June 21, 1910: The Backroom of the Matranga Fruit Company, The Plaza
The air in the cramped backroom was thick with cigar smoke and the smell of stale wine. The only light came from a single, naked bulb hanging from the ceiling, casting long, flickering shadows against the brick walls. Around a scarred wooden table sat the inner circle of the Matranga crime family—men who had ruled the Plaza through fear for nearly five years.
At the head of the table sat Rosario "Sam" Matranga.
Sam was only twenty-six years old, a young man by any standard of criminal leadership. To his right sat his cousin, Pietro "Peter" Matranga. Born in 1882, Pietro was twenty-eight, two years older than his boss. He was a hardened man with scar tissue above his eyes and hands like shovels. Yet, he deferred to Sam.
Sam Matranga claimed that he was a direct descendant of an ancient Albanian noble family that had held status in Sicily for centuries, though how much of that claim was true, nobody knew.
Around them sat their most trusted lieutenants, men like Tony "The Butcher" Russo, who handled the union extortion. But tonight, the usual arrogance of the group was gone, replaced by a tense, vibrating anger.
"Carlo is useless," Pietro growled, slamming his heavy hand on the table. "His arm was snapped like a dry twig. And the other four? Same thing. Clean breaks at the joints. Whoever did this didn't just want to hurt them; they wanted to dismantle them."
Sam took a slow drag from his cigar, his youthful face completely devoid of emotion. "Five of our best enforcers," he said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of his lineage. "Taken down without a single shot fired. And nobody saw faces?"
"Masks," Tony Russo spat, clearly disgusted. "Black masks. Carlo said they moved like ghosts. He said the big one—the leader—was fast. Too fast."
"Trained," Sam corrected, exhaling a plume of smoke. "You don't break five men's arms with that kind of precision unless you know exactly how the body works. These aren't just angry shopkeepers or some neighborhood watch. These men are soldiers."
The room fell silent. The Matrangas were used to dealing with desperate immigrants or corrupt cops, not a disciplined paramilitary force.
"How big is their crew?" Pietro asked, looking at his younger cousin for answers. "Do we know numbers?"
"No," Sam admitted, his dark eyes narrowing. "Could be ten, could be fifty. We have no clear idea who they are or where they come from."
"Do-gooders," Tony sneered, leaning back in his chair. "Just some vigilantes getting their kicks interfering in business that don't concern them. They think they can scare us? They think because they broke a few bones, we're going to pack up and leave?"
Sam's expression hardened. "They insulted us, Pietro. They walked into my backyard, crippled my men, and told me to stay in line. If we let this slide, every shopkeeper in the Plaza will stop paying by next week. We rely on the belief that we are untouchable. Right now, we look weak."
He leaned forward, the shadows accentuating the sharp lines of his face. "From now on, the rules change. Everyone carries iron. No more clubs, no more knives. Every soldier, every collector, every lookout—I want them packing revolvers. If you see a mask, you shoot to kill. I don't care about warnings."
"And the tailor?" Pietro asked. "The old man is still not paying."
"Forget the tailor for a moment," Sam said coldly. "But we need to test these 'heroes.' They stopped one team? Fine. Let's see if they can stop an army."
Sam stood up, his small stature amplified by his commanding presence. "Tonight, we escalate. I want six teams. Three men in each team. That's eighteen men hitting the streets at once."
He looked at his older cousin. "Pietro, mix the crews. Don't just send the street muscle. I want our made men leading each group. We hit six different locations across the district simultaneously. Laundries, bakeries, grocers—anyone who has been late on a payment."
"They can't be everywhere," Pietro said, a cruel smile spreading across his face as he understood the strategy. "If they try to stop one, the other five burn."
"Exactly," Sam said, crushing the stub of his cigar into the ashtray. "We light up the night. Let's see how much water these do-gooders really have. By tomorrow morning, I want the Plaza to smell like smoke. I want the people in the Plaza to remember that nobody crosses us without consequences."
"Go," Sam ordered. "Burn it all."
****************
June 23, 1910: The Backroom of the Matranga Fruit Company, The Plaza
The clock on the wall ticked past 2:00 AM, the sound unnaturally loud in the smoke-filled backroom. The air was heavy, not just with the smell of cheap tobacco, but with the weight of expectation.
Sam Matranga, Pietro Matranga, and Tony Russo sat around the table, joined by two other senior enforcers, Vinnie and Marco. A bottle of whiskey sat in the center, largely untouched. They were waiting for the glow of fire in the distance, or the frantic reports of shopkeepers begging for mercy. They were waiting for their victory.
"It's been two hours since they rolled out," Russo said, leaning back and cleaning his fingernails with a small knife. "By now, the laundries should be ash. And the bakery? Dust."
"We paid the cops on the beat to take a long coffee break," Pietro added, checking the cylinder of his revolver for the third time. "Captain O'Malley knows the drill. No sirens, no interference. Our boys have free rein."
"They are good men," Russo continued, his voice thick with confidence. "Eighteen of them. Six made men leading the pack. Even if these 'masked heroes' show up, what are they going to do? They stopped five guys in an alley? Fine. But eighteen men with guns? If they show their faces tonight, they'll be met with lead."
Pietro nodded, pouring a drink. "It's a numbers game. They can't be everywhere at once. We'll break them."
Sam Matranga remained silent. He sat perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the black telephone mounted on the wall. He wasn't drinking. He wasn't celebrating. A cold, gnawing sensation had settled in his gut—a feeling he hadn't felt since he left Sicily. It was the instinct of a predator realizing the wind had shifted.
"Something feels wrong," Sam murmured, almost to himself.
"You worry too much, cousin," Pietro said with a grin.
Riiiing.
The sharp, mechanical trill of the telephone cut through the room like a gunshot.
Everyone froze.
"That's them," Russo said, sheathing his knife. "Calling to tell us the job is done."
Pietro stood up and walked to the wall. He lifted the receiver, his face set in a smirk. "Yeah? Tell me it's burning."
Sam watched his cousin closely.
He saw the smirk vanish. He saw the color drain from Pietro's face, leaving it ashen and gray. He saw his hand grip the receiver so tightly his knuckles turned white.
Pietro didn't speak for a long time. He just listened, his eyes widening in disbelief. Finally, he whispered a hoarse, "Understood," and slowly hung up the phone.
The room was deathly silent.
"What?" Sam asked, his voice low and dangerous. "What happened?"
Pietro turned around, looking like he had seen a ghost. "That was O'Malley."
"And?" Russo demanded. "Did the fires start?"
"There are no fires," Pietro said, his voice trembling. "The cops found them. All of them."
"Arrested?" Russo asked, confused.
"No," Pietro said, shaking his head slowly. "Broken."
He walked back to the table, leaning heavily on it to support his weight. "O'Malley said they found all six teams. All eighteen men. They were piled up in alleys near their targets."
"Dead?" Sam asked.
"No," Pietro swallowed hard. "The twelve soldiers... every single one of them has one arm and one leg broken. Clean snaps. They can't walk, they can't fight."
"And the made men?" Russo asked, his confidence evaporating. "The leaders?"
"Shot," Pietro whispered. "But not killed. They were all shot in the limbs—shoulders, knees, or hands. Surgical shots. They're alive, but God knows if they'll ever hold a gun again. O'Malley said the hospitals are overflowing."
A heavy silence descended on the room. In a single night, the Matranga family had lost its entire enforcement arm. Eighteen hardened criminals neutralized without a single civilian casualty, and without a single fatality. It was a level of precision that was terrifying.
"And there was one more thing," Pietro said, looking at Sam with wide eyes. "The cops said the attackers left a message with some of our guys. They were told to pass it directly to you, Sam."
"What is it?" Sam asked, his face a mask of stone.
"They said..." Pietro hesitated. "They said you will get to meet them. Today."
"Who?" Russo asked, looking around the room frantically.
"The vigilantes," Sam said, standing up abruptly. "They're coming here."
Panic began to set in.
"There are only five of us here," Pietro said, checking his gun again, his hands shaking this time. "If they took out eighteen men... if they broke twelve and shot six... what chance do we have?"
"We dig in," Sam ordered, his aristocratic demeanor cracking to reveal the desperate gangster underneath. "We are not running from our own house."
"Call the reserves," Sam barked at Russo. "Get everyone who can still hold a gun. Get them here now."
"We can't stop a gang that took out eighteen men," Russo argued, sweat beading on his forehead.
"We don't need to hunt them," Sam said, pulling a heavy revolver from his desk drawer. "We just need to hold the room. This is a siege."
Over the next hour, the phone lines buzzed. Desperate calls went out to every corner of the Matranga network. But fear travels fast; many didn't answer.
By 3:30 AM, only ten additional men had arrived—low-level toughs and cousins who hadn't been part of the strike teams.
They crowded into the front office and the backroom, fifteen men in total, clutching shotguns and revolvers, watching the door. The air was thick with fear. They weren't an army anymore; they were rats in a trap, waiting for the exterminator to arrive.