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"Sorry for the backdoor entrance," Caleb continued, cutting through the tension with practiced ease. "But I'm carrying a package Mr. Bronte asked for personally. Bringing it through the front would attract attention I'd rather avoid. I imagine you'd prefer the same."
The gardeners had frozen, shears suspended mid air, eyes darting between Caleb and the guards.
The name 'McLaughlin' made the guards hesitate, where the two men exchanged a look. The one with the repeater squinted. "Turn around. Slowly. Let's see your face."
Caleb turned his head, letting the light from a nearby gas lamp fall on his features.
Recognition dawned, and the guards lowered their weapons, though their postures remained tense.
"Shit," the revolver guard muttered. "It's him."
Both weapons lowered.
"Sorry, Signor McLaughlin," the first guard said quickly. "Didn't realize—"
"No offense taken," Caleb replied easily. "You're doing your jobs."
Their gazes drifted to the canvas-wrapped shape on his shoulder. Even without seeing it, the outline was unmistakable.
"That… that the package?" one of them asked.
Caleb smiled faintly. "Very much so."
"Wait here," the guard said, already turning. "I'll inform the boss."
Caleb lowered Milton's body gently to the ground, resting it against the edge of the dock. "Take your time," he said. "I'll be right here."
He stood patiently, hands loose at his sides, projecting an air of weary professionalism. The occasional grunt or splash from the nearby swamp was the only sound.
Minutes passed.
Then footsteps.
Angelo Bronte emerged from the rear of the mansion, flanked by his impeccably dressed butler and Guido Martelli, with several guards trailing behind them. Bronte's face was animated even before he reached Caleb, curiosity and anticipation dancing behind his dark eyes.
"Ah!" Bronte exclaimed, spreading his hands. "Signor McLaughlin! You arrive like a thief in the night, but bearing gifts, I hope! Tell me—" His gaze fixed on the canvas bundle. "—is this… is this what I think it is?"
Caleb gave a single, firm nod. "As requested, Mr. Bronte. The body of Agent Milton."
For a heartbeat, Bronte simply stared.
Then Bronte's face transformed. A wide, genuine smile split his features, and he let out a hearty, "Magnifico! Magnifico! Magnifico!"
He stepped closer, his eyes glued to the canvas. "I knew you would deliver, but still, seeing is believing."
He stepped closer. "Open it. Let me see the face of this dog who thought he could hunt the lion in his own den."
Caleb knelt, untied the ropes, and pulled back the canvas to reveal Milton's pale, lifeless face, the marks of stress and his final moments still etched upon it. Bronte leaned in, his own face a mask of pure, gloating triumph.
He laughed, a sound that held no mirth, only cold victory. "Finally. This rat. This pest. The great Pinkerton scourge, reduced to a sack of meat. Bene. Very good. You have done this city and I personally a great service."
He straightened up, took a satisfied sip of his drink, and gestured grandly towards the murky water. "Now, do me the final honor, mio amico. Feed this trash to my pets. Let the swamp clean what remains of his pride."
"Of course," Caleb said, his voice neutral. He re wrapped the face, hoisted the body again, and carried it to the very edge of the wooden dock.
With a powerful heave, he sent the canvas shrouded form arcing out into the deeper, darker channel. The splash was loud. For a moment, nothing. Then, the water churned as several large, log like shapes alligator converged with terrifying speed.
There was a thrashing, a terrible wrenching sound, and the canvas bundle was pulled beneath the inky surface. The water roiled for a minute longer, then grew still, leaving only a few spreading ripples and a slowly dissipating cloud of silt.
Bronte watched, enthralled, a connoisseur of his own brutality.
"Ahhh," he sighed. "Poetic."
When it was done, he turned to Caleb, clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Perfetto. You have done a great service. The money, the fifteen thousand, it is yours. It will be delivered to your room at the Bastille tonight."
His grip tightened slightly, his eyes boring into Caleb's. "You have more than earned your pay, McLaughlin. 15,000 dollars. You have earned my trust. Fully. There are few men in this city I can say that to."
Guido Martelli, standing beside Bronte. His expression was unreadable, but his gaze on Caleb was intense, calculating. "The boss speaks highly of you now, McLaughlin. Very highly."
Caleb inclined his head again. "I appreciate the confidence."
The city will be quieter now," Caleb said, turning back to face Bronte. "But the war isn't over. Milton was a weapon. The hand that held him is still out there."
Bronte's smile faded, replaced by a cold shrewdness. "Cornwall."
"You know, Mr. Bronte?"
"I have ears. Milton was a spent bullet. Cornwall is the rifle. He thinks because he owns railroads and oil, he owns everything his shadow touches." Bronte's voice dropped, becoming confidential.
"This changes things. A blunt attack becomes a business dispute. With Milton gone, his Pinkertons will scatter or turn on each other. Cornwall will need a new strategy. And I," he smiled again, wolfish, "I need men who understand strategy. And now I have that many who also have my full trust, to… do things."
The invitation was clear. This was the opening Caleb had engineered. "I'm listening, Mr. Bronte."
"Not here. Come, walk with me." Bronte dismissed Martelli and the butler with a wave. "Leave us."
He led Caleb away from the dock, onto a gravel path that wound through his manicured gardens, away from immediate eavesdroppers. "Rourke and his animals, they are good for breaking things. But what comes after? A city in ruins is no good to anyone. I need to secure what is mine, make it… untouchable. Milton's death is a message. But we must now fortify the palace."
"The ledger," Caleb said, carefully testing the waters. "A man's wealth is his vulnerability. If it's scattered, it's weak. If it's concentrated, it's a target."
Bronte glanced at him, impressed. "You think like a banker, not a killer. It is why you are valuable. My wealth is not scattered. It is secure. But security… it must be tested. I have a place. The Old Madonna Chapel, north of the marsh. You know it?"
Caleb kept his face perfectly still. "I've heard the name. It's a ruin."
"A fortress," Bronte corrected. "It holds the heart of my affairs here. The true books. The real money. Only my most loyal paesani guard it. But loyalty… it can be bought, or it can grow stale with boredom."
He stopped, turning to face Caleb fully. "I want you to see it. Not to guard it. To audit it. I want you to go there, as my eyes. Test their readiness. Inspect the security. Report to me, not just on the walls and the guns, but on the men. Their discipline. Their spirit. Can you do this?"
It was a staggering offer of trust, and a perfect match for Caleb's own objective. He was being handed the blueprint to the vault and asked to find its weaknesses. "I can. When?"
"Tomorrow. Go at dusk. I will send word ahead that my auditor, McLaughlin, is coming. They will show you everything."
He placed a hand on Caleb's arm. "This, amico, is not a job for a bounty. This is the beginning of a partnership. You help me make my empire impregnable, and you will have a share of what flows through it. More than you could ever earn with a rifle. But if you cross me... you knew the consequences for such action."
Caleb met his gaze, letting a flicker of ambition show, just enough to be convincing. "A partnership sounds more profitable than a paycheck, Mr. Bronte."
"Bene!" Bronte beamed. "Now, go. Rest. Your money will be waiting. Tomorrow, you ride for the chapel. We will speak when you return."
Caleb made his way back through the gardens, retrieved Morgan from the copse, and rode towards the Bastille. The fifteen thousand dollars was as good as his, a massive infusion for the Strawberry project. But that was now the smaller prize.
He had been invited into the inner sanctum. Tomorrow, he would walk into the heart of Bronte's financial fortress, not as a thief in the night, but as a welcomed guest.
He would memorize every detail, identify every weakness, assess every guard. And he would do it all with Bronte's blessing.
As he hitched Morgan into the hitching post and entered the Bastille, the weight of the day settled on him, not as fatigue, but as a keen, electric anticipation. The game had escalated beyond mere infiltration.
He was now being groomed as a new trusted man in Bronte's eyes, a development that put him on a direct collision course with Guido Martelli and placed him in the crosshairs of Leviticus Cornwall.
Up in his room, a heavy leather pouch sat on the dresser. He opened it. Bundles of large denomination bills. 15,000 dollars. He set it aside with some excitement, putting it into his inventory.
He sat at the writing desk, opened his journal beside on the table and began to write, not about the chapel yet, but about the look in Guido Martelli's eyes. About the specific way Bronte had dismissed him. About the fragile architecture of trust in a world built on betrayal.
He had gone to Saint Denis to take the temperature. He had ended up stepping into the furnace. And now, he had to decide not just how to survive the heat, but how to harness it to forge his own destiny.
Caleb finished the last line in his journal with a slow, deliberate stroke, then paused.
The room was quiet, insulated from the city's pulse by thick walls and heavy curtains. Outside, Saint Denis continued to breathe, carriages rattling on stone, distant voices, the faint whistle of a riverboat somewhere down the Lannahechee, but none of it intruded here.
This space was his. A temporary refuge, but a controlled one. He closed the journal and rested his palm on its worn leather cover for a moment longer than necessary.
Then he slid the journal into his satchel and leaned back in the chair.
Only then did he turned his attention to another important thing.
To the faint, familiar chime that have been ringing since he killed Milton.
Not a sound in the room, but inside his mind. A crystalline resonance that bypassed hearing entirely and struck directly at awareness. It was subtle, but unmistakable.
The system.
He straightened immediately, heart rate ticking up, not with fear, but with anticipation. Notifications never came lightly. When they appeared, it meant something fundamental had shifted.
Caleb focused inward.
At once, the light blue interface unfolded before his eyes, translucent and clean, hovering in his perception like a pane of glass suspended in air. Text began to scroll, crisp and unmistakable.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[WORLD EVENT ACHIEVED: COURSE ALTERED]
Caleb blinked, breath slowing as he read.
[Assessment: Due to the Host elimination of key figures, Agent Edgar Ross and Agent Andrew Milton of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, host have successfully altered the trajectory of the world.]
Caleb's fingers tightened slightly against the armrest. He then continued reading.
[Analysis: These eliminations constitute a critical divergence from established world line trajectories. The Van der Linde gang's primary external pressure has been decisively neutralized. Without the direct, personal zeal and investigative focus of Milton and Ross, Pinkerton operations against the gang will lose coherence and strategic direction. Likelihood of coordinated, large scale pursuit has decreased by 78.3%.]
[Secondary Effect: Leviticus Cornwall has lost his most effective instruments for direct action against the gang and lost his primary intelligence pipeline for tracking the Van der Linde gang himself. Alternative measures will be slower, less precise, and more costly.]
...
Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 7/10
- Agility: 7/10
- Perception: 8/10
- Stamina: 7/10
- Charm: 7/10
- Luck: 8/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl 4)
- Rifle (Lvl 4)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl 4)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl 4)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl 1)
- Sneaking (Lvl 4)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl 4)
- Poker (Lvl 4)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl 4)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl 1)
- Dead Eye (Lvl 3)
- Bow (Lvl 2)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl 3)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl 2)
- Crafting (Lvl 4)
- Persuasion (Lvl 4)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl 4)
- Teaching (Lvl 2)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 10x10x10)
- Acting (Lvl 4)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
Money: 3,471 dollars and 10 cents
Inventory: 92,892 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 65 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, & 1 Broken Pirate Sword
Bank: -