Rightfully Mine : The Pride Of A Man

Chapter 6

'So, whats he got on us?' A new lead detective had been signed to the department against organised crime in New York. In other words - this detective was assigned to take Vincenzo Romano down. Now this didn't exactly make Vincenzo leap with joy, but it certainly didn't make him feel threatened - irritated is what it made him.

Detective Rodriquez was a headache. The reason being, he was determined to put an end to the grip Romano's mob had on the city, which meant he couldn't be silenced by monetary gain.
He took his job seriously, wore his badge with pride, meaning that he also couldn't be blackmailed into letting things slide per say. To be blunt, he was a good cop. A clean cop. No debts, no hidden agenda, and no family that could be threatened. He lived and breathed putting the bad guys behind bars, and now that the FBI had had enough of the police being ruled under mafia regime, running amok of the law in New York, they knew just who to send in to take charge of the job.

Rodriquez had worked his way up from nothing - similar to Vincenzo in that sense. He was born to working class Mexican immigrants who focused on three things; God, education and work. He was an example of the American dream done right and he wouldn't tarnish that accomplishment now at 37 years old.

Now you might be wondering why not just kill him?... but now that he had the backing of the FBI it wasn't that simple. That would put Vincenzo in prison in a heartbeat. It was too easy. No matter how powerful you was, you couldn't just go around killing police officers as you pleased, especially valued detectives. If that were the case, then he would have done that by now. It was more political than that.

Vincenzo was the city's godfather. He put money into schools, churches, sports and youth centres, hospitals, community councils. He ran the real estate in New York  and he even attended the mayors annual banquet- he put money in his pocket too. The list was endless...

Now of course, this did work in Vincenzo's favour - he wasn't just throwing money away. It was a way for him to wash his dirty money, having written proof of income coming in and out of legitimate lucrative businesses. It also meant that he was indebted to...

Think of it as rent. He payed for the upkeep of the 'house' (aka business) so long as he was paid his share for letting you to stay on his property and have his protection. If you couldn't pay on time, then you would be sure it would never happen again. But if it did, you were ran out of business (and something more severe) , every penny sucked dry from Vincenzos straw and then along came a new business with a new rate of rent... so the cycle continued.

However, if people had problems they needed solving but couldn't go to the police out of obvious reason or because people from New York didn't generally trust the authorities, then the answer was always Vincenzo. And he always made the problem go away. This earned him soldiers who paid off their debts through helping him right back, then once they paid there debts off and had opened there eyes to a whole new world full of money and power, they wanted a taste of it. He was looked at as a saviour to so many. So his men were loyal to him. And so was the city - out of fear, respect or both.

Basically, anything that had a profitable value in the city flowed in and out of the Romano mob. Rodriquez just had to find holes in the system - people who were willing to talk. But he was searching for a needle in a hay stack. Rodriguez had no idea the ocean he was dipping his toe into. This was just New York. And New York had more legal obstacles to climb through than a lot of the other places Vincenzo had business in. Whatever he got away with in America, he got away with ten times over in other countries. And Rodriguez hadn't even scratched the surface of New York yet - but he would, he was determined of it.

'Nothing that hurts us badly Vin. Just few stolen airplane tickets. I don't even know where they showed up from. Probably one of the new boys leaving shit around the warehouse he shouldn't be. I'll look into it.'