The Hidden City by Lady MSM

In the Belly of the Beast

May, 1930

Chicago

It was a stupid thing to notice while tied to a chair in an enemy gang’s headquarters, but Maeglin couldn’t help but think the decor in here was incredibly tacky. Who in this century decorated a speakeasy like it was a gothic castle?

He didn’t say this aloud, of course. Partly because he didn’t want to get shot, and partly because his jaw felt slightly dislodged.

“So. Maeglin Gates.” Morgoth (just Morgoth, no last name…he’d dropped it and his original first name years ago, to get the European authorities off his track) sat down in the chair across from him. “Turgon Gates’ darling nephew. Lovely to have you drop in on us.”

“I didn’t drop in on you. You jumped me in an alley and dragged me here,” Maeglin retorted, or at least tried to, since his jaw still didn’t seem to be working properly. Morgoth simply laughed.

“This doesn’t have to go badly for you, you know. In fact, we could work out something mutually beneficial.”

“How could you in any way benefit me?”

Morgoth smiled. “You know, Maeglin, you and I are quite similar. No, no, it’s true. We both come from prominent families, neither of us had what you could call a swell relationship with our fathers, and we’re both highly intelligent men who know we deserve more. And I think both you and I know what you deserve, Maeglin.”

He did know what he deserved. Or at least hoped he deserved. He’d been trying to repress how angry he was at Idril’s new family, at how his uncle adored them and treated Maeglin like a child, but it had been getting more and more difficult. Sooner or later, he was bound to snap.

“Here’s what I think you deserve, and what I’m willing to give you,” said Morgoth. “I’ve got plans to take over your father’s gang in Chicago, making it a branch of mine. In exchange for some helpful information, I’m willing to put you in charge of that branch. In addition, I have it on good information that a certain pretty little cousin of yours has a hillbilly husband who you’d like to have…disposed of. I can arrange that.”

Maeglin’s eyes widened. “You…you can?”

“My dear boy, I’m a mob boss, not the Archbishop of Canterbury. What do you think I do to people who cause trouble for my associates and I?”

“But you won’t let anything happen to Idril?”

“You may consider her under my full protection. So, do we have a deal?”

He wanted to do the right thing. He wanted to say no, to tell this slimy con man that the Gates family did not betray each other.

But he couldn’t.

“We have a deal.”