Crime Must Pay the Penalty #26

When Duke Norbert, a former rackets kingpin, completes his prison sentence, he wastes no time recruiting fellow inmates with his boldest scheme yet: a protection racket that shields criminals from the law in exchange for a cut of their illegal earnings. With phony witnesses, crooked lawyers, and a slick insurance-like operation, Duke's plan starts paying off—until the district attorney begins connecting the dots and sets his sights on bringing the whole operation down. This race between Duke's expanding criminal empire and the law's closing net plays out across 1943 and into 1944, as the scheme that seemed foolproof begins to show cracks.

When a man named Fred Lewis returns to Orson City with two dangerous fugitives in tow, Police Sergeant Alfred Ronson recognizes them from wanted posters and moves to arrest them—setting in motion a chain of betrayals that will haunt everyone involved for a decade. After Lewis turns state's evidence against his companions Del Greco and Joe Halik, the two killers spend their prison years nursing a single, burning obsession: revenge on the man who put them away. Now, as Greco and Halik escape and make their way back to Orson City, Ronson finds himself caught between his old friend Lewis and the two criminals who won't forget—or forgive.

Professional strike-breaker Al Furnell organizes a ruthless mob called "Goons Incorporated" to attack workers at the Crescent Manufacturing Company in 1942, using an elaborate alibi scheme involving a lookalike to cover his tracks. When a determined investigator threatens to expose him, Furnell resorts to murder—but his carefully constructed empire of violence begins to crumble as his own crew turns against him and his alibi collapses. Trapped by the very deception that once protected him, Furnell faces the consequences of building his fortune on brutality and blood.

When Jack Sweeney's father, a racketeer, is gunned down in 1926, the boy swears vengeance—but years of bad luck and desperation push him down a darker path instead of toward justice. After his mother's death, Jack drifts into the criminal underworld, eventually landing in Boston under an assumed name, where he rises through the ranks of a powerful crime organization. Now a skilled enforcer making his way up in the rackets, Jack finds himself caught between the violent life he's built and the ghost of the father he never got to avenge.