Never Judge

"Boss." John was shocked when Stephen entered the bar.

He was drinking a beer with some of the higher ranked members of the Essen mafia family when Stephen suddenly arrived.

It was ten in the morning on a work day, Stephen never showed up to the bar at that time.

"Relax, I'm not here to catch you all slacking, it's fine." Stephen said. "Serve me a beer too."

John snapped his finger and the bartender quickly opened a bottle of beer and handed it to Stephen.

"I just have some issues at Cho Industries that need to be settled without me there." Stephen further explained as he took out his phone and dialed a number. "I decided to settle the matter with the gangs first."

The phone on the other end began to ring, and Robert answered the call.

"Any news?" Stephen asked as he sipped his beer.

"The other party has tried to use all its connections to pull the news we released out of circulation." Robert reported. "How did you know this would work? They have done much worse crimes and yet you expose something this small."

Stephen smiled as his friend pestered him with questions.

"The big crimes, they do everything to hide the evidence and make it bullet proof, but the smaller crimes, those they ignore." Stephen explained as everyone listened intently to his words.

"So what now?" Robert asked. "Edward's men arrest them for a little while, they pay a fine, then they are free?"

"This is just a warning." Stephen smiled as he looked at his bottle. "This will also get their other backers to distrust them. If something so small cannot be seen to, then how about bigger issues?"

John and the other men were shocked by what Stephen had said. They hadn't expected this to be one of the reasons.

"You know that I wanted to strike fear that with such a little piece of information we are able to hurt them, that's the primary goal, but I always have a secondary one." Stephen said as he finished the contents of his bottle.

"They are starting to react." One member of the Essen Mafia said as he looked up from his phone.

Stephen guessed that he had just gotten a report on the activities of the mafia family they were targeting.

"Their backers?" Stephen asked as he crossed his arms on his chest and waited for news.

The man nodded.

"Several of them have reached out, wanting to work with us." The man explained.

"Let them wait." Stephen instructed as he calmly ran through his plans in his head. "These people need to know that we can thrive without them, that their backing is just a bonus."

"But what if they pull out their offer?" Normally they wouldn't ask any questions, but Stephen's plan worried them.

Stephen glared at him, they knew the rules, they weren't allowed to contradict him, but he understood where they were coming from.

"You are lucky we are under unique circumstances right now." Stephen's tone was cold, making everyone in the room nervous. "If they pull out, which I think they won't, then we will be fine, we will survive. Our backers are more powerful and rich than they can imagine."

The man nodded and remained silent, he knew there was a danger in asking more questions.

"John, how busy are you right now?" Stephen asked as he looked at his right hand man.

"I'm free." John told him with a shrug.

"Let's take a look at how bad the damage is in the other camp." Stephen said as he walked out of the bar with John following him close behind.

John seemed hesitant, but he would never reject a command from his boss, especially not in front of so many of their subordinates.

They stood in the bar's parking lot and Stephen looked around, scanning the cars. John wanted to ask if his car had been stolen, but he didn't have it in him to question his boss.

After a few minutes, Stephen finally spoke.

"Who's car is that?" He asked as he pointed at a simple unassuming black sedan that was parked on the lot.

"I think that's one of the bartenders'." John answered as he looked at the familiar car. He didn't really take note of who owned which car.

"Retrieve the keys, we're taking his car." Stephen ordered as he walked towards the black car.

John quickly ran back to the bar, asked around and got the keys to the car from its owner.

They wouldn't say no to Stephen, they knew that at worst if the car was damaged, their boss could easily replace or fix it.

"What are you planning?" John asked as he tossed the keys to Stephen.

"I told you, we will see what is happening on the other side." Stephen said with a grin as he started the car. "No one knows how the head of the Essen Mafia looks. They don't even know how you look."

"Why do I have a gut feeling that this isn't going to end well?" John groaned as Stephen drove them through the streets of Marina and towards a fancy restaurant.

He knew for a fact that the pesky group used this place as their headquarters. They didn't even bother to go into private rooms or have separate rooms for their meetings. Everything was held out in public.

Few people actually dined in this restaurant out of fear of the mafia, but it wasn't uncommon to see people having lunch there. The food was actually quite good.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Stephen heard someone shout as soon as they were led to their table.

The waitress didn't even apologize for the noise. Anyone dining in this restaurant should expect that this kind of scene could happen.

"Someone explain to me why we are all over the news and social media due to a restaurant violation!" The man shouted as John ordered food for Stephen and himself. "If we get arrested because of this, it's your head."

"Sir, we think it's the Essen Mafia, they are retaliating." One of his subordinates answered.

"I don't fucking care about the Essen Mafia! Fix this." The boss shouted, sending people rushing away.

On their table, Stephen couldn't help but grin. He knew his plan would work.