Chapter 160: Preemptive Strike

A stream of twenty three men came marching down Bleecker Street toward the Morton Street crossing, walking in two disciplined files along opposite curbs. They wore heavy wool jackets, flat caps pulled low, and carried wooden clubs and wrapped lead pipes tucked under their arms.

​A boy delivering rolled newspapers outside the corner grocery caught one look at the vanguard and took off running down the sidewalk, his leather boots slapping hard against the cobblestones. He burst through the batwing doors of Old Sean’s tavern, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Dusters! They’re coming down Bleecker! At least twenty of ’em!"

​Within two minutes, Old Sean stepped out onto the tavern stoop, accompanied by ten middle-aged shopkeepers and neighborhood men holding makeshift weapons—iron pipes, heavy table legs, and ash-wood bats.

​Before they could set their footing, the twenty-three Duster enforcers swarmed the intersection, completely surrounding the front of the tavern and cutting off the sidewalk. They stood two-deep, outnumbering Sean’s group more than two to one.

​At the front of the gang stood three of Clarence’s enforcers: Mickey, Gimpy, and O’Shea. Mickey stepped forward, resting a heavy brass-knuckled fist on his hip, a smug smirk stretching across his battered face.

​"Well now, Old Sean," Mickey sneered, looking over the small group of shopkeepers. "Where are those brave heroes of yours now? Do they know you lot are out here about to get your heads caved in? Too bad it’s daylight out. Looks like your white-masked angels only operate when the sun goes down."

​The goons surrounding him erupted into dark, mocking laughter.

​"There they are!" a loud voice roared from down Morton Street.

​Mickey turned his head. Pouring out from the side street came another crowd of locals—at most ten young dockworkers and older shopkeepers carrying milk bottles, baseball bats, and iron wrenches. Leading the charge was Cole, an old friend of Sean’s, his face red with fury.

​"Don’t let ’em leave the block!" Cole yelled, waving a heavy wooden club as his group closed in, surrounding the Dusters from behind.

​Passersby on Bleecker Street scattered into doorways, while vegetable vendors quickly abandoned their wooden carts, scrambling into alleyways to watch from cover.

​Mickey’s eyes flicked over the incoming crowd, but he maintained his cocky posture, sliding his hand inside his coat to rest on the handle of his revolver. "You think bringin’ a bunch of old coots with broomsticks changes anything?" he shouted over the noise. "We still got the guns, and we still run this ward!"

​Old Sean stepped off the tavern stoop, his jaw set firm. "We’re done paying you leeches! Every merchant on this block is finished being bled dry for your protection racket!"

​"Is that right?" Mickey said softly.

​Without another word of warning, Mickey yanked his snub-nosed revolver from his jacket and pulled the trigger point-blank into Old Sean’s chest.

​BANG!

​The heavy gunshot echoed off the brick tenements. Old Sean gasped, stumbling backward onto the wooden stoop before collapsing flat on his back, blood pooling over his apron.

​The street went dead silent for a single, horrified second.

​Mickey waved the smoking barrel at the crowd, sneering. "So! Is there anybody else who feels like refusing?"

​Cole’s eyes went wide with pure rage. "You dirty yellow bastard!" he screamed. "Get ’em!"

​"Rush ’em!" Cole yelled, lunging forward.

​The entire local crowd charged the gang in a desperate, chaotic frenzy. Mickey panicked, realizing the crowd wasn’t backing down despite the gun. He raised his revolver to aim at Cole, but before he could squeeze the trigger, Cole swung his wooden bat downward with all his strength.

​CRACK!

​The bat struck Mickey’s wrist with a sickening crunch. Mickey shrieked in pain, dropping the gun onto the cobblestones as Cole tackled him into the gutter.

​A violent, chaotic brawl erupted across the intersection. Fists flew, wooden clubs smashed against shoulders, and glass bottles shattered against the brick walls. But as the minutes dragged on, the Dusters’ sheer numbers, youth, and street-fighting experience began to turn the tide. The older shopkeepers grew winded, knocked down one by one onto the pavement.

​Gradually, the brutal melee ground to a halt. The battered locals were forced back against the tavern wall, bruised, bleeding, and exhausted.

​Mickey, his face covered in dirt and blood, scooped up his fallen revolver with his uninjured left hand. He spat a mouthful of crimson spit onto the street, his eyes wild with venom as he raised the gun toward Cole.

​"Listen to me, you miserable rats!" Mickey roared, his voice cracking across the block. "If every single shop owner on Bleecker Street doesn’t hand over their protection money right now, I swear to God Almighty every shop on this block burns to the ground with your wives and kids locked inside!"

​No one moved. The remaining shopkeepers stood frozen, bleeding and terrified.

​"That’s what I thought," Mickey scoffed. He turned to O’Shea and Gimpy. "Drag Sean’s carcass into the pub! Grab the kerosene cans from the cart and douse the floorboards! We’re lighting this dump first!"

​Four Dusters grabbed Sean’s boots, hauling his body toward the tavern door.

​Cole staggered forward, clutching his bruised ribs, trembling as he pointed at Mickey. "Stop it while you still can, boy. I swear to God... you’re gonna regret this."

​Mickey let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Regret it? Who’s gonna make me—"

​CRACK-BOOM!

​A sharp, high-caliber rifle report thundered down Morton Street from hundreds of yards away.

​Before Mickey could finish his sentence, a bullet struck him square in the center of his throat. His throat exploded in a spray of red, cutting his words into a wet, awful gurgle. He dropped his revolver, clutching his neck with both hands as he collapsed sideways into the muddy gutter, thrashing violently before going completely still.

​Gimpy and O’Shea froze in sheer terror.

​"MICKEY!" Gimpy screamed. He scrambled frantically across the cobblestones, grabbing Mickey’s fallen gun and diving behind a metal lamp post. "WHO DID THAT?! WHERE’S IT COMING FROM?!"

​The Dusters scattered, diving behind rain barrels and stoops, while the remaining locals dropped flat onto the pavement.

​Gimpy stared at Mickey’s limp body, his breathing ragged as he screamed at the shopkeepers pressed against the wall. "WHO’S ON THE ROOFS?! TELL ME OR I’LL KILL EVERY ONE OF YOU!"

​CRACK-BOOM!

​A second rifle shot detonated from a three-story rooftop two hundred yards up Morton Street. A small puff of grey smoke drifted into the afternoon air—and a split-second later, a heavy bullet tore through Gimpy’s head, snapping his neck back as he slumped lifelessly against the base of the lamp post.

​"SNIPERS!" O’Shea shrieked, backing away toward an alleyway. "THEY’RE ON THE ROOFS—"

​THWACK! BANG!

​A third shot—fired from a closer angle near a side alley window—caught O’Shea straight in the side of his chest. He spun around from the impact and slammed face-first onto the sidewalk, motionless.

​Panic seized the remaining twenty Dusters.

​"RUN! GET OUTTA HERE!"

​The thugs abandoned their clubs and pipes, scrambling over one another as they fled in pure terror down Bleecker Street, leaving their three dead leaders behind in the dirt.

​Silence returned to the intersection, save for the heavy breathing of the surviving locals.

​Cole slowly pushed himself up from the ground, wiping blood from his forehead. Cautiously, he stepped out from beneath the tavern awning and looked up toward the rooftop at the corner of Morton Street.

​Standing on the stone ledge against the pale afternoon sky was a figure clad entirely in a dark suit, black cap, and a stark white face mask. He held a long, bolt-action rifle resting casually against his shoulder.

​As Cole stared up at him in disbelief, the masked sniper raised two fingers to the brim of his black cap, offering a quiet, deliberate tip of respect.

​Cole felt a lump in his throat. He raised his bruised fist high into the air. "IT’S THEM!" he shouted, his voice echoing down the street. "IT’S THE FACELESS MEN!"

​The surrounding locals began pushing themselves up from the cobblestones, looking up at the roof in awe before bursting into victorious cheers. By the time the crowd reached the center of the street, the masked figure had stepped back into the shadows of the roof hatch, vanishing into thin air.

​Though Old Sean lay dead on the tavern stoop, the spirit of Bleecker Street had shifted entirely. Hope burned bright through Greenwich Village—the Faceless Men were not just myths of the night. They were actively hunting the Dusters, and the war for the neighborhood had officially begun.

​An hour later, inside the Perry Street saloon, the back room was in complete ruin.

​"In broad daylight?!" Red screamed, his voice echoing through the building.

​With a roar of fury, Red grabbed a round oak card table and flipped it violently across the room, smashing it against the wall. He snatched a half-empty bottle of rye off the bar and hurled it into the wall mirror, sending shards of silvered glass raining down over the floorboards.

​A young Duster goon standing near the door flinched—and Red immediately lunged at him, grabbing the boy by his shirt collar and slamming him repeatedly against the mahogany bar until the goon slumped to the floor, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

​Red stood over him, chest heaving, his face red and slick with sweat as he wiped his bruised knuckles with a linen handkerchief.

​"What the fuck is going on?!" Red roared, pacing up and down the shattered room. "Mickey, Gimpy, and O’Shea—executed in the middle of the street like stray dogs! By snipers on the bloody roofs! And none of you even do a damn thing!"

​His primary lieutenant, Clarence Vance, stood quietly near the back door, waiting for the fit of rage to subside before stepping forward. "Red... you need to calm down."

​"Calm down?!" Red turned on him, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "Do you have any idea what this means, Clarence? If these white-masked bastards can pick off my lieutenants in broad daylight, not a single shopkeeper in Greenwich is gonna pay us another dime! They’ll think those freaks are standing guard over every roof in the ward!"

​"It’s already happening," Clarence admitted grimly, crossing his arms. "Word spread from Bleecker in twenty minutes. Half the merchants on Morton Street just chased our collectors off with broomsticks and iron bars. They’re refusing to pay."

​Red slammed his fist onto the bar counter, breathing heavily through his nose as he forced himself to regain composure. He straightened his wool vest, tossing the bloody handkerchief onto the floor.

​"We can’t handle this with street brawlers anymore," Red said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous growl. "Clarence... get over to the ward house immediately. Find Sullivan."

​Clarence raised an eyebrow. "Sullivan? Are you sure you want him involved in a street feud?"

​"It ain’t a street feud anymore!" Red barked, leaning over the counter. "Tell Sullivan what happened on Morton Street. Tell him these masked vigilantes aren’t just lone lunatics with knives—they’re organized, they’ve got rifles, and they’re executing our men in broad daylight. If these phantoms destroy our protection racket, Our money disappears with it."

​"What do you want Sullivan to do about it?" Clarence asked.

​Red sneered, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "I want him to put prepare for war. I want everyone of our men pulled off their regular beats and put on those rooftops. If we don’t crush these Faceless Men right now, we won’t have a single block left to rule by next week. Now move!"𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂