The warehouse was filled with the intoxicating aroma of sugar — sweet, thick, and overwhelming.
It was the kind of smell that could drive a man mad.
"My God, Pierre, you always know how to surprise me... Is this real? Is this actually sugar?"
Anastasia was visibly excited. He walked forward and grabbed one of the burlap sacks, noting how there were no markings at all on the packaging — just as Pierre and Mr. Song had agreed. No logos, no tags. Nothing that could be traced. That was the point.
They wanted to avoid attention. Especially from the Americans.
Anastasia tore open one of the sacks, reached in, and let a handful of sparkling white crystals trickle through his fingers.
"Sugar," he breathed, eyes wide. "It's the real deal. The good stuff."
Even the thugs with Tommy guns — hardened men who looked like they'd eaten bullets for breakfast — were practically grinning like children in a candy store.
Pierre watched all this with a mix of amusement and disbelief.
It's just sugar, he thought.
Do they really need to act like they've discovered the Holy Grail?
Then again, he glanced at the weapons in their hands.
These weren't smiles of politeness.
This was the most sincere kind of joy — the kind that only a Chicago typewriter (as the Tommy gun was lovingly called) could express with deadly punctuation.
"Pierre," Anastasia said, placing his hand reverently on a sack.
"I'm taking everything."
Pierre raised an eyebrow.
But Anastasia was too worked up to notice.
"I mean purchase," he clarified quickly.
"I want all of it. Not just what's in the warehouse — anything you bring in after this. We'll buy it. All of it. At full market rate. That's a promise from the Don himself."
Now that was music to Pierre's ears.
"This week's sugar price is 57 cents per pound," Anastasia said without hesitation.
He gestured to the sacks.
"This shipment is worth over a million dollars. We just need one night to pull the funds together. Everything's happening so fast — you understand, don't you? We just bought over half a million dollars' worth of cars from you. Even a bank would have trouble liquidating this much cash in a few days."
Pierre could see the uncertainty in his eyes — but Anastasia slapped his own chest with confidence.
"But don't worry — your sugar is safe. No one will touch a grain of it."
And to make the point, he patted the Tommy gun in his hands.
Pierre sighed internally.
Was this protection or a soft kind of robbery?
Security was clearly going to be an issue.
And finding reliable men wasn't easy — every able-bodied man was off at war.
Try hiring a guard these days, and you might end up with a thief disguised as a bodyguard.
Meanwhile, at a quiet estate in New Jersey...
Corrise, the consigliere, hung up the phone and turned toward the seated figure at the table.
"Don Gambino," he said calmly, "the Genovese family has agreed to loan us three hundred thousand dollars. They'll send someone with the cash within three hours."
He scribbled a note on his pad.
"That brings our total to one-point-five million."
"Not enough," said Carlo Gambino, taking a slow drag from his cigar.
"Call the Jews. Ask them for another half-million."
The light from the table lamp flickered across his expression — stoic, calculating, predatory. Smoke pulsed from the end of his cigar, glowing red with each inhale.
In silence, Corrise placed another call.
"They agreed," he said, after a minute.
"But they want twenty of the Cadillacs in exchange."
"Those damn Jews... Always trying to pick your bones while you're still breathing."
"All right," Corrise said. "We have the full amount."
But he still couldn't understand.
"Don... why are you going to such lengths for this deal?"
"One thousand three hundred tons of sugar," Gambino said flatly.
"The first time, it was cigarettes. That was a test. The second time, it was the cars. Another test. But this—"
He held up two fingers.
"This is the real test."
He let the smoke trail off his lips before continuing.
"This man Pierre — or whoever's behind him — is testing us.
He's seeing if we can handle scale. If we pass this test, then maybe... just maybe... we'll get shipments every month."
"And at just a ten percent markup, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit — from legal trade."
He turned his gaze to Corrise, eyes burning beneath his thick brows.
"Check again," he said.
"Are there any cargo ships arriving from Cuba or Brazil this week?"
Corrise shook his head.
"No, Don. Too many German U-boats off the East Coast. South American ships are docking further south."
"Then whoever Pierre's working with... they've got their own supply routes. That's impressive."
"But that's not what matters. What matters is: this is a clean business. We can finally build ties with food suppliers.
Real companies. Real clients. Not just now — after the war, too."
"You're thinking of... legitimizing the family?"
Gambino gave a thin smile.
"My children won't grow up in the shadows. One day, they'll be senators, judges, even governors."
He tapped his cigar against the ashtray.
"First, we sell sugar."
He exhaled slowly and thought:
Thank God Pierre came to us — and not someone else.