Nikki sat in their Lofts suite with Maggie on her lap and Keats rolled into a ball at her feet. The little girl had run the puppy ragged, or maybe it was vice-versa, but both had fallen into a coma-like state after an hour of hard play. Nikki studied the little girl's face as she slept, gently pulling her sticky blonde locks away from the dried chocolate around her mouth. She looked up at Cesare then, and a long look passed between them.

This could have been us, our lives. If only we weren't what we are.

The phone rang then, the jangling somehow not even disturbing the sleeping dog and child. Nikki heaved forward before Cesare could move; she didn't want him doing the calls and after a tense argument, he'd relented. She stepped over the puppy and carried Maggie to Cesare, then hesitated after considering his injuries.

"Can you take her? I don't want you to hurt yourse-" she began, but Cesare kissed her quickly and took the child into his arms. Nikki was gifted once more with the vision of what might have been, until the incessant phone broke through her reverie. Moving to the wall, she steeled herself, then picked up, now in the habit of not bothering to speak. She listened to the voice once again telling her what was expected of them, and was about to interrupt with the fact that the first assignment, this kidnapping, hadn't even come to its conclusion yet, when the phone clicked in her ear.

Her eyes began to water as a low-grade panic set in. There was absolutely no way they could keep this pace, meet these demands. She turned slowly and moved to sit on the couch next to her husband, whose arms were wrapped protectively around the little girl.

"We have to blow Kid's distillery in The Loop. In the next twenty-four hours," she said, her voice cracking. Whoever was pulling their strings, they clearly knew all the connections and had all the intel. Who would know about everything they'd ever done? Who would know about Cesare's DFP, and Kid's distillery? It could be someone on the inside...but more likely, it went higher. Higher than local heat.

Higher meant federal.

Cesare looked helplessly at the child in his arms after Nikki was done speaking. She was still asleep, but the time for the drop was approaching. Ricardo was watching the Park, and the second a drop was made, he'd have a neighborhood kid pick it up, hand it off to another kid, and so on until it made its way into his hands. Of course it wasn't going to stay in his hands, Ricardo was going to have to leave the money at the front desk of a nearby hotel for pickup by the Voice.

Holes in the carefully disguised façade of this villain were beginning to show, and Cesare was going to capitalize. He stood quickly, careful not to wake Maggie up. The sleeping girl shifted on his shoulder and pressed her face into the crease of his neck causing Cesare to freeze. He looked up at Nikki and found himself again caught in a terrible domestic wish that had gone terribly awry. He placed a hand on the back of the little girl's head and walked her over to Nikki, beckoning for her to reclaim the child. As Nikki relieved him, he placed a kiss on her forehead and turned to the phone to place a call of his own.

"Michael it's me, listen I've got something for you.....yeah write this down.....this evening at The Gardens Hotel there's going to be a package delivered to the front desk.....whoever picks up that package, I need you to follow them, I don't care if they take it into the White House, I want you right behind them.....Good.....click."

He turned around. He didn't need to explain it to Nikki, she knew he was planting the seeds for vengeance even in the midst of the threat. With any luck, the Voice would be so arrogantly confident in Cesare's compliance that he wouldn't even bother checking a tail. After the beating he gave, he had to believe Cesare was a whipped dog. Cesare wanted to pair the voice with a name, the name with a face, and the face with his fist until the face no longer existed.

Getting after Kid's distillery was a tall order, and left a terrible taste in Cesare's mouth. Kid was an old friend of theirs and their relationship was great. How could he just destroy a piece of his business and hope for that relationship to not break into all out war? They'd have to be smart. Somehow there couldn't be bodies in the destruction of the distillery, and it had to look like an innocent mistake. How? Cesare would have to continue to rack his brain as they fulfilled their part of the exchange with Maggie.

It wasn't long until they got the call the money had been received...

With a heavy heart, Nikki found herself releasing Maggie out the passenger door of the car, a half-block from the mayor's home.

"You know where to go, Baby?" She asked.

"Yes, that's my house right there!" Maggie chirped enthusiastically, pointing at the large white colonial down the block.

"Okay. Straight home. I'm so sorry that stupid car took so long to fix. We had fun though, right? I'll miss you, Maggie. Be a good girl," Nikki said, quickly wiping a tear away. She kissed the girl on the head and watched her go as Cesare pulled away from the curb. Scrubbing her hands down her face, she inhaled deeply before speaking.

"If you can clear Kid's distillery of people, equipment, and stock, we can blow an empty fucking building," she said, not looking at him. "I've got explosives I can get my hands on. Loan out our guys if he doesn't have the manpower to get it done that fast. We've only got half a day left," she continued, looking at her watch. Even if they pulled it off, what then? They couldn't keep this pace. Nikki found herself not even wanting to go home, but she knew they'd be found, no matter where they went. Hell, they were likely being watched right now.

"I hope you have a plan, Cesare. We can't continue this way," she said, her words carrying more weight and meaning than he knew.

Cesare rubbed his eyes with both hands,

"There is no plan..."

Cesare could feel pressure building all around him like a suffocating doom approaching from all sides. An intense and palpable feeling of dread that clawed into the back of his brain and made itself a nest of his mind. These days felt like months, stretching him from every angle without escape. For all the clouds building in his mind, he couldn't show them, though he knew Nikki guessed at it in her own mind. He flew down the roads of Chicago, a menace to everyone caught in his way. Once they'd arrived in the Loop, Cesare floored it to the distillery and parked the car on the curb down the alley.

He probably should have called Kid. But how do you explain something like this? 'Hello, I'm being blackmailed by the feds and I need to blow up your warehouse.' Something told him it wouldn't go over well. Cesare and Nikki stepped out of the car and moved towards the building. It was in a factory district of the city with many unused workshops since the loss of business due to the depression. Only one factory in the area was still employing people, and across the street a line of ex workers formed in front of a new soup kitchen. As they approached, Cesare felt uneasy. He should have seen someone by now, a guard, a nosy cop, hell, a dog would be nice, but there was nothing. No one. Cesare slid open the warehouse doors on its tracks with a piercing rusted speaking noise. Inside, was a single solitary guard sleeping propped on the back two legs of a chair against a stack of boxes. The noise had woken him up and sent him tumbling backwards onto the floor.

Cesare couldn't believe it. "Hey!" he shouted as he entered the distillery and walked towards the man, "Where is everyone?!" The man started stumbling to his feet, "M-m-m-mister...Torretta?" he stuttered confusedly. "Where the fuck is everyone?!" Cesare continued yelling as he paced around the entrance of the warehouse trying to spot another soul.

"They're... gone, sir. Boss is dealing with some sort of upstart crew. Needed these guys to cover the HQ while the fighting was going on..."

"No." Cesare put his hands through his hair as he paced back and forth, beating his mind into producing something useful, and coming up empty. "FUCK!" he screamed as he picked the chair off the ground and smashed it on the floor, continuing until he was left only holding the leg which he threw into the warehouse. He walked outside past his wife on the unfamiliar verge of tears. He felt like he could vomit. He put his hands on the brick edifice and looked out towards the road just as a black Lincoln pulled up on the other side of the road. The window of the car came down and Cesare could see two men in suits carefully watching them. Fucking Feds. He knew it. One of the men tauntingly lifted a wristwatch in the window and tapped on it with a finger. Cesare stormed down the alley towards them, "The fuck do you want?!" he called after them as the car pulled away, revealing the queue of men behind.

He had it.

"Nikki! How much cash do you have?" he turned quickly with an inspired look.

"I don't know exactly. There's some in the car.." she answered.

Cesare removed the billfold from his pocket and handed it to her, he had maybe a thousand or two with him. He pointed across the street to the soup kitchen, "Get what you can and hire us some workers, Love! We're gonna load some trucks! After that go for the explosives, I'll clean this place out!"

He jogged a couple steps towards the door and yelled back at the guard, "Where are your trucks parked?"

He looked at his watch and prayed for time...

Nikki turned and bolted for the car, reaching through the window and dumping the contents of the glove box on the floorboard as she reached for a thick envelope of cash. Then she quickly made her way across the street to the line of men outside.

"Hey! Got some work for some of you fellas...I need maybe a dozen of you stronger bucks who are fast on their feet. Hundred bucks each for twenty, thirty minutes of your time? Who's hungry?" She called out as closer to fifteen came her way. She spun on her heel and led them back to the warehouse, where she quickly tossed out instructions to ten of them to start moving equipment towards the back, then continued pointing in that direction as she told the other five to head out the back and prepare to load and drive. Scanning the distillery, she sought and found Cesare's eyes, locking on his for a moment before rushing back out the door and to the car.

There were two places she could go; the better, bigger stash she simply didn't have the time to reach. The second stash was only a couple blocks over in another warehouse. The contents of that building leaned more toward building and destruction supplies, but Nikki was confident there were enough sticks of dynamite to do the job.

Pulling up out front, she left the car idling and pointed at one of two guys stationed casually around the perimeter. 

"You, um, shit. Sorry, I forgot your name. I need the demolition explosives, any and all. Yesterday," she said, grabbing his arm and pulling him inside. He broke character immediately, going from the out of work guy holding up a wall to a man on a mission, taking her soundlessly to the a small crate towards the back wall. 

Inside it, there wasn't much. Blowing the Vegas and Los Angeles forts had taken their toll on the stash, which hadn't been replenished yet. She grabbed what was left, shoving four sticks into her trench pockets and preparing to leave when she stopped and looked at her guy.

"What IS your name?" She asked, squinting at him in the dimness. 

"Christopher, Ma'am." He replied quietly.

"Good work, Christopher. I like your style. If I'm still alive tomorrow, come by the HQ and I'll have a bonus for you," she replied, popping him on the shoulder and exiting back out the door. She was backed up into the street and off in a squeal of tires before he'd even finished repositioning himself against the brick wall again.

Minutes later, she was parked a block from the distillery and jogging the remainder of the way towards the back, where she could see the trucks being loaded. One or two had already left.

There was hope.

Men are capable of amazing feats when given the right motivation. Give a man eager to feed himself and his family the chance to make a hundred dollars by moving some boxes and disassembling some machinery? He does it, he doesn't ask questions. His blind enthusiasm makes him the perfect worker. The men had already loaded a whole two box trucks with illegal liquor and were moving them towards one of Cesare's warehouses on the South Side when Nikki reappeared, fuses sticking out of her coat pockets.

Cesare had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. He was positioning crates into the back of the truck he was standing on when it occurred to him that Nikki had never seen him actually working before. It had been a long time since he'd seen himself working. Sweat beaded on his brow and matted the hair on his forehead as he passed crates behind him to the next man. He turned and exited the line of men, walking towards Nikki.

"These next two should hold everything that's left." He told her, slightly out of breath. He was still struggling from the beating he'd taken and the physical exertion was taking an unexpected toll.

"Did you get what you needed?"

She slid a stick of dynamite halfway out of her pocket for him to see. Cesare looked at his watch...No more than three hours left.

In another hour the trucks had been filled to the brim with crates of liquor and distillery equipment, all bound for a South Side warehouse. Cesare would have to explain this all to Kid, but for now, one thing at a time. The last truck rolled out and Cesare and Nikki began distributing the payment to all the men in the warehouse. Honest work, for honest pay, or something to that effect...

When each of the men had been paid, Cesare tried to disperse the straggling men who had taken to simply loitering around,

"Alright, now everyone out!" mistaking it for a joke, a couple nearby men let out a chuckle at him. Cesare drew the pistol from his waistband and pointed it at the ceiling,

BANG!

"I SAID EVERYONE GET THE FUCK OUT!"

The men cleared out like roaches running from a light. Satisfied, Cesare turned to receive some of the explosives from Nikki...there wasn't much, but if they were placed correctly, they'd do the job.

Nikki smirked at the sight of Cesare doing manual labor; she swiped a sweaty strand of hair away from his forehead as the smell of gunpowder rose up from his discharged gun. When the ringing in her ears had subsided, she handed him two sticks of dynamite and grasped the other two in her own hand as they discussed best possible placement. Twenty minutes later, they had them affixed and stood in the center of the distillery, Nikki making a slow circle as she traced the room with her eyes a final time to see if anything had been missed.

"I suppose we're ready, then. I hate that we're doing this to one of our own, but I gotta say, it's fun blowing shit up, regardless," she said as she looked at her husband. He looked tired, but he needed to go just a bit further before they were done. Realizing that running a block in under a minute wasn't going to be an option for him, she handed him a lighter, in case the one on him failed. Always prepared.

"I'm going back for the car. When you hear me out back, light 'em up," she said, planting a kiss on his mouth and heading for her car one last time at a jog. In five minutes, she was back and in the loading area, watching Cesare's shadow as it moved around inside, methodically, quickly from one stick to the next. After the fourth, he ran out and jumped in the car, and she was off before he even had the door closed.

Nikki was speeding away, out of the lot, into the street, and as far as she could get at top speed; she got maybe a block between them when the distillery exploded, four distinct and concussive bursts that rained detritus on the car as she continued forward. She couldn't help it; she smiled that her original distance prediction had been spot on. 

You take your moments when they come your way. 

Somehow, they'd done it.