Lucretia woke up on the morning of the 18th and groggily squinted at the bright light of the midday sun shining through her window. Still exhausted from the previous day's exertions, flying across the country trying to end threats against her family and her home city of New York, it took her some time to realize that the obnoxious clanging coming from her nightstand was the phone, and that it had been ringing non-stop for the past several minutes. Slowly Lucretia rolled over and grabbed the handle with a groan.

"Ugnahn, early mnagha, waaa?" The garbled string of gibberish was all that her vocal chords could produce at the moment. Whatever it was, Lucretia hoped it could wait, but vaguely had a sense that that whoever was on the line wouldn't have let the phone ring so long if it weren't important. A few minutes of groggy conversation later, Lucretia hung up the phone. Breathing deeply, and disappointed there would be no rest for the weary, she crawled out of bed, changed into her business clothes, and a few heartbeats later was telling her driver to take her to the headquarters.

Walking into her office, Lucretia immediately noticed that she was not alone. Her right and left hand men had both obviously been overwhelmed with the stress of recent days as well, since they had fallen asleep without even heading home for the evening, heads laid on their desks. Good. She needed them anyway, and better that they wouldn't need any time to get ready.

"Ricin! Youngsta! Wake up!" The two jerked their heads up from the desks and were immediately at attention at Lucretia's words. "We're going to Las Vegas!"

Ricin immediately perked up. "Alright, I could use a vacation after a hectic day like yesterday. When do we leave?"

"No, Ricin, not for pleasure. I mean we're going to Vegas. The Inscrutables are coming with, too. Godfather Deimne just gave me the news a few minutes ago. It seems that city isn't destined to be empty for long after the untimely disappearance of Godmother Aurora. We're to move there right away."

So the three of them caught the next flight direct to Vegas and started rolling through the city, looking for someplace out of sight of the law but close enough to the action in the strip that they wouldn't miss out on the profits. Finally Lucretia settled on a location when she spotted the office of a small time tax attorney. She purchased the site with cash up front. Lucretia knew she wouldn't need a particularly large headquarters in a city like Vegas. With all the sights to see, hardly anyone would want to stay at her office for long. Besides, there was more business to attend to.

At this point Lucretia's eyes caught Youngsta and Ricin with that peculiar look of subdued violence glimmering in the corner. "Guys, I think this is where we get to do the fun part. Let's get to it, eh?" And at that the three of them were off to the headquarters of the late Godmother Aurora. When they got to the building they found crime scene tape littering the area around various chalk-outlines on the ground. A few policemen surveyed the area, but Lucretia dealt with them easily. "Sirs, you're going to have to leave. Now. And make sure none of your friends stop by in the next few hours, yes." The police laughed for a second, until Lucretia threw a stack of bills at them. "Yes ma'am!" And that was that.

As the police left the area, a few straggling mafioso crawled out from the adjacent properties to see what was going on. The biggest of the group wasn't shy, and spoke up. "Excuse me, little lady, what are you doing here at the Godmother's place? Don't you know you're liable to get hurt, acting like you own this city?"

Lucretia looked at them with fire in her eyes. She was not one to be talked down to. "Oh, didn't you hear? Your Godmother is dead. We have killed her. I'm taking this city. You can work for me, you can get out of town, or I can shoot you where you stand. And frankly, I don't care which option you take." The three chose wrong. Admirable loyalty, but a waste of life. A few gunshots later, it was over, and the fools weren't even armed. "Well, we'll probably get some attention from sound of gunshots at the Godmother's place, even if those cops do their best. We'd better work quickly here."

Ricin piped up. "Er, boss, what exactly are we doing here?"

"Oh, I guess I never did tell you guys that. We're going to burn this place to the ground. Then we'll tag the area with our family crest. Then we'll call in the reporters. We're going to let the whole world know this city is under my command. Let the cops try to pin it on us. We'll say it was some high school vandals pulling a prank, but everyone will know the real story. This city is mine, and I won't have anyone questioning it!"

And with that, they let loose a few Molotov cocktails and sped away into the night.