Back to 1910: Building America's Greatest Mafia

Ricky stood in the glass-windowed manager’s office overlooking the main floor of the Hudson piers warehouse. Down below, the newly hired temporary workers—dressed in their clean, cheap black suits—were moving purposefully, stacking timber crates of rye and flour under the direction of the senior field agents.

​Ricky turned to the young administrative assistant standing beside his desk. "Increase Owney Madden’s weekly volume allocation," Ricky instructed smoothly. "And have his point man pass a suggestion along to Owney: tell him to avoid sitting solely on the liquor market. Advise him to start invading the raw food and staple markets in Hell’s Kitchen. Flour, lard, spices, salt, coffee."

​The assistant looked up from his ledger, nodding as he took down notes.

​"If Owney captures the staple markets," Ricky continued, his gray eyes watching the workers below, "the grocers and corner shops in Hell’s Kitchen will depend on his supply lines completely. It’ll drive his rival suppliers right out of the neighborhood, and he’ll make significantly more in the long run than he ever did selling cocaine."

​"Understood, sir," the assistant said, making a final mark. "I’ll have the message relayed with the next barge delivery."

​"Good," Ricky said, picking up his dark wool suit coat from the chair. "If you’ll excuse me, I have matters to attend to uptown."

​"Yes, sir. Safe travels," the assistant replied, bowing his head respectfully as Ricky walked out of the office.

​Twenty minutes later, a black-painted closed carriage pulled up outside the Washington Street headquarters. Marek stepped out of a nearby streetcar, adjusting his flat cap as he hurried toward the curb where Ricky and Evelynn were already waiting by the open carriage door.

​"I’m sorry if I kept you waiting," Marek panted softly, climbing up into the carriage. "One of the Callahan sisters hid my pocket watch before I could leave the Waldorf."

​Ricky chuckled dryly, stepping into the carriage after him and sitting opposite the Polish youth. "You’re just in time, Marek. Hop in."

​Evelynn stepped in last, her dark skirt rustling as she sat down beside Ricky, holding a leather folder tightly on her lap. She gave the driver two sharp taps against the front wall, and the carriage lurched forward, its iron-rimmed wheels grinding over the wet cobblestones of Washington Street.

​Marek leaned back against the plush leather seat, letting out a long, relieved breath as he took in the familiar sights of the West Side. "So where are we off to today? I couldn’t hear you clearly over the telephone line earlier."

​"We’re going to visit Harrison & Bell Limited," Ricky said, leaning back and resting his hands on his knees. "It’s a six-story import-export firm down near the lower commercial district. We’re planning to make a deal to acquire them, and I want your analysis on the numbers before we walk through their front doors."

​Ricky looked over at Evelynn. "Evelynn, brief him on what we have."

​Evelynn opened the leather folder on her lap, her green eyes scanning the neat copperplate notes. She handed a three-page financial breakdown across to Marek. "This is their internal financial evaluation, Mr. Kowalski."

​Marek accepted the pages with a bewildered look. He pulled his spectacles from his vest pocket, resting them on his nose as he scanned the numbers.

​"Well..." Marek murmured, his eyes moving down the columns. "Aside from an outstanding bank loan of thirty-six thousand, seven hundred dollars... if this was their average net income over the last three years, they could have easily cleared that debt within five years. But look at the last two months."

​Marek pointed a thumb at a sharp downward curve on the page. "Their revenue has been cut right in half. If this trajectory continues, they won’t even be able to cover the monthly interest payments. The bank will foreclose and seize their building and assets within two years."

​Marek looked up from the paper, his analytical mind working through the mechanics. "Because the bank is squeezing them, they have less liquid capital to buy import stock. Less stock means fewer orders, which means their profit margins shrink even further. It’s a death spiral."

​Marek paused, looking at Evelynn in genuine surprise. "How did you even get these numbers? This looks like their private accounting ledger."

​Evelynn offered a cool, faint smile. "With Mr. Brians’s intelligence network up and running, money is all that’s required to buy a disgruntled accountant a heavy drink in a quiet saloon."

​Ricky smiled, thoroughly satisfied with Marek’s rapid financial assessment. "So, Marek... how do you think we should approach them?"

​Marek thought for a moment, staring out the carriage window at the passing drayage wagons. "Normally, an investor would try to leverage their established supply lines in other states to expand our own net income. But if we just partner with them, they’d grow too fast and try to regain their independence. The smart move is a complete buyout while their reputation and corporate supply contracts are still intact. But... a six-story building with working elevators and international lines? The owner is going to demand a massive sum."

​Marek stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening as he looked at Ricky. "Wait... are you planning to buy them out completely? Can we even afford that?"

​Marek ran the numbers in his head. "I mean... I have a rough idea of what we’re pulling in from the daily route sales over the last two months, but a full corporate buyout?"

​Ricky simply smiled, keeping his gray eyes fixed on his friend without saying a word.

​Evelynn answered for him, her voice smooth and professional. "You guessed correctly, Marek. We have more than enough liquid capital sitting in reserve. Furthermore, because of their failing sales over the past eight weeks, the company’s market valuation has dropped significantly. We’ll be acquiring a massive six-story asset while simply absorbing their bank debt on our own terms."

​Marek shook his head in quiet awe, letting out a soft laugh as he leaned back against the leather seat. "Unbelievable. Two months ago we were sleeping on cardboard in a produce warehouse."

​Ricky’s smile softened, shifting away from business. "Speaking of home, Marek... how’s your family? How’s your sister Sofie?"

​Marek’s face lit up with a genuine, warm smile. "She’s getting better every day, Ricky. The medicine we sent for her chest worked. My father wrote to me last week—he’s already expanding our house back in Galicia, and he even hired two local farmhands to help him work the fields."

​Ricky felt a quiet, profound warmth in his chest. "I’m really glad to hear that, Marek."

​"It’s all thanks to you, Ricky," Marek said, his voice dropping into a quiet, deeply sincere tone. "My whole life... my family’s whole life... it would be completely different if I hadn’t met you in that dock alley."

​"I could say the same about you," Ricky replied softly, looking out at the chaotic, bustling streets of 1910 Manhattan. "But look at us now. Rising up in the world. Not just us, but everyone in the crew."

​Ricky looked between Marek and Evelynn, his voice carrying the calm, unshakeable weight of his core principles.

​"Everyone deserves the exact same opportunity and responsibility," Ricky said quiet. "In the future, when we look back on this day, we’ll remember that the Founder’s Syndicate started with two young men selling cheap, high-quality goods off the back of a spring-wagon. We made our first real office out of a residential attic, running night routes through a single neighborhood."

​Marek and Ricky exchanged a quiet, knowing chuckle.

​"Our social status might change," Ricky continued, his gray eyes cold and resolute. "We might wear tailored wool suits and ride in closed carriages, but we should never forget who we were. Otherwise, we’re no better than the arrogant rich bastards who look down on a working man because his suit has been mended a thousand times. Or the people who look down on a family eating bread that’s been saved and rationed for five days, or a kid sleeping on the cold floor in the dead of winter."

​Marek and Evelynn sat in complete silence, listening to his words.

​"We exist for the poor," Ricky declared softly. "And we will continue to exist for them. I don’t care what the newspapers or the rival syndicates call us down the line. We’ve been dirt-poor for as long as we can remember. Just because we have money now doesn’t mean we get to trample on others."

​Ricky looked out the window as the carriage turned down a wide commercial avenue. "It might sound like fancy poetry to some people, but I intend to follow those principles to the very end. This organization is a living reminder to the city that money can be used for things other than showing off. Money should be used so that a working man can buy a hot, proper meal and clean clothes for his family after a hard day’s labor."

​Marek stared at Ricky, his eyes shining with deep, unshakeable loyalty. He remembered his own family’s desperate, hopeless moments in Poland, back when miracles felt like fairy tales. Ricky hadn’t just given him a job; Ricky had brought a miracle into his life.

​Beside Ricky, Evelynn sat perfectly still.

​She looked at the young man sitting beside her in his crisp black suit. She had seen his principles in action every single day—the way he insisted on paying above-market daily wages, the way he fed Barney’s starving recruits before putting them to work, and the way he protected the small neighborhood shopkeepers from extortion.

​Evelynn remembered her own youth. She remembered dressing like a boy and cutting her hair just so she could work as a garden laborer, hiding her identity while teaching herself to read and write from discarded books. She remembered working five long years as a clerk and secretary, only to watch her employer go bankrupt and toss her aside.

​Now, she was sitting beside an nineteen-year-old visionary who possessed terrifying intellect, unfathomable wealth, sharp looks, and an ironclad moral compass that refused to crumble under the corrupt weight of New York City.

​Evelynn looked down at her clipboard, a subtle, quiet flush touching her cheeks as she hid her feelings behind her usual cool, professional facade.

​She knew a man like Richard Stevenson was destined to change the world. And as his secretary, she would stand right beside him, keeping her personal feelings tucked safely away, making sure nothing ever stood in the way of his vision.

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