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1
CAROLINE QUINN
I unlockthe front door to the South Street Bakery. It’s been years since I’ve been here. Before I enter, I look at the small park across the street. The spring sunrise casts its light over the fountain in the center.
It’s quiet. It’s empty. The bakery is the first place to open.
I notice a slight movement at the edge of the park and see a puff of cigarette smoke fade into the air. A man with short red hair takes another drag of his cigarette while scowling in my direction. Mafia. I’ve been away, but I didn’t forget how to recognize it. Growing up here earns you certain instincts.
I get inside and lock the door behind me. Peering out the window, I see the man, still looking my direction. Finally, he tosses his cigarette to the ground and turns to walk away.
This is my uncle’s bakery, but he’s gone missing.
My Aunt Lisa and Uncle Allen raised me. My mother dumped me off with them when I was a few weeks old, and we never heard from her again. My father was never an option either. I doubt my mother even knew who he was, but my aunt and uncle definitely didn’t.
They took care of me and treated me well, but Devil’s Pocket isn’t a great part of Philadelphia to grow up in. It’s rough. It’s violent. Now only slightly less so than when my mother and Aunt Lisa were kids.
After high school, I moved out to Los Angeles and went to culinary school to train as a pastry chef. I’ve spent the last nine years apprenticing and working at bakeries around LA, most recently a pretty nice one on La Brea.
When my aunt told me my uncle was missing, I knew I had to come back. She protested, but I knew she was scared, and I didn’t want her to be alone. I have to take care of her the way she took care of me when I needed her. And I can run my uncle’s bakery until he comes back. Or until we find out what’s happened to him.
I flick on the lights of the shopfront and head to the back. It’s not like the bakery on La Brea. That one is about four times bigger and probably sees 20 times more customers each day. But I feel a strong sense of nostalgia here, a connection I didn’t have in California. I have fond memories of time spent here with Uncle Allen teaching me his secrets to making perfect bread and watching the sunrise stream in through the windows. This is where I discovered I wanted to be a pastry chef.
The bakery hasn’t changed but the neighborhood has. Or at least the buildings have. This area of South Philadelphia has seen a lot of gentrification. Old row houses converted into luxury apartments and condos. Dive bars turned into trendy microbrews.
But the stain hasn’t been scratched out. The neighborhoods still reek with crime. The mob is still a presence on every corner. When someone goes missing, you pretty much know who’s behind it, even if you don’t.
When I was a kid, I saw the rough and muscled mafia men come into the bakery. They weren’t customers. They came to take “payments” from my uncle. They called it protection, but it was straight-up stealing. He hated it. He worked hard for his money and why should he give it up to anyone else? I wouldn’t be surprised if he finally had enough.
But I don’t want to think about that.
I turn on the lights in the back and look around. It feels even more familiar than the bakery where I spent the last eight months working. Strange to think that I was there just two days ago, and now I’m back here. Almost as if the last few years were just a dream.
My manager was shocked at my short notice. But I didn’t care. Even so, they took it better than my boyfriend did. I mean myex-boyfriend. We’d been living together for a year, but things were rocky. The fact that he cared more about having to pay the full rent on his own than that the man who raised me was missing was the last straw. Honestly, I was glad for an excuse to get away from him. He was selfish and immature, and I don’t need to play mother to a full-grown man.
That all seems so far behind me. Today’s a new day. A new day in an old place.
2
RAF COLUCCI
We’re expandingour territory west across South Philly. The Irish have us cornered in the southeast. West from Devil’s Pocket has always been Irish territory, but they also run the Badlands in North Philly. The Barones hate being bordered by the Irish on two sides. Now is the perfect time to end that and take over Devil’s Pocket all the way to the Schuylkill River.
I didn’t grow up a Barone, even though I have the same dark hair and olive-toned skin as most of the family. I understand both sides of the coin, so negotiating with most of the people around here comes naturally to me. In the right suit, I can reasonably pass as a businessman. I can figure out what they need to hear. And when necessary, I’m not afraid to go old school and twist their arm.
Over the last several weeks, I’ve been able to acquire all the key properties we identified in Devil’s Pocket. All except one. South Street Bakery. When I first checked it out, it was closed. The sign said it was within business hours, but it was clearly empty. So now I’m back. I park by Grays Ferry Triangle, a small park across the street from the bakery. It looks open this time.
I’ll be glad to wrap this up. It still feels a lot like Irish territory, and they’re closer to wising up every day. Once they fully realize what I’m doing, we’ll be at war with the Irish. I need this done and secured so we’re ready when they strike.
I’ve been able to take over of a lot of the other properties without much trouble. Some take the cash. They‘re happy to sell in exchange for not having to pay off the Irish every month or pay back their debts to them. Some prefer offered protection in exchange.
We never could have done this a generation ago. People were too loyal to their neighborhood mob back then. That’s the thing about the Barones. Mateo, the Underboss, and his dad Domenico have grown the Barone Syndicate from a small neighborhood mafia to a large-scale operation. From a startup to a Fortune 500.
As a Captain in the syndicate, it’s part of my job to expand our empire. That means expanding our traditional territories across Philadelphia, but also growing our legitimate business portfolio.
I’ve got enough left in my budget to easily cash out this last owner.
I jog across the street and enter the bakery. A small bell dings as I open the door. No one notices me. A short, round man waits patiently while a patron decides what they want from the pastry case.
