Blood Ledger The Minter's Rise

And even if there had been money left, it wouldn't have mattered. Emilio had already decreed: one copper coin per person, per month.

Enough to kill any illusion that work here would ever pay.

The household guards didn't truly try to stop the crowd.

After all, with no wages of their own, they could barely feed themselves.

Emilio's voice cracked with fury:

"Is money all you people care about?!"

Someone pointed at the gold Patek Philippe on his wrist:

"That watch alone could cover every last one of our back wages! What right do you have to lecture us?!"

"Pay us! Yeah! Pay us what we're owed!"

The crowd surged forward. Emilio's face went white.

"These ungrateful wretches! That bastard Angelo must have spoiled them rotten!"

"Rush him! Strip the clothes off his back and sell them for what we're owed!"

"Go!"

"You wouldn't dare!"

Emilio staggered as hands grabbed at him from every direction, barely keeping his footing.

"Orders from the Don!"

A column of Castellano soldiers marched through the compound gates, hauling chest after chest of gifts from the main estate.

It turned out that Don Vittorio had visited Rosalia's compound recently and taken a great liking to Emilio's renovations.

These were his rewards.

Emilio sank to his knees, trembling:

"I humbly thank the Don for this generous tribute!"

The workers who had been seconds from rioting dropped to their knees as well, faces drained of color.

None of them had expected this.

The Don himself was backing Emilio.

Emilio reached into one of the chests and pulled out a thick roll of hundreds at random.

He tossed it at their feet:

"Take it. That's enough to cover several months of your wages.

"And if you don't get back to work and end up disrupting the compound's operations, don't be surprised when you end up in the ground!"

They had their money.

And the Don had made his position clear.

Everyone scrambled to bow their thanks and scattered.

Emilio surveyed the chests of gifts filling the courtyard.

A cold smile spread across his face:

"Just as I thought. My approach was right all along.

"If that bastard Angelo hadn't thrown so much money at these ungrateful wretches before, they'd never have developed such an insatiable greed."

His handmaid kneaded his shoulders. "The Don himself admires your integrity, signore.

"The Ferraro family has always been a house of consiglieri. That Angelo is a disgrace to the family name!"

Emilio adjusted his glasses with two fingers, the gesture slow, almost professorial:

"Starting today, one copper coin per month becomes one copper coin every two months."

The handmaid froze.

Emilio's voice was ice. "Angelo spoiled these workers. I'll train it out of them."

It didn't take long. Within weeks, even more workers walked off the job.

Emilio, furious, dragged several of them before the Castellano family's enforcer captain.

He charged them with willful negligence, inciting unrest, and disrupting the family's business.

But even with men thrown in lockup, the rest still refused to lift a finger.

My side of things was a different story entirely.

Business grew by the day, profits climbing steadily, and I paid the highest wages in all of Kingsport.

The people working for me were terrified of not doing enough.

Emilio seemed to think he'd found the root of the problem.

I was directing my crew to hang the sign above our new front on Mulberry Street when Emilio's men shoved their way forward.

One of them swung and knocked the signboard clean off its hooks.

It hit the ground and split in two.

The leader glanced at the gold bracelet on my temp worker's wrist and sneered:

"So it's true. You're the one corrupting people's hearts with money."

I stared at the shattered signboard. My voice was flat:

"What exactly do you think you're doing?"

"Take your people and get lost! Stop spreading this filth! It's because of money-poisoned vermin like you that everyone's heads are full of nothing but profit!

"You call yourself a Ferraro? Our family is a house of consiglieri! And you drag our name through the mud like this!"

I said nothing.

I just looked past him at the men he'd brought along.

My temp workers could afford gold bracelets.

His men's suits hung off them like they hadn't eaten a full meal in weeks.