Chapter 2 - SHADOWS OVER EAST SIDE
Daniel Mercer watched the skinny ten-year-old girl march out into the biting December wind, carrying two infant boys in a worn cloth sling. Her boots were two sizes too large, held together at the toes with duct tape, but her back was as straight as a iron rail.
"Boss," his lieutenant, Leo, murmured under his breath, taking a cautious step forward. "You want me to have someone follow her? Make sure she gets home safe?"
Daniel didn't answer immediately. He looked down at the crumpled bills sitting on the glass scanner of the register—eleven dollars and forty cents, smeared with grease and cold rain. He reached out with a gloved hand and picked up the paper money, sliding it carefully into the breast pocket of his bespoke wool coat.
"No," Daniel said, his voice flat and unreadable. "Not just follow her. Find out who she lives with, where she sleeps, and why two infants are relying on a ten-year-old child to buy their food."
"Right away," Leo replied.
Within two hours, Daniel was sitting in the dimly lit back office of Mercer Market, swirling three fingers of bourbon in a crystal glass. Leo knocked once and stepped inside, holding a thin manila folder.
"Her name is Lily Carter," Leo began, opening the file under the single desk lamp. "Her mother, Sarah Carter, died eight months ago from pneumonia. No father listed on any birth certificates. The boys, Owen and Noah, are eight months old."
"Who has custody?" Daniel asked, his eyes fixing on his lieutenant.
"An aunt. Susan Carter. She's thirty-two, lives in a dilapidated two-bedroom apartment three blocks from here on 8th Street," Leo reported, his tone darkening. "Susan works part-time at a laundromat, but most of her income goes straight into the local underground card games run by Victor Rossi's crew."
Daniel’s grip tightened around his glass. The name Victor Rossi was a stain on the Pittsburgh landscape. Rossi was a mid-level loan shark who specialized in preying on desperate people, charging astronomical interest rates and enforcing debts with brass knuckles and heavy boots.
"So the aunt is gambling away the survival money," Daniel stated.
"It gets worse," Leo continued. "Our guys on the street say Susan owes Rossi fifteen thousand dollars. Rossi’s collectors have been hanging around that apartment building for the last three weeks. Today, Susan took the last of the household cash, gave the girl eleven bucks to get formula, and went to hide in a tavern down on Penn Avenue."
Daniel stood up, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the office wall. "The girl was trying to stretch baby formula because her guardian was playing poker with Rossi's sharks."
"Looks like it, boss."
Daniel walked to the window, looking out over the snow-dusted alleyway behind the market. In the criminal underworld, there were rules. You fought men who chose to enter the ring. You collected from people who took your money knowing the risks. But children were off-limits—a principle that Daniel Mercer enforced with absolute, brutal finality across every square mile of his territory.
"Where is Victor Rossi tonight?" Daniel asked softly.
"He's running a high-stakes dice game in the basement of the old packing plant on 12th," Leo answered.
Daniel pulled his gloves back on, his face settling into a mask of cold steel. "Tell the boys to get the cars. We're going to pay Victor a visit. And Leo?"
"Yes, boss?"
"Send three bags of groceries, four cans of that formula, and a fresh heating unit to that apartment on 8th Street. Tell the delivery man to leave it on the threshold, knock twice, and walk away. If Susan touches a single penny of what's inside those bags, I want to know about it within five minutes."
"Understood."
Meanwhile, three blocks away, I was sitting on the floor of our freezing kitchen, feeding Owen with a warm bottle of the formula Daniel Mercer had bought. The radiator clanked uselessly against the wall, spitting tiny puffs of steam before dying out completely. Noah was lying on a thin mattress in the corner, sucking peacefully on his pacifier.
My aunt Susan staggered through the front door twenty minutes later, smelling heavily of cheap whiskey and cold rain. She didn't look at me, nor did she ask where the formula had come from. She slumped into a kitchen chair, burying her face in her hands.
"They're coming, Lily," she whimpered, her voice trembling with pathetic fear. "Rossi's men. They said if I don't have five grand by midnight, they're going to break my legs."
I kept my eyes on Owen's tiny face as he drank. "I don't have five grand, Aunt Susan. I only had eleven dollars."
"You don't understand!" she shrieked, sitting up and grabbing my shoulder with sticky fingers. "They don't care that you're kids! They'll take whatever is in this house! They'll take the TV, the blankets—"
A heavy knock echoed through the thin front door.
Susan froze, her face turning gray. She scrambled backward on her knees, hiding behind the kitchen counter. "Don't open it! Don't answer!"
I set Owen down gently on the blanket beside his brother, stood up, and picked up a heavy metal ladle from the sink. I was ten years old, terrified out of my mind, but there was no one else standing between those babies and whatever was waiting on the other side of that wood.
I pulled the door open three inches, holding the latch tight.
It wasn't Rossi's thugs.
A large man in a dark blue uniform stood in the hallway, carrying three massive cardboard boxes stacked up to his chin. A new electric heater sat on the floor beside his boots.
"Lily Carter?" the man asked gruffly.
"Yes," I whispered.
"Compliments of the management," he said. He set the boxes down inside the doorway, placed the heater in the hall, and handed me an envelope. Before I could say a word, he turned on his heel and disappeared down the stairwell.
May you like
I opened the envelope. Inside was no note, no message, only a formal receipt from Mercer Market stamped PAID IN FULL, along with a small business card printed on thick black paper with gold lettering:
Mercer Enterprises. We remember our debts.
