[color=9e0039][b]Gomorrah, Abraham “Honest Abe" Rockwood[/b][/color]

Rockwood sat brooding within his office on the 4th floor of Gomorrah, the smoldering stub of a cigarette still clutched in his fingers. Since returning from Freeside, he’d been contemplating the information Tommy ‘Quickfinger’ had shared before his very sudden untimely passing. The arrogant conman had told quite the story before he’d died. Now the only question was what was going to be done about it. 

His door opened, and Rockwood looked up to see Lucy striding in. The Omerta Family Heir apparent was looking as beautiful, and dangerous, as ever,

“You wanted to talk Abe?” She said as her high heel clapped against the floor leading to his desk. She took a seat in one of the nearby chairs, propping her feet up on a footstool, “I hear you had quite the little adventure in Freeside.”

“That I did Lucrezia.”

“And?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow, “Well don’t keep me in suspense, what’s the bad news?” 

He sighed, then took another drag on his cigarette stub, “That conman? Tommy? He was working for Swank.”

Lucy rolled her eyes, “Don’t be dramatic Abe.I know you hate the Chairmen with an admirable fucking passion, but this isn’t all that surprising. I’ll admit this is a new low but…”

“That ain’t the bad news,” Rockwood interrupted, shaking his head, “The bad news is it isn’t a one-off. The Chairmen are building a network of thieves, with the sole goal of driving away traffic from Gomorrah and stirring up shit with the NCR troopers to boot. He’s directly, blatantly, violating The Contract.”

“Ah, well that’s different then,” It was Lucy’s turn to sigh, “Tommy told you all this then? How can you be sure he wasn’t just making shit up to save his skin?”

“Let’s just say I corroborated his testimony,” Rockwood smirked, then took one last drag on his cigarette before smashing the tiny remnant into his ashtray, “I had a feeling something was off. A lowlife pickpocket like Tommy wouldn’t have had the balls to try something like this on his own. Someone had to be offering him something else.”

Lucy leaned back in her chair, “My father won’t like it.”

“No he won’t,” Rockwood rubbed at his forehead, “I’m not a psychic, but…I can guess what will happen next. The Don will ask for a sitdown of the Families to resolve this, as he well should to be seen as reasonable, and Swank will flatly deny everything. When negotiations fail, we’ll be left to resolve this on our own, which means taking down this little network of Swank’s cell by cell. Inevitably someone, somewhere, is going to do something stupid, and we’re going to end up fighting Chairmen associates if not Chairmen button-men themselves in the streets.”

“The makings of a war,” Lucy finished his thought.

“Mark my words…It’ll only escalate from here.” Rockwood nodded. 

“About time,” Lucy smirked, “The Slitherkin and the Mojave Boot-riders have a score to settle, once and for all. This has been a long time coming.”

“You know your father has banned those names.”

“I prefer them…..it's important to remember where we come from, or do you disagree?” 

Rockwood smiled, he had to admire Lucy’s tenacity and admirable fondness for the old ways. Even if he couldn’t publicly do so,

“I don’t disagree,” He said plainly.

Lucy gave a devilish grin, “Good, then when my father puts me in charge of fighting this war, and he will, we’ll be settling this the old way. The tribal way.”