Chapter 19: The Marcus Confrontation
Ben's Danger Intuition had been screaming for three hours straight.
Not pulsing. Not warning. Screaming. A constant, deafening alarm that made his vision blur and his hands shake. He'd taken aspirin, tried breathing exercises, even attempted meditation. Nothing helped. The power was showing him what was coming, and what was coming was violence.
Marcus arrived at 2 PM with five men.
Ray was there, baseball bat resting on his shoulder with casual menace. Three others Ben didn't recognize—all muscle, all threat, all positioning themselves to block exits. They spread through the garage like an occupying force, making it clear this wasn't negotiation. This was ultimatum.
"Week's up," Marcus said, voice calm as always. "Time to settle accounts."
Ben's MacGyver Mind cataloged the situation automatically: five against one, armed opponents, no escape routes, Danger Intuition showing multiple bad outcomes if he fought. His only chance was talking his way out.
"I've got the money," Ben said.
"Good. But the amount's changed." Marcus pulled out a notebook, reading like an accountant. "You skipped six weeks of payments at fifty dollars. That's three hundred base. Interest compounds weekly at ten percent. That's another eighty-five. Plus the lying tax I mentioned—making me look stupid has a cost. Let's call it even at three thousand total."
"Three thousand? We agreed on one."
"That was before I verified your Russian mob story was complete bullshit." Marcus's expression didn't change. "Nobody in Pilsen knows you. No Yuri, no connection, no protection. Which means you lied. Again. To my face."
Ben's stomach dropped. Marcus had actually investigated. Had called the bluff and found nothing but air.
Ray stepped forward, bat swinging lazily. "Want me to start with his hands or his knees?"
"Not yet." Marcus looked at Ben with predatory calm. "I'm giving you one chance. Three thousand, cash, right now. Or we make an example that everyone in South Side will remember."
Ben's Danger Intuition pulsed specific warnings: if he paid, they'd escalate next time. If he fought, he'd lose badly. If he ran, they'd target people he cared about. No good options. Only degrees of catastrophe.
And Frank was nowhere to be found.
He's supposed to be here. The timing, the backup—we planned this. Where the fuck is he?
Ben reached for his cash box with shaking hands. Inside: two thousand three hundred dollars from the Gary jewelry sale. Not enough. Not nearly enough.
His Danger Intuition showed him what would happen if he revealed the shortage: immediate violence, broken bones, escalation beyond money into pain.
Ben made a decision that required all four powers working in perfect harmony.
He pulled out his actual cash—twenty-three hundred-dollar bills. Spread them on the workbench. Then he grabbed a stack of ones from beneath, maybe forty dollars in singles, and held them underneath the hundreds.
Focused.
His illusion power activated with precision he'd built through weeks of practice. The singles shimmered, their appearance transforming into hundreds. The edges aligned perfectly with the real bills above. Weight adjusted to feel right. Serial numbers appeared that would pass casual inspection.
Thirty seconds of concentration, and Ben was holding what looked like five thousand dollars.
The nosebleed started immediately. Hot blood running over his lip. But Ben ignored it, let it add to the performance. Made it look like stress, fear, desperation.
"Here," Ben said, his Silver Tongue activating simultaneously. The words flowed with supernatural conviction, each syllable calibrated to create specific doubt. "Five thousand. More than you asked. Because I need this settled."
He slid the money across the workbench. Marcus picked it up, flipped through the stack. The illusion held perfectly—felt right, looked right, even crinkled correctly.
"Why the extra?" Marcus asked, suspicious.
"Because I've been waiting." Ben let his Silver Tongue guide him, reading Marcus's micro-expressions through Danger Intuition, adjusting in real-time. "Needed to confirm my Chicago connection wasn't working with you. Needed to make sure this wasn't a setup to identify me for people I'm hiding from."
"Chicago connection." Marcus's tone was flat. "The Russian mob we couldn't verify."
"You couldn't verify it because I'm protection racket—they don't advertise. And asking around is exactly what brought heat I was running from." Ben's Danger Intuition showed him Marcus was uncertain now, calculating. "You checking up on me? That put me at risk. So I had to be sure you weren't working with them before I paid you anything."
The lie was audacious, layering falsehood on falsehood, using Marcus's own investigation as evidence of Ben's story. It was insane. It was desperate.
It was working.
Ben watched Marcus weigh options, saw him calculate whether this was truth or incredibly sophisticated con. The money in his hands said truth—five thousand in hundreds, physical evidence of resources and connections. But the story still had holes.
"One month," Marcus said finally. "You've got one month to prove this connection is real. I want evidence—names, contacts, something that verifies you're not just spinning stories. If I don't get it, we come back. And next time, there's no talking."
"Deal."
Marcus pocketed the money. Started to leave. Ben's Danger Intuition pulsed urgent warning—something was still wrong, still coming.
Then Frank appeared.
He stumbled through the garage entrance drunk and loud, Kevin Ball right behind him with four Alibi regulars. The energy in the room shifted instantly.
"Marcus!" Frank's voice carried genuine outrage despite the slur. "The fuck you doing harassing my business partner?"
"Frank. This doesn't concern—"
"Doesn't concern me?" Frank laughed, the sound carrying manic energy. "Kid here's working for my connections. Chicago outfit, serious people. You threatening him is threatening them."
Marcus's expression showed frustrated calculation. "You vouching for him?"
"I'm saying he's real. The Russian connection, the hiding, all of it. You think I'd partner with some nobody?" Frank approached, somehow both drunk and dangerously sharp. "You take his money, you leave him alone. That was the deal."
"Deal was he proves the connection."
"Connection's real. Ask Mickey Petrov, ask Dmitri Volkov. They'll confirm." Frank rattled off names that Ben didn't recognize but sounded plausibly Russian. "Of course, asking might get you noticed by people who don't appreciate curiosity. Your call."
Kevin stepped forward, his friendly demeanor gone. "Marcus. Ben's part of the community now. Helped a lot of people. You keep pushing, you're not just dealing with him. You're dealing with all of us."
The Alibi regulars spread out, not threatening but present. A silent show of force that shifted the numbers. Five of Marcus's guys against Frank, Kevin, and four regulars. Still winnable for Marcus, but costly.
Marcus looked at the money in his pocket. At Ben. At Frank's drunken sincerity that was somehow convincing despite being obvious bullshit.
"One month," Marcus repeated. "Better hope those names check out."
He left with his crew, tension dissipating as they disappeared into South Side's streets. The garage fell silent except for Ben's ragged breathing.
Frank dropped the drunk act instantly. "Perfect timing, right?"
"Where were you?" Ben demanded.
"Watching. Waiting for exactly the right moment." Frank grinned. "You needed pressure to sell the desperation. I needed them committed before showing up. Theatre, kid. It's all about timing."
Kevin approached, put a hand on Ben's shoulder. "You okay?"
"Yeah." Ben wiped blood from his nose with the back of his hand. "Thanks for showing up."
"Course. That's what we do." Kevin studied the blood with concern. "You sure you're alright? That's a lot of blood."
"Stress. I'm fine."
The Alibi regulars filtered out, mission accomplished, already returning to their day. Kevin left with promises to check in later. Frank stayed, examining the garage with satisfaction.
"So," Frank said. "You pulled it off. All four powers working together—the fake money, the silver tongue, the danger sense guiding you, even the mechanical mind helping you read the room. That was art."
"The money will revert in three days," Ben said quietly. "When Marcus realizes he's holding ones instead of hundreds—"
"We'll handle that when it happens. For now, you bought time. Established doubt. Made yourself too complicated to just disappear." Frank clapped him on the shoulder. "Welcome to the big leagues."
After Frank left, Ben collapsed onto an overturned crate and let himself shake.
He'd just conned Marcus using all four powers in perfect synchronization. Had created an illusion, enhanced it with supernatural persuasion, guided by precognitive danger sense, reading the situation with enhanced mechanical understanding of human systems.
And it had felt natural. Easy, even. Like his powers had finally aligned into something cohesive instead of four separate abilities fighting for attention.
That should have felt like victory. Instead, it felt like a threshold crossed. A point of no return where he'd proven he could lie at expert level, manipulate at supernatural capacity, and do it all without hesitation.
"What am I becoming? What have I already become?"
Ben's hands were still shaking from adrenaline crash. His nose wouldn't stop bleeding completely. And in three days, Marcus would discover the fake money and come back furious.
But today, Ben had survived. Had used everything at his disposal to buy time, to establish doubt, to make himself dangerous enough that killing him seemed like more trouble than it was worth.
Today, he'd won.
Tomorrow's problems could wait until tomorrow.
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