It only took a week for her to get here. In that time, a brothel rose up in Payday district. It was ran by a woman affiliated with the Brown Owls. It was obviously bad for us here in Askill. This was an open provocation. Especially because this was a small town. Bianca got here the day after the grand opening. A new speakeasy popped up in the Yard district that very same day. That was fine. We had nothing there. When they put a brewery in the Hills district, that was a different story. That was my turf, so I could not just let it go. Payday was Nicolò's territory. He was up in arms as well. A drug lab was set up in Square district. That was not tolerable. My other families lived in that area. In my racket. If it was attacked, they would be in mortal danger. When I contacted the Red Rays and Glimmering Lions, they told me that there were now 4 big shots here in town. They were each made men. They all took a district and were going to be opening rackets in town to establish a base from where they could surveil and attack us all. They already bought their neutrality. I groaned. That was not good. War is here.
We needed to have a big meeting. The Rosy Face Inn was the perfect venue. All of us were there to discuss our next moves. We left the kids at home though. This was not the type of situation they should be involved in. I just looked at them. Nicolò, Araldo, Bernardo, Asella, Arminio, Tommy, Ronan, Cameron and Bianca all waited for me. I was the one that moved us down here. "I tried to vote down the war, but I failed. Now Brown Owls are here to play in Askill Town. Obviously, we will be their natural targets when they get through setting up their rackets in town. They have something going on in every district. We need to be on the same page on how to handle this." I looked at Nicolò. "The last thing we need is one of us to make a move that the others is not expecting. That will make it harder to move going forward." I said to him. He nodded his head. "I get it. I want them dead. How about you?" he asked. "I want them gone. I do not really care how as long as none of you have to eat a bullet." I said with a shrug. "Well, we can't bribe them to just go home, now can we!?" he said with a big eyeroll.
Shrugging my shoulders, I said "I don't think we actually have the money. If they came her just to fuck with us, they must either think this place is pretty valuable or they just want some easy wins." Araldo said "It could be for the mines. We do ship gold to Gravitt City every month. That has to be worth a good bit of money. We get paid well for it." That was true. "We also bring in tons of tourists that want to fuck at the brothels." Ronan added quickly. That was also true. "So, that lends some weight to the 'kill us to stop the Diamond Butterflies from getting so much money each month' idea. None of us are that known for dueling or winning large gunfights. Maybe there is a bit of truth to the 'rack up some easy kills and take territory early on for morale' theory too." I wondered out loud. Bianca shook her head. "There is no using thinking like that. This is a war. We just have to win." she said. I looked at her and smiled. "That is the most obvious thing. Yes, we need to win. The question is what does victory look like and how do we go about getting it done. Nicolò wants them dead. Do we just genocide them?"
That would take a lot. Nicolò jumped up and yelled "Yes! Let's just do that!" I chuckled. He frowned and got pretty defensive. "What's so funny!?" he demanded. "Do you remember all the bribes we had to pay just to stay here with the hotel and brothels. Daphne might be from here, but there is no way the people of Askill Town are going to tolerate a full on genocide run on the new businesses that popped up. They will run us out of town or just arrest us. And that is if we actually 'win' by going balls to the wall and killing them all in a single day. If we get killed or worse, let even one of the escape, it will all be for nothing. Brown Owls will storm the town looking to kill us with their best soldiers. I don't think that is a risk I want to take. We have each other, but we also have children to think of." All of them with kids looked down at the ground in contemplation. Nicolò just sighed deeply. "Yeah. It would suck to bury my best friend in the world for a shitty decision I made." he conceded. Bernardo said "So, what are we going to do? We can't wait for them to set up and then come after us." "Let's talk about it now."
