Alex never forgot that lesson. Thirty years passed, and a lot changed. The teenage troublemaker became a powerful crime boss known as North.
He now held influence over a large part of the region. And the same man he had once known as Mr. Nick had become a retired colonel living alone in a small apartment, largely forgotten.
Their lives had gone in very different directions. There had been wars, prison terms, and all the usual wreckage that follows men like North. But he had never forgotten the debt he owed.
So when he learned that six punks had beaten Mr. Nick in the street, he did not need anyone to explain what came next. For North, it was time to pay back an old debt—one from childhood, one from the mountains, and one from a code he had never entirely abandoned.
The very next day, North called in three of his most trusted men. They were quiet professionals, the kind who knew how to work without attracting attention. They met in a plain rental house in a suburb.
In jobs like this, the less a place stood out, the better. North sat at a kitchen table with a legal pad in front of him. The three men stood along the wall, waiting for instructions.
He told them the assignment was simple. In three days, he wanted everything they could find on the six men involved. Addresses, jobs, routines, connections, and weak spots.
One of the men, a lean forty-year-old called Nails, nodded and asked whether they had names yet. North checked his notes and said they had enough to start.
The main target was Victor Grayson, county commissioner and owner of a large development company with a dirty side business. North said Grayson lived in a gated community with serious security. Also on the list were his two sons, older son Ian and younger son Dennis.
The other three men were not fully identified yet, but they moved in the Grayson orbit. North said that once they found the sons, the rest would fall into place. Nails said he understood and asked whether there was anything else they should know.
North explained the reason. A few days earlier, those six men had beaten a retired colonel in broad daylight. They had kicked an elderly veteran in front of dozens of bystanders. The three men exchanged dark looks.
Nails frowned and asked what the old man had done to make a county commissioner that angry. North said it came down to a small piece of lakeside property. Grayson wanted the land for a profitable development project.
The man could hardly believe it. An old veteran had been thrown to the pavement over a patch of land. He spat on the kitchen floor and muttered what he thought of people like that.
North closed the legal pad and told them to work carefully and quietly. First they would gather everything. After that, each of the six men would have a private conversation.
Nails asked what kind of conversation he had in mind. North said nothing. He just looked at him. That was enough.
Three days later, the full picture was clear. At the center stood fifty-four-year-old Victor Grayson, a former head of economic crimes enforcement who had moved into business in the 1990s and built a development company called New Century Homes…
