Chapter 319 – The Big Shot
"If it wasn't a local gang… then who was it?" Frank wondered.
He had at least some standing with the neighborhood crews. Jimmy had been living under Frank's roof—if a local gang wanted to make a move, they would've at least given Frank a heads-up.
According to the supermarket clerk, the men who grabbed Jimmy had spoken to him before taking him away.
Which meant—
Jimmy knew them.
And they hadn't shot him in the street. They hadn't stormed Frank's house either, despite staking it out for days.
So Jimmy probably wasn't in immediate danger.
They didn't want him dead.
After thinking it over, Frank headed toward Jimmy's place—not his parents' home, but the upscale apartment where Jimmy lived with his Brazilian wife.
Standing outside the door, Frank heard the faint whine of what sounded like a power saw from inside.
Bzzzz—
He knocked.
Knock, knock, knock.
The noise inside stopped instantly.
But no one opened the door.
Frank noticed the peephole darken for a second—someone was looking at him from inside.
"F-Frank… what are you doing here?" Jimmy's voice came from behind the door, slightly shaky.
"Open the door," Frank said flatly.
"Just go back home. I'll be there soon—" Jimmy urged, clearly trying to get him to leave.
"If you don't open it, I'm calling the cops," Frank replied without hesitation.
The door flew open the next second.
A large hand shot out, grabbed Frank by the collar, and yanked him inside.
The grip was powerful. In his weakened state, Frank couldn't resist. He hit the floor hard.
"Seriously? Does nobody believe in respecting the elderly anymore?" Frank grumbled, rubbing his shoulder as he struggled back to his feet.
Then he looked around.
There were five men in the room.
And one corpse.
The air smelled metallic—blood and something else.
The earlier buzzing sound hadn't been a power tool for renovations.
It had been used on the body.
Jimmy stood off to the side, pale as a sheet.
One of the men—a heavyset guy with slicked-back hair and a tailored suit—sat casually in a chair, as if he owned the place.
He looked nothing like a street thug.
More like a businessman.
Or a mob boss.
He studied Frank with calm, assessing eyes.
"So," the man said slowly, "you must be Frank."
Frank straightened his back slightly, cane in hand.
"And you must be the one who's been parking those shiny SUVs outside my house."
The suited man smiled faintly.
"Let's just say… we've been wanting to meet."
Jimmy was sitting on the floor, trembling.
His Brazilian wife was curled up on the couch, mascara running down her face as she cried uncontrollably.
A man in a gray suit stood with his back to the door, hands clasped behind him, gazing out through the floor-to-ceiling windows as if admiring the city skyline.
The other two men—clearly subordinates—were busy dealing with the body.
A naked corpse lay on the floor, riddled with bullet holes, being rolled onto a sheet of plastic.
"How did you know I was here? No—why did you come? Why did you come in?! I told you to go back!" Jimmy crawled toward Frank and whispered through clenched teeth.
He was terrified.
His hands shook uncontrollably. Veins bulged at his temples.
"I was afraid you wouldn't make it back," Frank replied calmly.
Faced with a murder scene, Frank showed no fear.
He even poured himself a glass of water and sat down on the couch, watching them dispose of the body like he was observing a documentary.
"Steve."
The man at the window finally turned around.
He looked to be in his forties. Not loud, not flashy—but there was something in his expression that made it clear he was not a man to be trifled with.
"You knew about all this, didn't you?" the man asked Jimmy, ignoring Frank entirely.
"I didn't! I had no idea!" Jimmy blurted out instantly. "Your daughter's betrayal shocked me. I was devastated. After everything we've been through together, I never imagined she'd cheat on me—behind my back!"
It was a flawless lie.
Jimmy himself had smuggled the lover in from Brazil.
From the brief exchange, Frank quickly pieced things together.
This man had to be the Brazilian girl's father—the powerful Brazilian boss Jimmy once ran afoul of.
Back in Brazil, Jimmy had caused trouble and been forced into marriage with the man's daughter. The boss had wanted to use Jimmy's identity to secure U.S. citizenship for her.
Frank also noticed something important:
The boss didn't seem to know Jimmy's real name.
He kept calling him by his old alias—Steve.
The alias might have been fake, but the identity behind it was legally airtight. After all, Jimmy had been able to register a legitimate marriage under it.
In his own way, Jimmy was resourceful.
And if this boss had flown all the way from Brazil, it meant he'd discovered problems in his daughter's marriage.
Which explained why Jimmy had been abducted.
The result was obvious.
The daughter's lover had just been executed.
And Jimmy had witnessed the entire thing.
No wonder he was shaking.
"You didn't know?" The boss chuckled softly.
"Nando," one of the men asked, holding up a pair of pliers. "Teeth?"
"Pull them all. Better safe than sorry," the boss replied.
He removed his suit jacket and slipped into a white protective suit—clearly planning to handle the next part personally.
One of the men forced open the corpse's mouth and began yanking out every tooth with the pliers.
"Forensics precaution," Frank thought.
"Get another bag," Nando added casually, glancing at Frank. "We've got one more to deal with."
That glance said everything.
Frank wasn't meant to leave alive.
"Frank won't talk!" Jimmy scrambled to his feet.
"Put the gloves on," Nando said, tossing a pair at him before he could finish.
"W-what do you mean?!" Jimmy froze.
"When I start cutting, you hold the legs. I don't want it slipping."
Jimmy's entire body stiffened.
He wanted to refuse.
But one look at Nando's cold eyes—and the armed men watching him—left him no choice.
Shaking, he crouched down and grabbed the corpse's ankles.
Nando picked up a compact electric saw and pressed it into the corpse's calf.
Blood sprayed.
At the same time, another subordinate severed the head.
"Boss, want to take the head back? Could use it for polo," one of them joked, holding it up.
"Forget it. Bag everything together. We'll dispose of it all at once," Nando replied.
"Boring," the man muttered.
"You're Brazilian, right?" Frank suddenly spoke.
Everyone paused.
Most people, faced with this scene, would be hysterical—begging, screaming, trying to escape.
Frank was… making conversation.
"In Brazil, how do you usually dispose of bodies?"
Nando looked at him with mild curiosity.
"Usually cut them up and dump them in the ocean. Chicago's got a big lake, doesn't it? Michigan or something."
"Lake Michigan," Frank corrected calmly. "Dumping parts in water is simple and efficient. But this is the U.S. That approach here? It'll get you caught."
The room fell quiet.
Even the saw stopped buzzing.
Frank took a sip of water.
"If you really want to do it cleanly," he continued, "you're doing several things wrong already."