To hell with them, Sicilians. It was just an offhand comment, a remark that was usually delivered with a smirk.

Dino Banyan and his Northsiders were quick to say it. They didn't care.

The Southside mob run by John Torrio and Al Capone, they were tolerated. They weren't pals. They were

business associates. And if it wasn't for the money they made for O'Banian and his crew, they'd have

nothing to do with him at all.

So to hell with them, Sicilians became a remark that often passed between them with a laugh.

Other people, though, didn't find it so funny.

To a Sicilian, it was a deadly insult, a quip that would eventually mark a man for death.

And that man, of course, was O'Banion himself.

And as brash and confident as he was, he never saw it coming.

For three years, O'Banion had remained in the good graces of Torio and Capone. In fact, after the death of Frank Capone, he made a lot of dough from that uneasy friendship. Capone had not forgotten

the extravagance with which O'Banian had prepared the arrangements for his brother's funeral,

and he maintained a grudging fondness for the Northside gangster that likely kept the man alive

even longer than most expected him to be. O'Banion's business flourished, not just flowers, but

bootlegging, netting him almost a million bucks a year. He supplemented his income with daring hijackings,

which captured high-quality whiskey.

On one occasion, his guys raided a warehouse that contained almost 2,000 barrels of liquor,

which he replaced with water as a joke.

Despite all this, he wasn't happy.

Officially, he was allied with Torio and Capone,

which offered him protection from rival bootleggers and numerous freelancers

that lurked around Chicago.

...