"Manhattan: Rise from the ashes"

[PennySaver]

"Manhattan"

Rise from the ashes

(See bottom of post regarding joining)​

Hanna Marks casually followed one goon into the massive and elegant living room of the 77th floor penthouse suite, followed close behind by yet another gun toting thug. It wasn't her first time in the Manhattan home of Carmine Mariano, of course. After the death of her father, Don Martino Marks, Carmine had been kind enough to step in and run the crime family's affairs for Hanna until she was ready to sit at the head of the table.

That had been 9 months ago, and she wasn't any closer to sitting in that iconic chair than she had the day of her father's murder which -- though it couldn't be proved -- had likely be at the order of Carmine Mariano himself.

Hanna knew -- and had known all along -- that Carmine would never voluntarily hand over control of the vast empire that was legally and also not-to-legally hers to run as Martino Marks's heir. She also knew -- and, again, had known all along -- that attempting to force Carmine out would be a fatal mistake, for her and anyone who supported her.

The feral-alley-mutt-turned-Made-Man had insinuated himself into Martino's inner circle during a period when the Don had been desperate for new Lieutenants. Martino had been aging poorly and showing signs of dementia; he'd been issuing orders that made no sense or were detrimental to the family's future, and many if not most of his right hand men had been reluctant or outright unwilling to do as they were told.

Carmine had stepped up and carried out Martino's orders. It was also suspected that he'd killed or had killed at least three of those mutinous Lieutenants.
The mutt-become-big-dog had quickly risen to become Martino's number one ... and then Carmine had had Martino killed.

Hanna knew this to be true, if only in her heart and without hard proof. And others in the family loyal to her felt the same way and had long felt they needed to deal with Carmine the way the family dealt with traitors. But Carmine had his own crew of loyal men who had protected him, before and after he'd become the new Don. And no one had been able to figure out how to eliminate both Carmine and his goons without getting a lot of good people dead in the doing.

Until now, that was.

"Are they going to stick around and watch," Hanna asked, "because I'm fine with that if you are."

She nodded Carmine's attention to the two bodyguards who'd escorted her in, then to the other two who were trying to appear as if they were just casually hanging out. Carmine never went anywhere without his protection; he could depend on these guys to eliminate any perceived threat to their boss, even if it meant risking their own lives.

"How do I know you are carrying a weapon? Carmine asked, looking Hanna's body up and down with a hungry expression. "How do I know this isn't some ruse to get me off my guard and..."

Carmine's question faded away into the ether as Hanna reached to her waist and pulled her tee shirt upwards and away from her body, revealing the most perfect pair of tits on the most perfect torso the man had seen in a long while. Letting the tee fall to the carpet, she stepped out of her modest heels and unbuttoned her jeans, pushing them and her panties off her hips and down her thighs.

Again, absolute perfection -- a combination of God's gift and religious attention to a routine of physical fitness -- was further revealed to the man. Hanna lifted one knee to slip out a leg, then the other; holding the pants out to one side, she did a slow turn that gave each of the five men present a clear viewing of her delicious and unarmed body.

"So," she asked when she was again facing Carmine, "is this going to be a gang bang, or..."

The new Don eyed the 26 year old Goddess for a moment, then looked to the senior of his body guards and nodded him out. The man was reluctant to leave him boss unguarded, but after Carmine growled Get out the head security man motioned to the others and out the door they went.

"The deal is that I give you a night you won't soon forget," Hanna said as she walked slowly Carmine's way, her hips swaying, the lips of her perfectly waxed pussy shifting as well to give hints of her swelling clitoris. She gave the other half of the arrangement, "And in return, you give me direct control over prostitution and pornography production."

Carmine didn't immediately answer; his eyes were glued to that heaven in which he'd wanted to bury his cock for more than six years, which was causing his lower head to twitch in excitement while his upper head was exactly able to create an response to Hanna's inquiry.

She held her jeans up in front of her body, hiding all of her feminine treasures. Carmine looked up with an expression of disappointment, then finally responded, "Yes, that's the arrangement, but ... not just this once."

"Let's just see if you can handle me, first," she told him with a devilish smirk as she moved in closer. She still held the jeans before her, playfully hiding herself as her feet began to part and pass Carmine's own outstretched legs. She was moving to ultimately sit in his lap as she said, "I may be more woman than you can take, Carmine."

He laughed as if what Hanna was saying was ridiculous, then reached up to take hold of one of the legs of the dangling jeans. He pulled at them, saying, "Those aren't necessary any--"

What Carmine didn't realize was that as she'd been approaching, Hanna had been inconspicuously reaching down one pant's leg to a secret little tube of added cloth.

When Carmine pulled away the jeans, the dagger remained behind in Hanna's clutches. Before he even realized she had it, the blade sunk into his throat until it hit bone. Hanna used her weight to push harder, and a fraction of a second later, it exited the back of his neck and sunk into the cushion of her $16,000, Italian leather recliner.

Carmine tried to call out but all his throat could do was gurgle and spit blood. She twisted the handle, causing a cracking sound in his neck and a massive ejection of blood that splashed all over Hanna's right shoulder and bosom. She twisted the blade some more as Carmine struggled in vain against her.

"For my father," she growled at him. "Before you die, you little alley mutt, I want you to know that while my father was buried in a beautiful, private cemetery filled with the remains of other great men and women of this city ... honored by more than two thousand loyal followers who practically crawled over one another to kiss his gold encrusted casket before it was lowered into the earth ... your body will be left in the dirty, filthy, stinking alley from which you came ... for the dogs, rats, and crows to feast ... and no will come to you to wish you a safe journey to your next destination."

Carmine was actually dead before Hanna finished her pronouncement but that meant nothing to her. She stood again, staring for a long moment at the red that now stained his body, his chair, the floor. It felt good to know the pig was gone; it felt even better to know she'd been the one who done it. She'd been the only one who could get this close. But her work here wasn't done.

Finding something to wipe the man's blood from her naked body, Hanna searched for and found Carmine's smart phone. She used his thumb print to open it, found the App for which she'd been told to look, and opened it up. She stuck a flash drive connection of a small PDA device created specifically for this job into the appropriate port, and within seconds it had used the penthouse's WIFI to transmit all of the phone's contents to Hanna's own Lieutenant, Marshall Dean, who was waiting in a dark SUV parked kitty corner to this building.

With confirmation that Marshall had the information for which she'd come here, Hanna pushed Carmine's body to the floor so it was not visible from the condo's door should someone open it, then went to the bathroom to clean up. She dressed again, tied her hair back in a low hanging pony tail, then went to the wet bar to get a drink and wait.

A couple of minutes passed before her phone chimed with a text message: Ready. 445467.

She went to Carmine's bedroom, opened the gun safe with the code she'd received, swung open the door, and found first a flash bang and then a Beretta 9mm pistol. Back at the condo's entrance, she pulled the pin on the grenade, open the door, tossed it outside, closed the door, waited for the explosion, then opened the door and at point blank range emptied the Beretta on the four men waiting outside.

It was overkill: 14 rounds for 4 disoriented men unable to even aim their weapons. But then Hanna felt they'd deserved it for backing the man who the surely knew had killed her father, their former Don.

Walking to the staircase, she casually took the long walk down to the highest floor of the Middle Bank Cargo Elevator, got in, and disappeared from the building without any still living people every knowing she'd been there.

++++++++++++++++​

Regarding the story:

• It begins a year after the fall of Manhattan to a varied assortment of organizations, from violent, brutal street gangs to organized crime families to government supported militias, the latter of which rose from the Police, the National Guard, or the Regular Military to become little more than extra-organized street games themselves.
• My character, as you read above, has been organizing a takeover of her criminal family's organization for quite a while. Finally, she's in charge.
• She is a power-hungry, sometimes vicious woman, but at the same time she is a loving, benevolent person. She wants to bring civilization back to Manhattan, under her control, obviously. She'll use brute force to accomplish this, destroying her enemies while at the same time caring for the residents of the neighborhoods that are under her control.
• She will suffer setbacks from time to time, but the general direction of this story will always be that she gets what she wants ... which is another way of saying that I get what I want. If you don't like that, go start your own role play.

Regarding joining:

• There is no minimum length to or frequency of replies. Talk to me about the character and story in which you wish to place that character, and we can talk about your commitment to the role play.
• You can offer up a character who plays a minor role and, therefore, will likely post infrequently and with possible very little words.
• However, if you commit to a primary character who plays a vital role in the story, and then you don't keep up, your character will likely get caught in an alley one night by thugs to be beaten, raped, and murdered ... possibly not in that order ... and possibly more than once. Yes, you heard that right: they will murder you more than once!
• Don't commit to a story line within the role play for which you do not have the time to participate. I post almost every day, typically a handful of times a day; you can look at my profile and verify this. This does not mean I expect you to do the same, but if you make a commitment, stick to it. Or sli-i-i-i-i-i-ice goes the knife across your neck ... or cock ... or tit.
• Proofreading for correct spelling and proper grammar is demanded. I do it, and I expect you to do the same. It shouldn't be a chore to read your shit.
• I anticipate that more than 80% of the posts will have little to nothing to do with sex. If you are looking for a fuck and suck RP, this isn't it.

 

[PennySaver]

Marshall Dean was surprised when the tablet laying next to him on the rear seat of the SUV chimed, indicating the incoming download. He hadn't imagined that Hanna would be that far in the plan by now because he hadn't imagined that his boss would have stripped naked before the wanna-be Don within a minute of having entered his fortress of a condo.

Marshall didn't like the plan Hanna had devised one bit, and it wasn't simply because it quite possibly would have resulted in her putting Carmine Mariano's cock inside one or more of her holes. First, it had been a long shot that the faux Don would have accepted as legitimate Hanna's offer to become his lover in exchange for such a small portion of the family's business, the prostitution and pornography sector. She'd been telling him for years that he'd never enjoy the euphoria or sexual orgasm within her, and even after he'd taken over and could very nearly order her to part her thighs, Hanna had still managed to put him off and not simply be raped by him one night.

Second, getting the weapon she'd used to kill Carmine into the penthouse had relied on her not getting frisked, and that was simply not something that got skipped when your were asking for entry into the home of the family leader that half the family wanted dead. Hanna would either have to avoid being frisked at all or prevent the goons from finding the hard metal blade pressed against her soft thigh flesh.

That covered getting in, and she still had to get out, which covered third, fourth, fifth ... hell twentieth if things went wrong.

The tablet's screen showed the slowly horizontally moving indicator of the download being in process. Marshall was relieved when the message popped up Download Complete for now Marshall could begin his portion of the mission to wrestle control of the family from Carmine and put it where it belonged, in Hanna Mark's hands.

The key to the success of their job tonight was the now-dead Don's paranoia. In addition to keeping track of the whereabouts of the men and women of the family who were not his biggest fans, Carmine also kept minute by minute track of the whereabouts of even his closest and most trusted Lieutenants and their second and third tier subordinates.

Tapping at the screen, Marshall forwarded the locations of two dozen of Carmine's people -- mostly men but four women as well -- who were the greatest threat to Hanna gaining control over the family. All across Manhattan and even beyond, phones of hit squads and lone assassins alike rang, chimed, chirped, or simply vibrated.

Over the twenty minutes to come, Marshall's tablet chimed repeatedly, acknowledging that one hit after another had been accomplished; three messages reported initial failures, but by this time tomorrow all three of those men would be tracked down and eliminated.

Marshall sent Hanna a text, giving her the code to the weapons safe and telling her to get out of there immediately. It been agonizing for Marshall to sit there like that, knowing that Hanna's killing of Carmine could be uncovered at any moment and, of course, she herself would be killed. But it had been necessary, for as long as the bodyguards in the hall believed that their boss was getting his knob shined, Hanna was safe.

Exiting the SUV with one of his subordinates, Marshall headed for the mixed commercial/residential building's after hours entrance. His arrival at the door coincided perfectly with the arrival of four more pairs of men. They all pulled their weapons -- a mix of semiautomatic pistols, machine pistols, and shotguns -- and used a stolen pass key to gain entry to the building.

An alarm was sounding from the direction of the lobby, telling Marshall that Hanna had used her flash bang and gained the attention of the building's security. Marshall and the man who walked with him entered the lobby and -- as Security spotted them coming -- opened fire with the shotguns they were carrying. The fast moving, heavy bean bag rounds hit the guards with great momentum; still, it took two rounds to put one man down and three for the other.

These men weren't Carmine Mariano's men, though, if this had been Marshall's home and he had been the Don, they certainly would have been. Regardless, Marshall wasn't about to kill the pair. The guards were bound with zip ties, gags, and blindfolds and secured in the security office's broom closet. Marshall sent four men to the cargo elevator to wait for Hanna, while he and the other spread out through the first floor, waiting for any of Carmine's men who might have been alerted to trouble at the tower.

But no one else arrived during the couple of minutes it took Hanna to reach the lobby or for the entirety of her team to get to the SUVs and disappear into the night.

"That's the list," Marshall told Hanna after he'd tapped on the tablet screen to open a file. Dozens of names were listed, each with a designation of how high up in the family he or she was, what they did for the family, where they were right now (assuming they had their phone on or near them), and more. He smiled to Hanna and asked simply, "What next ... Donna Marks?"

 

[PennySaver]

Hanna pressed her back to the front wall of the cargo elevator as its doors opened in the lobby of the skyscraper; she'd been gripping the Beretta in her hand so tightly for the last dozen floors or more that it was beginning to hurt.

"Happiness," a male voice called from the hallway beyond the door, repeating, "Happiness, happiness."

Smiling in relief, Hanna peeked out, then a bit more, to find -- one after another -- the also smiling faces of four of her loyal Soldiers.

"The lobby is secure, Miss Marks," the man who'd spoken reassured her. As Hanna emerged and the four surrounded her for the trek out to awaiting SUV, the man told her, "There are no signs of resistance at this location ... Donna Marks."

Hanna smiled to the man's use of that title for her. She'd been waiting 9 months to hear that spoken. They got her safely from the building and across the intersection to the tank of an SUV, and a moment later Marshall emerged from the darkness to join her. He asked her if she was okay, to which she said yes, then handed her the tablet to which she'd sent the all important data from Carmine's own device.

"That's the list."

Looking at the opened file, Hanna named those people she wanted executed immediately, taken into custody for interrogation, or given protection and/or taken to one of the many safe houses for discussion about their future. The updated lists of names were broadcasted to the encrypted phones of Hanna's loyal people, and -- just as the hits had already begun across Manhattan and beyond -- so did these rescues and/or new assassinations.

"What next ... Donna Marks?" Marshall asked.

Hanna smiled to him, then chuckled. "I don't think I'll ever get tired of hearing that. Get me home. I need to get the smell of Carmine off me."

++++++++++++++++​

After showering and dressing once more, Hanna made her way out onto the balcony of her own penthouse condominium. From here she could see the skyscraper in which Carmine's body had likely by now been discovered. Normally, an assassination of someone of his rank would bring quick and brutal retaliation. But Marshall there wasn't anyone left to seek such retaliation; Hanna's plan to steal the GPS file and track down Carmine's cohort had proved successful beyond belief and there simply was no one left of importance who might give a rat's ass about the dead Don.

Donna Marks, Hanna repeated to herself. It had been a long, hard road to get to this point. Ironically, it would be a longer, harder road to make it mean anything of importance.

Manhattan -- and most of New York City as a whole -- had suffered the same collapse of civilization as had most of the large metropolises across the country, continent, and planet. The gap between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, majority and minority had simply gotten so wide that collapse had been inevitable.

Thousands of acts of racial injustice, hundreds of brutal police slayings of minorities, the COVID-19 and Cv2-21 pandemics, and the outbreak of hostilities between the United States and four other nations in far off corners of the globe had led to the collapse of the Nation and -- within months -- the collapse of several others right behind it.

The Federal Government had attempted to use the National Guard -- and later the Army and Marines -- to quell the unrest. But many of the States disagreed with the Federal Government as to what the problems were and what the solutions to those problems were as well; conflict between local police and federal agents -- including dozens of deaths of police and agents at the hands of other police and agents -- erupted in Portland, Oregon, then in Chicago, Illinois, then -- over the next year -- in 12 other large cities.

Within a year of that first cop-on-cop killing, the US fell into anarchy. In a country where civilians held over 300 million firearms, anarchy was a very dangerous state of affairs. It got worse as units from the Police, National Guard, and US Military began operating independently as local militias, whether for good or bad.

The United States as a working entity was considered dead and gone for good when a hijacked military cargo plane loaded with volatile liquid explosives was flown into the Capitol Building during an emergency joint meeting of the House and Senate. Many believed and still believe to this day that the organizers of the meeting -- the President, his Chief of Staff, and a Senior Member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, each of whom had at the last minute left the Capitol Building -- had called that meeting specifically to eliminate the elected leaders of the country, with the ultimate aim being to declare Martial Law and, eventually, an American Dictatorship.

But, that was never to happen, whether or not it had actually ever been the plan. The President was assassinated four days after the attack, his Chief of Staff disappeared, and the JCS General who'd been part of the plot ate his pistol a week after that.

Manhattan burned.

That was the simplest way to describe it. Protesters, looters, anarchists, whatever; they all rose up, and in the end much of Manhattan had been damaged or destroyed. Now, a year after the worse of the mayhem, the island city was much calmer. But it was a crime ridden hell hole, and the only place where there was any peace and calm at all were those neighborhoods -- or even single structures -- where the people in charge were well armed and willing to do anything they had to do to protect their people.

Hanna's father, Don Martino Marks, had been one of those people who been doing the benevolent thing for the people of the neighborhoods the Family controlled. Then Carmine had him killed and reintroduced the mayhem with a major influx of drugs, weapons, prostitutions, extortion, gang war, unnecessary violence, and more.

Hanna was going to bring that to an end now. The men -- and women, too -- who she had had killed this night were the people who had seen Carmine's madness carried out. They were gone now for the most part. Hanna would replace them with more appropriate people, people who would do her benevolent bidding.

Of course, Carmine's people had also had a tight hold on the Family's holdings. Without these powerful people in powerful positions, the leaders of the other criminal organizations, militias, and street gangs would be tempted to try to take all they could from the Marks Family.

After putting her own people in place, this was Hanna's first and biggest concern. It wasn't that she wanted to control everything for herself; it was that she knew she was the best possible leader for all of everything, and if she was required to go to war to keep or take as much as she could so that -- in the end -- peace could be found, well ... that was how it was going to happen.

 

[PennySaver]

Hours Earlier:

The right place at the right time, Janine Craig thought to herself as she hurried down the loading dock of the riverside-located warehouse of Marks Shipping. She'd just received the Go! text from Marshall, just minutes after verifying that not one, not two, but three of Carmine Mariano's Lieutenants had arrived at the family's import/export office on Chelsea Piers.

The three men were here to partake of a strategy meeting regarding the smuggling of contraband into -- and to a lesser extent out of -- the island city of Manhattan. This warehouse had once been solely a legitimate Family business, carting products from food to lumber to automobiles and more. But since Carmine's takeover, the warehouse had been used more and more for illegal activities, not the least of which was the importation of women and children enslaved for the prostitution and pornography trade.

Martino Marks had allowed and even encouraged the Family's involvement in the the profitable P's during his time as Don. But he would never have allowed involuntary involvement by women in either industry, and he would have cut off the cocks and balls of any of his subordinates who'd involved minors in the trades.

Janine despised the sex slave trade as much as had Don Martino Marks or, now, Donna Hanna Marks. Carmine had no qualms about it at all. Compared to bringing in cocaine from South America or heroine from Southeast Asia, bringing in women and children from all over the State, Country, and Continent was easy and far more profitable. And unlike a package of dope which only lasted so many hours or days, an enslaved, vulnerable, weak female or underage body could last weeks, months, or years, depending upon how you used and cared for it.

Making contact with other loyalist family members who'd also been tracking these three Lieutenants, Janine organized an assault on the location that went just as planned. A distraction at the back of the building after she'd entered the front allowed her to put two bullets each into the bodies and/or heads of the three targets before any of them had even known she was there.

Using shock and awe tactics, the attackers gathered the remaining meeting members in the center of the warehouse, down on their knees, hands above their heads. Janine walked up close to the man she knew to be the warehouse manager and a thug loyal to Carmine, leaned in close to speak directly into his ear, and whispered. She then rose and stepped back to await the man's answer.

"I work for Don Carmine Mariano," the man said with a firm, confrontational tone. "I do whatever he--"

Pop! went the Beretta in Janine's hand, the bullet entering the kneeling man's eye socket and blowing out a portion of the back of his head. He slumped over to the concrete, and Janine moved to yet another man she knew to be loyal to Carmine. Again she leaned in and whispered to the man before backing up again.

The man was a bit more hesitant, not responding until Janine raised her weapon toward his face and told him to answer. Not knowing what to do or say, the man remained firm on his loyalties and warned, "Don Mariano will have all of you--"

Pop! The man fell over as did the first with a similar injury to his face and skull. Janine looked around for another familiar face, found it and headed that direction.

"I work for Donna Hanna Marks," the man said before Janine could even get close enough to begin leaning in to ask her question. "I work for Donna Hanna Marks, and I do for her what ever she asks."

Donna told the man to stand, and after he did she handed him one of the pistols that had been taking from a Lieutenant. She told him, "Kill the men you think will be incapable of showing loyalty to Donna Marks."

The man was hesitant at first, simply looking between the firearm and Janine, as if thought it was a test and he was deathly afraid of failing. But then he turned, looked about the concerned faces ... and shot dead three men, now without a moment's hesitation. Turning back to Janine, he cautiously turned the weapon so it was no threat to her and offered it back.

"The rest of these men are loyal to me," he said, adding, "And they will be loyal to Donna Marks as well. I promise."

"Ma'am...?" one of the men on his knees called. When Janine looked his way, he asked if he could rise and come to her, telling her, "There's one man here still alive that you won't be able to trust."

Without any concern, Janine offered him the weapon, directing him, "Kill that man."

The new man took the weapon, raised it, and pop! The loyal man who'd vouched for the others fell to the pavement dead. The handgun came back to Janine as the new executioner said, "There is no way you could have trusted this man ... but ... the rest of us, you can. I promise."

He looked off toward a shipping container, then back to Janine. "The women and boys are over there."

A moment later, three shipping containers were being unloaded of their human cargo. A total of 48 women ages 14 to 34 and 22 children of both genders were removed and promised they were now safe. Janine, by Hanna's direction, would see to it that they were taken to one of several safe houses to be housed, properly clothed, and fed before arrangements were made for them to be returned to their homes and families, if that was possible.

If it wasn't possible, Janine knew that Hanna would care for them in some way. After all, that was how Janine had come into the new Donna's. Janine had been trafficked after becoming addicted to heroine, spending almost a year whoring herself to Family-connected men who were and soon would be doing business with Carmine. Hanna had learned of her, saved her, faked her death -- to prevent Carmine from coming looking for her -- and, after learning that Janine had what she called an extreme comfort with guns and killing bad people with them made her one of the point people in this incredibly successful coup.

As she stood back and watched the activities in the warehouse, Janine couldn't help but feel as those this was the greatest night yet of her short 24 year old life.

 

[PennySaver]

Day 3:

Hanna Marks strode into the conference room and down one side of the table that sat 20. Every seat had someone in it and another 20-plus people either stood up next to the walls or sat in chairs that had been brought in from other rooms. She proceeded to the far end of the table and simply stood there for a long moment as she sipped water from a bottle and studied the faces before her.

"Good morning," she said with a friendly tone and smile. Around the table, there was a mix of responses, from equally friendly greetings and expressions to continued silence and stunned looks. "For those of you who don't know me, I am Hanna Marie Marks, daughter of Martino Marks, who I'm sure each of you know ... or knew, I should say, very well and for a variety of reasons."

She hesitated a moment as a few of those present expressed their sorrow to Hanna for the loss a year ago of her father. She couldn't help but wonder if that grief of which they were speaking was more for her as Martino's only child or for their own personal loss when the bribes and special services money her father had regularly paid them dried up with his death.

The people assembled here today weren't members of the family or of other criminal organizations -- organized or otherwise -- or even politicians, prosecutors, police, or other people in positions of authority. The men and women here today ran the distribution services for water, electrical power, and gas; they controlled the roads, subways, bus lines, bridges, and the pass and toll systems that in great part had once supported them but since the collapse -- and the rise of militia road blocks -- did not; and they supervised such social necessities as the hospitals, clinics, child and family services agencies, drug rehabilitation homes, and more.

"As most of you have heard by now, there has been a change in leadership at Marks Enterprises," she said, unable not to smirk a bit. "The Board of Directors has elected me to fill the position of CEO after the previous occupant of that seat, Carmine Mariano, tragically died from a fatal injury to the neck."

There was a semi-muted guffaw from near the other end of the table, followed by a soft giggle a bit closer; around the table, gazes shifted between those reacting, those keeping quiet, and Hanna, who knew that the true cause of Carmine's death was out there in the rumor mill. She couldn't help but smirk a bit herself, too, wondering how many people had heard and believed that second part of that rumor, that it had been Hanna herself who had put that blade clean through Carmine's neck.

"After the Collapse, when the government failed us, the people of Manhattan and of the Greater New York City area," Hanna went on, ignoring the short distraction, "when mayhem and anarchy threatened to deliver our City to the dark ages, you -- the people who make this city work -- received my father's generous assistance in keeping the gears turning."

Again, as would happen throughout this meeting, the reactions of the assembled people were mixed. Many of them had had the greatest respect for Martino Marks; he had made sure they got what they needed to do their jobs, and if they did their jobs well, he made sure that they got something for their own pockets as well.

But at the same time, Hanna's father had expected something from these people for himself, too. Typically it had simply been to ensure that what ever they provided to the people -- a service, a product, a bit of intelligence -- was provided to him first and to a larger degree. Other times, Martino had simply wanted the people, buildings, businesses, or neighborhoods which were loyal to him to be the first to get those resources.

Some of those assembled here today had felt they were being pressured or even extorted. But in reality, before the collapse and particularly afterward, these people couldn't have done their jobs without the Don's assistance. And now, after 9 months of Carmine's rule, many of them knew this. Of course, some of those here today had become closer to Carmine than they ever had been to Martino. Those people had ensured that they themselves profited from their interaction with the man Hanna had killed just days ago, and those people wouldn't be profiting anymore. Hanna would make sure of that.

"The Collapse was hard on you," she continued, now beginning a slow stroll that would ultimately take her all the way around the table and then some, "as it was on most of the people who live in our city.

She spoke about the jobs they did, the hardships they suffered, the help her father offered, and the benefits they received because of the trust that had been shared between them and Hanna's father. Then she spoke about how Carmine had destroyed the trust through extortion, threats, and often violence.

When she was a few steps into her second encirclement of the table, Hanna -- without actually naming the person -- began speaking about a specific service offered to a specific neighborhood. The man at the table about whom she was speaking donned a nervous expression and sat up a bit taller, looking first at Hanna then at the others, wondering if they knew he was the person in question.

Hanna spoke of how steam that heated the radiators of the building had been cut off in the middle of a fierce storm as punishment for a rent strike being waged against the building's owner who, indirectly, had been Carmine Mariano himself; she spoke of the nineteen people who died as a result and of the three children and one adult who had suffered frostbite and lose fingers, toes, or entire limbs; she named them and spoke of their families and friends had been devastated and, in the case of the dead, would forever miss them; she spoke of how it simply amazed her that someone could Be so cold as to treat someone else so coldly.

"What do you think the punishment for such a horrific act against innocent people should be?" she asked, now staring directly into the eyes of the guilty man. "I mean, it wasn't as if he'd done it because my predecessor had threatened him ... with violence or financial ruin or some other punishment. No, this man did this thing thing that led to nineteen deaths because he'd been offered money ... and not even very much money it turned out ... just $15,000 ... just $789.47 for each man, woman, and child who died that horrific night in February."

The man in question was beginning to show a serious nervousness as Hanna's slow walk brought her around to stand right behind him. He flinched when Marshall appeared on the other side of him. Hanna's Lieutenant set two bundles of hundred dollar bills -- $20,000, not $15,000 -- on the table in front of him.

"Take it," he demanded. When the man only sat there, now visibly sweating, Marshall stuffed the bank bundles of bills into the outside pockets of his dress suit jacket, telling him, "Take it!"

Two men under Marshall's direction snatched the man up out of his chair and began dragging him toward the door through which all the others had arrived. But they didn't go through it; instead, another pair of Hanna's Soldiers rolled a restaurant grade, stand up freezer unit into the room. It had a glass door, and after the four men together had forced the now screaming public servant into it, they stuck a pin through the handle to keep the door shut. The man inside beat at the door and pushed and kicked it and the sides in an effort to escape.

There was another mixture of emotion throughout the room as it was obvious that the man was on his way to freezing to death. Marshall opened a briefcase presented to him, and taking handfuls of $10,000 bundles out of it, she began another circle around the table, dropping one bundle in front of each of the people while two other Soldiers made their ways down the walls, distributing cash there as well.

When everyone had a bundle in their hands or in front of them, Hanna explained, "You have a choice. You can work for me and can continue to be paid handsomely for your service ... to me and to the people for whom I care. Or you can get the fuck out Manhattan and never come back. Either way ... the money before you is yours. Use it to get out of town and set yourself up somewhere else, I don't care. There will be no retribution upon those of you who leave the service or my City. But if you stay ... you work for me ... for only me ... or..."

She glanced toward the freezer and the man who already was barely moving in the extremely low temperature. Hanna looked around the room with a stern expression, then smiled and said, "I'll be in touch."