* J *

Part Five: Chapter 24: One

The next day one of Jack's injured men tells him that Maroni wants to meet the Red Hood, face to face. Jack knows the true purpose of a meeting like that. It's not to shake hands and say hello. The purpose is to lure the Red Hood out into the open where he can kill him. But Jack wants Maroni to think he's crazy enough to fall for it. Or rather, dumb enough to not realize that the point was to kill him. Sometimes it paid to pretend to be stupid.

Jeannie didn't like it, none of it. She didn't want Jack to go to the meeting. She just knew he was going to get killed. She was terrified and Jack treated it like he was going on a date. A part of her wanted to go with Jack, but a much larger part of her was scared to watch Jack die. She knew she couldn't take seeing something like that.

"Jack, please reconsider this," Jeannie says from behind Jack as he slicks his hair back.

"I have to go," he says and tosses his comb down. He turns to Jeannie. "Everything is gonna be fine. I promise."

"So I just get to sit around here all night and worry?" She shrugs.

Jack pulls her close to him and kisses her forehead. "I wish I could prevent your worry," he sighs. "Just try to hold on. You'll see, I'll walk through the door tonight, and not with any bullet wounds. I promise."

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Jack slides the red hood on and gets inside of a car. He drives himself to the destination that Maroni had told him to go to. He's alone, or so Maroni would think. Jack is smarter than that. He had his ace up his sleeve. See, Jack already knows about meetings like this. Jack already knows the ranks of Maroni's men. Jack has no intention of letting them show up to this meeting.

Jack glances down to his watch. It's time for him to get out of the car and go into Maroni's bar. This entire thing was resting on the success of Jack's men. They were supposed to be hunting down and slaughtering anyone who can step up to take over the Maroni family. Plus, they had to take out most of Maroni's key men and manage to keep Maroni from finding out before Jack could get out of there. That would leave Jack only two men to worry about, that was the two personal gaurds that would be inside with Maroni.

"Do you really think you can trust a bunch of clowns?"

Jack sighs, "They know I'll kill them if they fuck this up," he whispers, his eyes trained on the bar in front of him.

"Oh yeah, cuz you're soooo scary?"

Jack walks into the empty bar. A man should have checked him and taken any weapons before allowing him into the bar with Maroni. He breathed a little relief. That was Ace's job, to take out the door guy. At least someone did something right, now Jack has hope. He sees Maroni at the bar. One of his men sat on a bar stool next to him. The other was behind the bar playing bartender.

Sal Maroni turns to face Jack. "I didn't think you'd have the balls to come," he looks Jack over.

"It's not nice to start out with such a derogatory statement. You should cut his tongue out for that."

"Well, me and my balls are here, so let's get on with it, shall we?" Jack asks moving forward.

Maroni dryly chuckles, "Sit down, have a drink," he nods at his guy pouring the shots.

Jack sits near Maroni at the bar. He reaches for the shot in front of him. He couldn't take a drink in his stupid hood. Jack smirks to himself and lightly chuckles. Teasing him with a drink was a pretty good idea for getting him to take the red hood off.

"Oh come on, your hood ain't needed here. How can we's be friends if I can't even look you's in the eye?" Salvatore Maroni says to Jack.

"Do it, watch his expression, it's gonna be classic! HaHaha!