Alan, the Champion — Chapter 15 — Marked
As the kids grow up, Alan's life turns inside out.
Before he was King, he was cannon fodder, a convict, a killer. At thirteen, he ran grown men.
While the kids were growing up, my life was turning over.
I was sixteen with two years of running a neighborhood under my belt. I'd revitalized half a dozen things, organized what was a mess, made the money go up every month without fail. From the council's point of view, I was one of the best investments the Banca had ever made.
From the point of view of everybody I'd stepped over to get there, I was an unpaid debt.
You don't climb the way I climbed without leaving a trail.
Sombra had family. The Baixada that split had people who picked up the pieces and spent two years figuring out who'd started it. The collectors I squeezed, the managers I screwed over, the neighboring bosses who lost their edges to my plan — every one of them kept my name.
And, unlike me, they weren't in any hurry.
There came a month when the council called me up top and said it straight: you've become too big a target to stay. Either you disappear, or we lose you and the neighborhood with you.
I didn't argue. That wasn't punishment. It was math. The same math the Banca did when it left me as fodder in the reformatory — only this time I was the asset, not the throwaway, and you protect an asset.
I spent three weeks closing everything down. Handed the neighborhood to two lieutenants I trusted, split down the middle so neither of them got too strong and started getting ideas. Burned what needed burning. Said goodbye to nobody, because goodbyes leave a trail.
They already had it all set up.