Cast Out as Old-Fashioned, I Watched the Mafia Fall Apart Chapter 02
Author: Jelly Pudding
My phone buzzed without stopping the whole way.
I opened the Family’s core operations chat, where messages were flying past.
At the top was Kelly.
“The underworld should have changed the way it operates long ago. Digging in and fighting head-on are outdated, hidebound rules of the old guard.
“We younger people have more flexible methods and a cleaner way of doing business. From today, every post changes shifts on time. No one has to stay up all night guarding freight or risk their life on the front line.
“Under my leadership, you’ll earn more and live better!”
In the long string of agreement beneath it, Aiden’s name came first.
“I support Kelly! The old rules should have been thrown out years ago!”
The rest fell in behind him, all taking veiled shots at the old rules for being cruel and treating people like machines.
Another message came up. I had been added to a private group.
The first to speak was Robbie, who used to flatter me more than anyone.
“Kelly is a hundred times better than Iris. At least she doesn’t keep us freezing at the docks in the middle of the night!”
The group exploded at once.
“Right? She’s finally gone! What could she do besides make us risk our necks?”
“With Kelly in charge we can just take our cut and live easy.”
Message after message tore me down to build Kelly up.
I sent a smirking emoji.
A system notice came up a second later.
[You have been removed from the group]
It would be a lie to say I felt nothing.
I never liked working around the clock.
Who doesn’t want a decent night’s sleep and meals on time?
But in this line of work, your enemies don’t wait for your shift to start, and customs doesn’t wait until your break is over to inspect the freight.
Every all-night watch had been about plugging a hole or containing a crisis.
And afterward, I always fought to secure my men their share.
Yet after risking my neck to carry every crisis, I had somehow become the one exploiting them.
I opened the feed and a new post caught my eye.
“Nobody understands what it’s like to be kept beneath someone forever, or how unbearable it is to be lectured by people who trade on seniority.”
Someone replied underneath.
“Vera’s finally out from under her. She’s really gone!”
She answered, “Yes. Nobody knows how long I put up with it.”
I stared at the screen and gave a quiet, bitter laugh.
Vera was the first protege I ever trained.
When she first joined the Family, she made a serious mistake that got an entire freighter impounded, and I covered the loss out of my own pocket.
When she negotiated her first deal alone, I backed her every step of the way.
And now this was what she said.
So she had wanted me gone all along.
Just as well.
The next time we crossed paths, I would not have to honor any old loyalty between us.
Back at my place, I put my phone on Do Not Disturb.
In all those years of holding the Family steady I had never slept a night through. My dreams were freight schedules and contact codes.
Now I could finally give myself a break.
Over the next few days I started spending afternoons at a coffee shop by the docks, watching the evening sun turn the whole surface of the sea gold and red.
Now and then news of the Family reached me.
Kelly had taken everyone to an expensive club for a team night, raised their benefits, and found a new, easy way to make money.
Every evening a post praising her appeared in the feed, as though it had been put there for me to see.
I paid it no mind.
Then, on Friday evening, the feed went completely silent.
