A few men drank together in the comfort of a private room inside a luxurious nightclub. A middle-aged man with a beer belly held a Russian girl with one arm and a bottle of beer in the other. He pointed the tip of the bottle at Nico Cole and said, "Don't forget – we rely on you to make us rich."

A bald man nodded in agreement. "Since you're on vacation," he said, "we haven't pushed the matter, but we have had our eyes on you."

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Nico looked the two men over. Nico was in his fifties, but he was in good shape, so the men were not able to install any kind of fear in him. "Thanks to our MUTUAL boss," he said, "I'm back on my feet. I will help you get rich, but I will not hand wealth to you on a silver platter. You must be prepared to work for whatever you want."

"We're not afraid of death," the fat man said, "so don't worry. We will do what is necessary. I would rather die now than retire poor."

The bald man scowled at that. "What you're alluding to a thing of the past," he argued. "The job we are talking about is scrubbing. Shouldn't Nico be the one to handle it for us?"

When the Russian girl heard the word "scrubbing," she flinched, stood up, and went to stand beside Nico. She put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Nico, let me massage your head. I'm good at it."

Nico looked at her lustfully. Grinning, he grabbed her tit and laughed. "I would much rather have you polish my knob," he replied.

"Oh, you are a bad boy," the girl replied as she sat down on his lap and casually began to stroke his cock over his jeans.

The fat man smiled, embarrassed. He knew that in order to get the most out of Nico, he had to cater to him, but he hated doing it at the expense of his own dignity.

The bald man looked at the girl and chuckled to himself. "Take care of that one," he told her. "You could do worse for a baby-daddy."

The fat man rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut up," he said. "The man already has a child!"

"That being said," the bald man argued, "he has still not found her."

"Oh, fuck off," Nico growled. "The two of you are ridiculous. If it weren't for the fact that I owe the boss a favor, I wouldn't even give either of you the time of day."

At that, the bald man and the fat man both shut up. They finished their drinks, and Nico led them into the lounge. As they passed the bar, though, they were stopped by a crowd of people. At first, it seemed like nothing, but then a skinny man with rotting teeth emerged with a gun in his hand. He pointed to the Russian girl and said, "If you valued your life, you would not have your hands on my girl!"

Nico took one look at the gun, though, and he laughed. "If she was really your girl," he argued. "what was she doing in the back room just now, if not stroking my pecker?"

The skinny man frowned, and he pointed his gun in Nico's face. The bald man was so scared that his legs were trembling, and the fat man pissed his pants, but Nico remained unmoved. Raising his hand, he brushed the gun out of his face as if it were nothing more than a stray hair. "The girl ain't nothin' to me," he concluded. He put his hand on her lower back and, in a gentlemanly manner, directed her to stand at the skinny man's side. Smiling, he said, "No need to make a mountain out of a molehill. This is a good girl you've got here. No harm/no foul. If you force the issue, though, I will make your girl my own!"

The skinny man was young, though, and his pride was too easily wounded. With a grimace on his face, he turned to the ugly kid at his side and said, "Take care of this son of a bitch."

Hearing this, both the fat and bald men squealed, turned around, and ran for their lives. Seeing this, Nico rolled his eyes and shrugged. Their cowardice meant very little to him. It was unlikely they would have been any use to him anyway.

Before the ugly kid could make a move, Nico's hand stretched out whip-quick and grabbed the skinny man's gun hand by the wrist. Quick-quick, he twisted his arm behind his back, snapped his wrist, and plucked his gun out of his limp hand. Only a moment had passed, but everything had changed. The power had shifted. Nico twisted the skinny man again so that they could face each other, and Nico forced the pistol into the man's mouth.

Despite the obvious pain that the skinny man was in, he held his dignity and remained silent, which was much more than could be said of his gang of friends who were freaking out. Nico turned to the Russian Girl and winked at her. "I suppose the spoils of war go to me…"

"I should hope so," the girl laughed as she returned to his side. "What are you going to do with Jimmy?" she wondered.

It was the first time he'd heard the skinny man's name Nico realized, but it meant nothing to him. He released the safety on the pistol, and he was just about to send Jimmy's brains through the back of his head when a familiar voice behind him gave him cause to pause. "Who is causing so much trouble in MY PLACE?" the man laughed.

Nico kept his pistol safely holstered in Jimmy's mouth, but he gave his head a slight turn to see who had joined them. It was Ken. He was wearing a fancy suit and seemed to not have a care in the world. Even though Nico was the one who had a gun, Ken walked without fear in a manner that suggested invincibility; and Nico, who had the gun, felt fear for the first time since he'd sat down with his associates.

Not only was Ken strong, but he was also unpredictable.

The ugly kid, though, was naive, and what some might have mistaken in him as courage was actually stupidity. The kid looked at Ken and spat at his feet. "This place might have been yours once upon a time," he scoffed, "but those days have passed. You went to jail. Your day is done. It is our time now. So, if I were you, I would get out while the getting's good!"

Ken backhanded the kid and dared him to "say it again." The kid had no sense, though. He rubbed the spot where he'd been hit, and he said, "Look around. We've got the numbers. Hit me again, and we'll kill you here and now!"

Ken smiled, a genuine smile, and, from out of thin air – or so it seemed – he produced a switchblade. Then, before anyone even knew what was happening, he ran the knife through the boy's cheek from his earlobe to his mouth. At that, the boy's confidence failed him. His hands grasped the wound on his face, and he fell to the ground screaming as he begged for mercy.

Ken calmly cleaned his blade on another man's sleeve and returned it to his pocket. He looked around the room, and after a moment of silence, he said, "I trust we have an understanding."

Very quickly, the men began to nod and find somewhere else to be, until the only ones left were Ken, Nico, Jimmy, and the Russian girl. Jimmy still had the gun in his mouth, but Ken motioned for Nico to let him be, and he did. It wasn���t the skinny man's death that Nico had been invested in; rather, it had been his own life.

As Jimmy got to his feet, Ken asked him his name. "It's White, sir," Jimmy replied humbly. "Jimmy White."

Ken looked at White as if he was appraising the value of an old car, and after a few minutes, he looked him in the eyes. "I'm in grave need of a General," he said. "Would you be willing to follow my orders loyally? I won't threaten you into it. If it doesn't suit you, you can walk away. If you accept the position, though, it will be worth your while."

The skinny man rotten teeth grinned and accepted Ken's offer. Once that was done, Ken gave Nico his blessing so that he could find a nice quiet place to play with the Russian doll that he'd won earlier.