopting a flawless, utterly false note of absolute sincerity.
"DeShawn was my strategic partner. He helped me clear the Crips out of Queens. He was assassinated, and I was morally obligated to avenge him. That is the rule of the streets, is it not?"
Luther stared at him, trying to find a single crack in Anthony's sociopathic facade.
"DeShawn was my man," Luther said slowly, his voice grinding like stones. "His vengeance should have been extracted by the Bloods."
"You want to talk about vengeance?" Anthony raised an eyebrow, dropping the polite act.
"Where the hell were you when the Cartel breached his club? Where was your army when DeShawn was screaming into his phone begging for reinforcements?"
Luther's face darkened significantly. "We were currently executing our own tactical deployments."
"Your tactical deployment was letting him die," Anthony stated bluntly, crushing his cigarette out.
"And so, as of this morning, no one is in charge of the Brooklyn territory. DeShawn's men are either dead in the morgue or they ran for the hills. All that remains in that borough is a bunch of terrified kids who don't know how to hold a gun."
Anthony stood up slowly. He placed both hands flat on the table, leaning forward to perfectly match Luther's aggressive posture.
"I cleaned up your mess, Luther. I executed the Cartel hitmen who slaughtered your people. Therefore, by right of conquest, that territory now belongs to me."
"What the fuck did you just say?" The linebacker-sized bodyguard suddenly roared, violently reaching for the heavy pistol holstered at his waist.
CRACK!
Victor fired from the hip without even aiming.
The suppressed 9mm round shattered the marble floor exactly half an inch from the bodyguard's boot. Razor-sharp shrapnel exploded upward, shredding the man's trouser leg.
The bodyguard froze in absolute terror, his hand hovering over his gun.
"Sit the fuck down," Victor commanded. His voice was absolute zero.
The bodyguard looked at Luther. Luther gave a microscopic nod. The massive man slowly backed away, keeping his hands visible, and sank into a chair, his eyes locked on Victor's smoking pistol.
"Mr. Tarasov," Luther's voice remained incredibly calm, but the suppressed fury beneath it was palpable. "You are officially declaring war against the Bloods."
"No," Anthony shook his head dismissively. "I am officially executing a corporate takeover."
"The territories that the Bloods and the Crips proved entirely incapable of holding, the Tarasov syndicate will hold. It is basic economics."
"And if we refuse to yield the territory?" Luther asked quietly.
"Then you are welcome to try and take it back," Anthony straightened up, casually adjusting the cuffs of his bespoke suit.
"Do you genuinely believe I am going to politely hand over real estate that the Tarasovs secured through superior firepower?"
Anthony paused, his smile turning genuinely dangerous.
"I command a private military corporation that crawled out of a mountain of corpses in the Middle East, Luther. I have Tier One operators who just wiped out thirty-four military-grade Cartel Sicarios without taking a single casualty."
"I know you actively recruit street veterans into the Bloods. But do you honestly believe throwing street bangers against Delta Force operators is a wise financial decision? Do you want to bleed your syndicate dry fighting me, only to let the surviving Crips and the Mexican Cartels swoop in and slaughter whatever is left of you?"
Luther remained dead silent. His eyes darted back and forth, a seasoned general rapidly weighing the geopolitical pros and cons.
After a long minute, he looked back at Anthony. "You and DeShawn magically drove the Crips out of Queens. And now, DeShawn conveniently dies under highly mysterious circumstances..."
Luther's eyes turned freezing cold. "Mr. Tarasov, I am not an idiot."
"I don't care what you believe," Anthony sneered. "The Cartel corpses haven't even been processed at the city morgue yet. You can drive down to the precinct and look at their tattoos yourself."
"If you refuse to believe the ballistic evidence and the NYPD reports, then... by all means. Let's go to war."
Luther's jaw tightened.
The two bodyguards flanking him looked like they were going to have aneurysms from the sheer disrespect, grinding their teeth so hard they squeaked.
"I will personally verify your intelligence, Tarasov," Luther finally said, standing up. "The New York Bloods command over thirty thousand active members. We are not a weak, localized gang that you can simply bully into submission."
Just as Luther turned and reached for the door handle, Anthony spoke again.
"Luther. Have any of your high-ranking Bloods recently gone missing without a trace?"
Luther stopped dead in his tracks. He slowly turned around, his eyes narrowing into venomous slits.
"Every single syndicate in the city has been bleeding manpower for the past month," Luther said cautiously. "But I heard the Tarasovs are the only family whose roster remains untouched."
Anthony let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Isn't the answer blatantly obvious? There is a third-party player on the board. Someone vastly more powerful than us is trying to wipe us all out."
"With the Mexican Cartels heavily infiltrating the city, do you honestly believe the Bloods or the Crips possess the military infrastructure to survive the coming purge?"
Luther's eyes widened slightly as the implication hit him. "You mean..."
"I mean there is an apex predator currently attempting to establish an absolute monopoly over the New York underworld," Anthony said, lighting a fresh cigarette. "Tarasovs, Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings... unless we consolidate our defenses, not a single one of us will survive."
Having planted the seed of paranoia, Anthony turned his back. Sergei immediately stepped forward, gesturing for the Bloods to leave the premises.
Over the next forty-eight hours, the Tarasov syndicate's expansion across the city resembled a highly mechanized military occupation.
Underground casinos were violently rebranded, nightclubs completely overhauled their security details, and the lucrative illegal boxing rings reopened under Russian management.
DeShawn's brutal assassination had absolutely terrified the lower ranks of the Brooklyn Bloods. Meanwhile, Luther seemed to have taken Anthony's "advice" to heart. To avoid a two-front war against the PMC and the Cartel, Luther quietly ordered the surviving Bloods to withdraw entirely from Brooklyn and Queens, consolidating their remaining power in their heavily fortified historical territories in Manhattan and the Bronx.
Anthony exploited the vacuum immediately.
He authorized James to pull an additional twenty highly trained PMC operators from the compromised New Jersey farm, fully integrating them into the newly acquired Queens and Brooklyn sectors.
Furthermore, Anthony finally formalized his alliance with the survivors of the human trafficking rings.
Dion's gang was officially reborn under a new, terrifying moniker: The Purgatory Reapers.
It was an apt name, considering every single member of the gang had effectively died and been resurrected. Dion aggressively absorbed the thirty survivors rescued from the Cartel truck; instead of fleeing the city, they relocated their families into Tarasov-protected safehouses.
Out of the forty total survivors, seven were highly trained military veterans—including one former Navy SEAL.
The traumatized young woman who had begged Anthony to kill her in the refrigerated truck, Sheila Hill, turned out to be a brilliant university student majoring in supply-chain management. Anthony immediately appointed her as the primary logistics director under Puchad's command.
Backed by the overwhelming financial and military might of the Tarasov syndicate, Dion and his Reapers operated with terrifying, absolute arrogance. Within two days, they violently drove the hostile 18th Street Gang out of their remaining Brooklyn blocks.
The 18th Street and ABK gangs were forced into a humiliating retreat, absolutely furious but entirely too terrified of Anthony's private army to retaliate.
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