Due to the open-world nature of the game and the different choices the player can make, this Recap will be under the assumption that the player chooses to have all three underbosses alive, recruit all racket bosses (barring two that cannot be spared), and rule the city together. Do not take this as a strict order of events past "Recruiting Cassandra".
Prologue
In the year 2016, a documentary is produced about up-and-coming criminal Lincoln Clay and his systematic dismantling of the Marcano crime family in 1968. Jonathan Maguire, a former agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agrees to be interviewed for the documentary. He has followed Lincoln's trail even after he retired in 1999, and he has decked out a cellar in his house with photographs and case files. Also interviewed in the documentary is James Ballard, a retired priest who knew Lincoln Clay in his youth. He was Lincoln's mentor and spiritual advisor, and he often tried to steer the young man away from crime to make an honest life for himself.
Born in 1945 to a White father and a Black mother, Lincoln Clay's childhood was rough by all means. After his mother abandoned him in 1947, he stayed at an orphanage for much of his youth. When the orphanage closed in 1958, Lincoln was adopted by Sammy Robinson, the boss of the African-American mob that operated out of Delray Hollow, along with his wife Perla and their son Ellis. In 1966, Lincoln Clay joined the military and fought in Vietnam, where he struck up a close friendship with a CIA agent named John Donovan. Father James, himself a veteran of the Second World War, always believed that Lincoln had found his calling in the military and was never the same again after he was discharged.
Returning Home
The date is 20 February 1968, in the city of New Bordeaux, Louisiana. Lincoln Clay, freshly returned from his service in Vietnam, sits on a bench outside the train station. After chatting with an older veteran about war experiences, Lincoln's stepbrother Ellis Robinson pulls up to meet him in Lincoln's dearly-beloved muscle car, a black Samson Drifter. Both youngsters are absolutely overjoyed to see each other again, sharing a warm embrace and a cold beer. They decide to head back to Sammy's Bar in Delray Hollow, where Sammy is waiting to welcome Lincoln home.
As they drive to Sammy's bar, the two discuss what's been happening in New Bordeaux since Lincoln has been away. Ellis notes that he has been involved in selling marijuana thanks to two locals that have since moved to Empire Bay, who have now planned to move into heroin and let him in on it. Sammy refused to get involved in the heroin trade, so Ellis has been looking to get into the business himself. He has reached out to their friend Giorgi, who is the son of Salvatore "Sal" Marcano, the Don of the Marcano crime family. Lincoln figures Sal isn't going to agree to such a thing either, so Ellis plans to sell only in the French Ward, which is run by Giorgi's uncle Lou Marcano. That aside, Lincoln reminds Ellis that the heroin trade is a very serious business.
The two soon arrive at Sammy's bar, with Lincoln entering to find several locals there to welcome him home. Sammy himself stands at the counter, beaming with pride for his adopted son. He raises a toast to Lincoln and the celebration gets underway. When the party winds down, Lincoln decides to sleep off his weariness in the basement instead of his bedroom, to Ellis' amusement. Father James is also at the homecoming party, and for his part, he immediately understands Lincoln's feelings about coming back from wartime.
The Haitian Question
The date is 21 February 1968. Lincoln awakens from a nightmare and makes his way upstairs, where he finds Ellis and Sammy in an argument. Ellis is questioning Sammy's decision to buy a large amount of food to give to Delray Hollow locals at the Warm Hearts Neighborhood Kitchen when their finances are already being stretched thin, yet Sammy is not phased. Lincoln asks what the problem is but Sammy dismisses his concerns, though he does admit that he has been having problems with the local Haitian gang. Father James arrives to collect the donated food and asks Lincoln for his help in distributing it, which he agrees to.
On the way to the center, Lincoln tells Father James that he has plans to leave New Bordeaux and head out to California, as a fellow serviceman has offered to get him a job in the Mare Island shipyard, and he is only staying in town to give a proper goodbye to his family. Upon arriving at the kitchen, Lincoln begins handing out bowls of gumbo to some of the less fortunate in Delray Hollow, including his gal Raejeanne. He does not get to serve many, however, as soon after a car full of Haitian men arrives, and they begin attacking Lincoln. The well-trained soldier has no real issue in taking the men down, finding a bag of Vodou paraphernalia on one of the gangsters.
With this in hand, Lincoln returns to Sammy's bar and demands an explanation. Sammy reluctantly tells Lincoln that the Haitians have been not only been robbing the locals, but they have sabotaged the Black mob's crooked lottery racket, which in turn has left them three months behind on the kickback they owe to Sal Marcano. Lincoln decides to head down to the Haitians' base of operations and take out their man in charge, figuring the gang will be broken up with the death of their leader. Sammy directs Lincoln and Ellis to a shanty town out in Bayou Fantom, a remnant of the days when salt was mined in the bayou before the Great Depression. The Haitians have set up shop there, and they are led by a man by the name of Baka.
Lincoln and Ellis take a fanboat into the bayou in the dead of night. Lincoln instructs Ellis to take his car to the gate of the shanty town and be ready to go, while he will swim up to the town and make his way to Baka. Lincoln initially sneaks through the town and stealthily takes down the Haitian thugs nearby, but things eventually escalate into a large shootout. Nonetheless, Lincoln is able to make his way to the chapel, where he shoots Baka and finishes him off with by snapping his neck. As Baka hits the floor, a woman emerges from a crawlspace in the wall. She explains through her hysterics that Baka kept her prisoner as his sex slave, and beats on his dead body. As Lincoln tries to calm her down and says her abuse is over, she replies that it will never be over and runs off into the night.
As Lincoln tears back through the town to his Drifter, he and Ellis manage to flee the angered Haitians. On the drive back to Delray Hollow, Ellis wonders aloud what they'll do when Sammy inevitably passes, but Lincoln chooses to avoid the question. Returning back to Sammy's and reporting on their success, Sammy is at least for now satisfied to have the Haitians off their backs. Turning focus onto how to pay Sal back on their owed money, Sammy reports that Sal has actually asked to meet with Lincoln personally at the Retroussé Yacht Club, as he has arranged something that will settle things between him and the Black Mob.
A Pivotal Offer
The date is 22 February 1968. Lincoln drives out to the Retroussé Yacht Club to meet with Sal. Sal's influence over the city helps Lincoln get into the property a Black man like himself would never be able to enter without working there. He meets Giorgi at the front door and the two reminisce about the last time they saw each other before Lincoln shipped out. Giorgi directs Lincoln to table where his father is sitting with some associates. As two of them leave, Sal greets Lincoln and introduces him to Vito Scaletta, a former Empire Bay gangster who is now the head of operations in the district of River Row. Vito learns that Lincoln is also a veteran and the two of them bond over their services. With Vito's confidence in Sal's plan boosted, he leaves to take care of business.
When Vito is out of earshot, Sal gripes about having to work with the man he considers a carpetbagger. For the past 17 years, he has figured the Commission (the governing body of organized crime families in the US) only sent Vito down to New Bordeaux to spy on him, but Sal can't do anything to get rid of him because Vito is still a made man. But Sal puts all that to the side in order to tell Lincoln about his offer. He explains that the federal government is currently taking old currency out of circulation to destroy it, and this year, the shipments are being sent to the Federal Reserve in the city. The plan is that Lincoln and Giorgi will hijack one of the armored trucks, use it to infiltrate the reserve, and break into the vault where they will steal everything they can get their hands on. Giorgi adds that they will be recruiting Irish mobster Thomas Burke and his son Danny onto the job.
Sal then brings up a matter he has with Delray Hollow. While he is glad Lincoln has handled the Haitian gang, he mentions that Sammy won't be around forever, and even after the heist settles their debts, the Black Mob will still effectively be in a dead end. As such, he wants Lincoln to take over from Sammy when the time comes. However, even without his plans to leave for California, Lincoln has far too much respect for his adopted father to do such a thing to him, and declines the offer to take over. He does still agree to partake in the heist, and Sal promises that once the job is completed, Sammy Robinson's debts will be cleared.
Prep Work
Throughout the week, preparations are made for the job. Sammy's contacts in the Black mob provide the uniforms that Lincoln and Giorgi will use and a rough layout of the building, while Vito sources the combination to the vault and the physical currency needed for Lincon and Giorgi to take into the Reserve.
On 26 February, Lincoln visits the Burke family at their scrapyard in Pointe Verdun. Through his experience running moonshine during the Great Depression, Thomas locates a spot in the canals of the city that goes directly underneath the vault of the Federal Reserve, and he has provided a powerful hydraulic drill to break through and provide a hole for Lincoln and Giorgi to toss down the money. As Lincoln and the others get re-acquainted, Thomas walks in to further explain the job. While Lincoln and Giorgi are working to get into the vault, Danny and Ellis will take a boat and move the bulky drill into position and collect the money when it is tossed down.
With the details passed on, Lincoln and Giorgi leave to finish the last of the prep work.
The Heist
The date is 27 February 1968, and the Federal Reserve robbery is underway. At a small gator feeding shack in the Bayou Fantom, Lincoln and Giorgi gather the keys to the armored truck they have hijacked and make their way to the Federal Reserve. Upon arrival, the two are led to the furnace where the money is being destroyed, with Lincoln having to endure a racist guard's comments about him along the way. When the robbers are in position, Lincoln knocks out their escort, and takes out the other two guards on duty after Giorgi breaks through the gate dividing the furnace and the vault. Giorgi enters the acquired combination, and he and Lincoln enter the vault which is brimming with cash. Giorgi goes to unlock a gated room within the vault while Lincoln goes to collect money from the outer area, but as Lincoln brings in a cart, an alarm wired to the gate that Giorgi did not know of goes off and the guards are alerted.
Seeing as the drill hasn't punched through the floor yet, the duo take cover and have a shootout with the guards running in to investigate. Lincoln and Giorgi gather the dead guards' guns to defend themselves, and while they are able to hold off the first few men, they quickly realize they'll need stronger firepower to survive. To that end, Lincoln breaks into the armory and picks up a light machine gun. Properly armed, Lincoln gets into cover as the security use smoke bombs to try and give themselves an advantage. Still, the guards are nowhere near qualified to fight a trained soldier like Lincoln, who promptly mows them down without breaking a sweat.
When Danny and Ellis finally cut through the vault floor, Lincoln once again provides covering fire while Giorgi throws down the money. With enough fighting, Giorgi manages to chuck down a fortune. However, since leaving the same way they entered is not a viable option, Danny opts to use explosives on the vault floor to make the hole wide enough for Lincoln and Giorgi to jump down. The blast does get them down to the canals, albeit by actually sending the vault itself crashing down and the resulting rubble crushing Danny's leg.
The remaining robbers manage to free Danny's leg and jump into their boat as the police arrive in their own boats to give chase. Lincoln guns the motor and weaves between the pillars, eventually managing to jump the boat off a ramp. Unfortunately, Danny's leg is severely injured and Lincoln is forced to carry him over his shoulder. With some breathing room, the gang climbs up to street level in the French Ward. They hope that with the Mardi Gras festivities underway, the New Bordeaux Police Department will be too busy dealing with the revelers and they can slip away unnoticed.
They plan to call for a getaway car, so Lincoln finds a payphone and calls Sammy to arrange for it. Unfortunately, Sammy notes that the roads are closed off, so a car can't come to them. However, he can arrange for a car to be left at a nearby grocery store, but for now the quartet must stay on foot. As reports of the robbery and the abandoned boat being found come in, arriving policemen force Lincoln to pass the money and Danny over to Giorgi and Ellis, allowing them to reach the car while he fires a gun in the air to distract police attention from his fellows. Lincoln manages to sprint to the car and drives frantically to get the police off of him, Danny, and Ellis, with Giorgi having gone off his own way. After some chaos, they finally manage to break the chase. All in all, over $6 million is stolen in the Federal Reserve heist (which is a princely sum of money in 1968).
Back at Sammy's bar, Lincoln, Ellis, and Danny are celebrating while Sammy divides the shares of money, with the Black Mob's cut being around $2 million and Sammy adding his kickback to the Marcano family's cut. Sammy basks in the triumph, glad to finally be free and his own man. Giorgi eventually enters, bringing Sal with him to pick up their cut. Sal congratulates the crew on a job well done and brings in his associate Ritchie Doucet to collect his money. As everyone gets in a merry mood, Giorgi reminisces about what a friend Lincoln has been to him. With a heavy heart, however, he says Lincoln should not have declined Sal's offer to run Delray Hollow. Before Lincoln can react, Giorgi pulls his pistol and fires at Lincoln's head.
Through some sort of luck, the bullet deflects off of Lincoln's skull and exits through the back, leaving him alive. However, the gunshot still leaves him powerless to stop Danny being shot in the head by Giorgi, Ellis being stabbed to death by Doucet, and Sammy being shot dead by Sal as he desperately tries to crawl away. Sal and Giorgi gather all the money from the heist and set the bar alight to cover their tracks. Luckily for Lincoln, Father James passes by the bar and pulls Lincoln out. Before slipping into a coma, Lincoln asks James to call his friend John Donovan, a request that the pastor regrets following to this very day.
Changing Times
For the next several months, Father James and Donovan tend to Lincoln while he is in his coma. Lincoln awakens after some time, at which point the two help to physically recover. At the same time, Donovan takes to finding out everything he can about Sal Marcano and his operations in New Bordeaux. Eventually, Lincoln shares with James that he plans to not only kill Sal Marcano, but every valuable member of his mob. While James has no quarrel with wanting Sal dead, he implores Lincoln to leave it at that, but the veteran makes it clear he wants nothing more than to have Sal watch everything he has slip away just like he did. Before Lincoln leaves the church, James reflects that the criminal life is a one-way road that Lincoln might never come back from.
Lincoln and Donovan drive over to the remains of Sammy's bar to collect the gear he will need for his mission. He explains to Donovan that not only will he kill Sal and all the high-ranking members of his crime family, he plans to take over their entire operation as well. Donovan sees this as Lincoln blaming himself for Sammy and Ellis' deaths, but although he clarifies that Sal was always going to screw the Black mob over no matter what, he is still onboard with Lincoln's plan. Donovan warns his friend that the New Bordeaux Police Department are on the Marcano family's payroll, so they will be just as aggressive as his own gangsters.
Donovan drops Lincoln back at Sammy's while he returns to his motel to set up for Lincoln's mission. As Lincoln makes his way to the basement, he flashes back to the night of his family's murder in vivid detail. When he finally reaches his bed, he collects his trusty combat knife and shaves off the beard and longer hair he grew in his coma. Upon collecting a prized pocket watch that Sammy gave him as a good luck charm, Lincoln prepares to go to war with Sal Marcano.
Lincoln finds John Donovan at the Blue Gulf Motel, where he has rented a room and set up a tactical operations center made with equipment stolen from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He has prepared dossiers on the important people employed in the Marcano crime family, as well as a few disenfranchised gangsters that could potentially ally with Lincoln.
Lincoln decides his first priority will be to free Delray Hollow from whoever Sal has given it to, which Donovan learns is a neo-Confederate street gang known as the Dixie Mafia. Donovan says the gang has started trafficking heroin in the neighborhood, a decision that infuriates Lincoln. In order to gain assistance, Donovan says Lincoln should ally with the Haitian gang, who have managed to resurge after Baka's death. The current leader of the gang is unknown, and not even Donovan's research has been able to determine who they are. Lincoln decides he must find some members of the Haitian gang and interrogate them to find their boss.
The Way of Flesh
Lincoln waits outside of a warehouse the Haitians are known to use for their operations, managing to isolate one of them and threaten him. The man tells him their boss is headquartered in the Pierced Heart voodoo shop. With his info in hand, Lincoln breaks in and lies in wait in the shop's lounge until the Haitian leader walks in. To Lincoln's surprise, the leader of the Haitians is not only a woman, but the very same woman he saw in the wall when he killed Baka. Evidently, she has been really running the show the whole time, and being Baka's "sex slave" was all just an act.
The woman introduces herself as "Cassandra", and admits she's hesitant to work with Lincoln considering he wanted her dead recently. Lincoln counters that the Dixie Mafia will eventually reach her operations and kill her, so he is her best chance of getting the racist thugs off her back and out of Delray Hollow. Cassandra tells Lincoln that she and the Haitians originally went to war with Sammy because they saw him as weak for bowing down to Sal Marcano's demands, and that her condition to working with Lincoln is that once Delray Hollow is in her control, she runs it as she sees fit. With Lincoln agreeing, she tells him about the Dixie Mafia's leader, a monstrous bigot named Ritchie Doucet (the same man who killed Ellis Robinson at Sammy's Bar). He is rumoured to kidnap Black teenagers, starve them in the bayou, then release them to be chased by his dogs. Cassandra tears up as she recalls how Doucet murdered her sister once, and a locket with her picture is all she has left of her.
Doucet's men are running heroin out of the former community church, and he has also forced Black women into prostitution for White clients looking for "exotic" sex. Killing him isn't a simple task, as he tends to keep to the shadows, but if his rackets were to be disrupted, he would be forced out of hiding. To start, Lincoln decides to go after his prostitution racket. Cassandra directs him towards one of her contacts in order to gather information on it. As Lincoln leaves the shop, he takes note of an orange van waiting outside. Recognizing the driver as gun store owner Jackie DuVernay, he approaches and asks what he is doing. Jackie explains that the government felt an African-American man working with guns could only end in violence against White people, so they forced him to shut his store down. Since then, the Haitians have him employed as a mobile arms dealer, whose services Lincoln will likely need.
Cassandra's contact is revealed to be Charles Laveau, the former bartender of Sammy's Bar, who now hosts a revolutionary pirate radio show called The Hollow Speaks under the moniker "The Voice". Glad to see Lincoln alive and well, Laveau fills him in on the details of the Dixie Mafia's prostitution racket. The operation is run by a pimp named Merle Jackson, who has Black women at his beck and call to serve his White clients and their desires. Three women in particular, Theresa Mayeux, Deborah Rouquette, and Lucy Doussan, are kept locked up as his "thoroughbreds", and Merle keeps them in line by having them addicted to heroin. For a particularly disgusting kick, Jackson runs his operation out of Perla's theater, which is named after Sammy's late wife and Lincoln's stepmother.
Lincoln makes his way to Perla's (now unsportingly renamed "Doucet's") and meets the coat-check girl Sheila at the door. She informs Lincoln that the girls are kept upstairs, then leaves Lincoln to do his thing. Lincoln infiltrates the club and finds the girls, who are kept in private rooms behind the gallery seating area. Lincoln frees the girls from their torment and even ends the life of Merle's attendant "Doctor Horse", who provided the heroin that kept the women enslaved. On his way out, Lincoln returns to the Blue Gulf Motel, where John Donovan provides him with a walkie-talkie so that Lincoln can radio his allies for help.
Reporting back to Laveau, he is directed to Merle's top pimps, "Rooster" Desaulniers and "Dirty" Gert Delong, who have now been sent out to collect more money to make up for the loss of the thoroughbreds. Figuring their deaths will best draw Merle out of hiding, Lincoln finds Desaulniers overseeing a cheap sex shack, and Delong pimping out his women at the Carousel Hotel; both of them are slain by his hand. With the racket bleeding money, Lincoln meets again with Laveau, who confirms that Merle is at Doucet's and hopping mad. Lincoln returns to the theater as Merle rants and raves in his office over the loss of Doctor Horse and his top women. Lincoln works his way through the Dixie footsoldiers guarding the place and reaches Merle himself. He ends the worthless pimp's life with a well-placed (and well-deserved) stab in the neck, calling in Cassandra's gangsters to secure the building. The Perla Robinson Memorial Theater is restored to its former name and newfound glory.
Shifting his focus to the heroin racket, Lincoln meets Donovan at a bus stop across the street from the First Baptist Church. Donovan explains that the operation is run by a man named Charlie Kincaid, or "Four-Finger" as he's more commonly known. Like Merle, Charlie keeps a distance from the racket directly, and his operation will need to lose serious money to flush him out. However, unlike the rest of the Dixie Mafia, Charlie doesn't believe in the cause of white supremacy and only runs his operation as a way of making money for his family. As such, Lincoln figures he may be able to recruit Charlie over to his side with the right persuasion. Donovan provides Lincoln a way of gathering information needed to flip Charlie by demonstrating how to tap into the city's communication grid through the junction boxes. Just then, he becomes incensed when he catches a glimpse of a nearby poster promoting the virtues of communism, asking Lincoln to destroy more like them should he come across them.
Lincoln first finds one of Charlie's pushers and interrogates him over how the heroin racket operates, learning of a large batch of heroin being held at the Church. Lincoln then infiltrates the abandoned church, and after working his way through the men guarding it, he destroys the batches of heroin within the processing area. Putting the squeeze onto other pushers, Lincoln learns of Charlie's main dealers, Doug "Hatchet" Marcheti and Deacon Caruso. After both of them are neutralized, Lincoln returns to Donovan to confirm Charlie has come to the church.
Donovan also has learned that Charlie's wife is expecting a boy, giving Charlie even more reason to work with Lincoln should he spare the dealer's life. With this information in hand, Lincoln returns to the First Baptist Church and fights through Charlie's men. When Lincoln reaches Kincaid himself, he offers the chance to work for him. Charlie readily agrees, and Lincoln calls Cassandra's men to secure the church. The Haitians decide to move away from heroin and instead run marijuana through the church. With both rackets secure, Cassandra introduces Lincoln to Clifton Jean-Baptiste, a gunsmith that can tinker with Lincoln's weapons to make them more effective.
Pray on the Way Up
Lincoln returns to the Pierced Heart to find Cassandra with a tied-up Dixie gangster known as Jesse. Jesse desperately claims he has no issues with the Haitians, but Lincoln only cares about where to find Ritchie. The terrified gangster reveals that Ritchie and the rest of the Dixie Mafia have holed up in Baron Saturday's Fun Park, an amusement park in Delray Hollow that was condemned for its offensive stereotyping of Black culture and has long since been abandoned. Giorgi is infuriated that the Dixie Mafia has lost control of Delray Hollow, so Ritchie has taken what still remains of his heroin and is hiding there until he can make things right with Giorgi. Satisfied with Jesse's answer, Lincoln lets the blubbering gangster loose and makes his way to the park.
As Lincoln enters the park, he begins silently stalking the gangsters as he moves further inwards. Soon, a large gunfight breaks out between him and the rest of the Dixie Mafia as he charges through the abandoned rides. Lincoln's fight eventually takes him through the remains of the park's dark ride, and at the end, he finds Doucet ready to make a last stand. Try as Doucet might, he finds himself no match for Lincoln, who promptly injures him and drags him outside towards the Ferris wheel.
Once Doucet finally realizes who Lincoln is, he desperately tries to pass the buck for the Robinson family's deaths onto Sal and Giorgi, but Lincoln has personally seen him stab Ellis to death and he is having none of Doucet's excuses. He ties a rope around Doucet's neck and the other end to one of the wheel's passenger gondolas. Ritchie realizes there's no hope of getting out of this, so he desperately begs Lincoln to let him get in a prayer before he meets his end. Lincoln coldly replies that he can pray just as well on the way up. He activates the Ferris wheel and walks off as Ritchie is left to be hanged.
The sight of Ritchie's body placed in such a way becomes a sight that Jonathan Maguire has never forgotten. He iterates that this trademark of Lincoln's murders came from his psychological warfare training in the CIA. By putting his victims on display for all to see, Lincoln aimed to send the message that he was coming for the Marcano family and they could do nothing to stop him.
Are We Cool?
Lincoln returns to the Pierced Heart to tell Cassandra that Ritchie is now dead and Delray Hollow is hers to rule. Cassandra is happy with the news, but she tells Lincoln that her men are not adjusting well to the idea of taking orders from a man who killed so many of their brothers. To mend the relationship, she advises Lincoln to go to the First Baptist Church and help her lieutenant Emmanuel Lazare with the weed operation.
Lincoln finds Emmanuel working on a boat in the church's boathouse. Emmanuel lays out the basics of the operation to him; take a boat out to the bayou, collect the crates when they are dropped from a plane, then bring it to wherever they need it, which is much the same as what he did back in Haiti. He clarifies to Lincoln that he was originally a houngan (a Vodou priest) who took it upon himself to smuggle people out of Haiti and get them away from its president and dictator, François "Papa Doc" Duvalier
. Lincoln begins taking boats out of the hands of Dixie Mafia gangsters scattered in the bayou and delivering the weed to Cassandra's rackets.
In talking with Emmanuel, he learns that Emmanuel's family were viciously murdered by Duvalier's secret police, the Tonton Macoute, a fact that stings him to this day. Eventually, Lincoln manages to collect enough marijuana and bonds with Emmanuel over their shared experience of saving people in warzones, establishing a tentative camaraderie. The additional money brought into the Haitian gang also gives Lincoln access to the services of Jennifer Moran (or "Clicks" as she is more well known), a telephone operator who can use her position to cut enemy communications should Lincoln need it.
Having gotten Delray Hollow under his control and helped the Haitian gang, Lincoln returns to Donovan at his motel. He requests the information Donovan managed to dig up on other gangsters who could aid him in his fight against Sal. To that end, John points him in the directions of two others that Lincoln could recruit.
His first candidate is Thomas Burke, who owns Burke's Iron and Metal in Pointe Verdun and answers to Roman Barbieri, better known and feared as "The Butcher". Burke and Barbieri already have bad blood between them, as the latter broke one of the former's legs on Sal's orders for losing a shipment of stolen auto parts and was then given control of Burke's territory of Pointe Verdun. In fact, Burke helped with the Reserve heist and brought Danny along in hopes that this would redeem him in Sal's eyes and allow Pointe Verdun to be returned to him, which of course did not happen.
Burke has been in a downward spiral ever since Danny's death. This culminates in a very embarrassing incident weeks ago where Burke stumbled into Barbieri's deli, blind drunk and waving a gun around. Although he fired multiple rounds, he managed to miss anyone human, which led to Roman's men beating Burke down and throwing him in a dumpster.
The Blade Stained Red
Tracking Burke to a favorite dive bar of his, Lincoln makes his offer, but having lost Danny the last time he worked with Lincoln and wanting to be the one to kill Sal, the Irishman rebukes him, believing Lincoln doesn't have the guts for something this intense. As Burke gets into his car to drive off, Lincoln forces himself into the driver's seat, intent on proving Burke wrong about his bravery by driving erratically. When Burke is suitably impressed, he requests Lincoln meet him at his scrapyard to further discuss the offer.
When Lincoln does arrive, he divulges how the Butcher has two major rackets in Pointe Verdun; a moonshining operation run out of the Sweetwater Distillery, and a protection racket operating from the Roberdeau Slaughterhouse. If Lincoln were to take those businesses down, Barbieri will have to deal with him, and Burke will join Lincoln if he gets to kill Roman slowly and painfully. As a welcoming offer, Burke introduces Lincoln to a man in his employ, professional car thief Hank "Motors" McGahee, who will bring any vehicle Lincoln owns to him day or night.
As Lincoln leaves to get started on the moonshine racket, he is told to speak to Burke's daughter Nicole (or "Nicki", depending on how friendly you are with her). She clarifies that the racket operates under "Brooklyn" Carl Bevers, who sells his moonshine to local businesses through the distillery and brews it out in the swamps. She knows of a map he keeps on site for his drivers to reach the stills should they need to, so stealing it and destroying them will deal a lethal blow to the business. Nonetheless, Nicki believes Bevers' extensive knowledge of the bayou will be a critical asset to her operation, so she urges Lincoln to keep him alive.
Lincoln does just that, finding the map and blowing the stills up. Along the way, he blows up several distillery trucks carrying the illegal booze, kills Bevers' enforcers Dean Barbaro and Caesar De Angelis, and steals a stash of cash from a bar friendly with the distillery and frequented by officers of the NBPD. When Bevers returns to the distillery to try and fix the damage Lincoln has caused, Lincoln comes back and recruits him and his moonshining expertise into his ragtag mob.
To work the Butcher's other major racket, Lincoln meets one of Burke's men, Bear Donnelly, in an Irish pub. Bear fills him in on the protection racket being run by Sonny Blue, a vicious man who dabbles in both protection and loan sharking. In addition to telling him of Blue's top enforcers Tito Leone and Fede "Hats" Iocca, a series of crews that fan out to lay a beating on people unfortunate enough to fall into debt, and informants who know of liquor stores under Blue's protection, Bear notes that one of Sonny's loan sharks named Ralph McNairy has recently been caught skimming from the profits and is being worked over in the slaughterhouse so the stolen money can be tracked down.
Lincoln sneaks into the slaughterhouse and frees the thief, letting him and the stolen cash vanish. When Sonny returns to the slaughterhouse to scare his men into getting back in gear, Lincoln infiltrates it and recruits Blue onto his side. With the money now brought in for the Irish Mob, Burke introduces Lincoln to his inside woman in the NBPD, dispatcher Fiona Davidson, who is able to bribe commanding officers into getting their men to ignore Lincoln's crimes and call off any pursuits of him they may get into.
Brave New World
Lincoln returns to Burke's Iron and Metal to find Burke moving red barrels around, which he says is in preparation for Barbieri's arrival. He explains that he called Roman personally and told him he'd be at the scrapyard if he wanted to settle things man to man, much to Lincoln's chagrin. Nicki pulls up in her car, confirming that Barbieri's men are close behind. With no other option but to go through with Burke's ambush, Nicki goes to the water tower to shine the spotlight on the arriving gangster, Burke himself climbs the crane to use it as a sniper's perch, and Lincoln climbs onto the roof.
The battle soon begins as the Butcher's men arrive in force. Burke has placed a gasoline mixture in the red barrels which can be made to explode, and Lincoln makes good use of shooting the barrels to incinerate Barbieri's men as they leave their cars. The trio make a good effort in fighting Barbieri's gangsters until an armored Pinkerton truck arrives. Out of the back comes more armed men and Roman Barbieri himself, wanting Burke alive to personally work him over. The Butcher puts up a strong fight alongside his gunmen, but they still fall under Lincoln's skill. As Roman lies bleeding on the ground, Lincoln and Burke approach him. Barbieri shows no fear and swears that Burke will die alongside him for this, but Lincoln merely takes his assault rifle and slams it into his head, knocking him out cold.
Agent Maguire states that little has been ascertained about what exactly Burke did to Roman after that. In fact, Barbieri's death was only formally confirmed in the mid-1980's, when his corpse was found in the trunk of an old car that had been dredged from the Mississippi River. What was discovered of his waterlogged corpse is that his legs were so violently broken in many places that barely any bone remained.
The Righteously Screwed
Lincoln drives down to the Sweetwater Distillery and finds Burke drinking some moonshine on a break from torturing Barbieri. Burke admits that he was wrong about Lincoln and even begins addressing him by his proper name. Now that he is onboard with Lincoln's cause, he requests Lincoln to speak to Nicki about the moonshine runs she is in charge of, as she is having trouble managing it on her own. As he leaves, Burke makes an odd comment about her hunting quail, which confuses Lincoln as it isn't currently quail hunting season.
Lincoln meets with Nicki, who tells him she needs him to retrieve trucks of moonshine from the bayou and return it to their businesses. Before Lincoln makes his run, the two get to talking over their losses, with Nicki asking if Danny suffered during the Black Mob's betrayal and then declaring that she has grown to hate New Bordeaux. As Lincoln liberates trucks of moonshine from the Dixie Mafia, he and Nicki talk more about the expectations that the world keeps having for them.
After Lincoln collects enough moonshine, he and Nicki get into a conversation about how difficult Burke can be, which prompts Nicki to reveal that she has been dating a woman by the name of Darlene. Burke has not been taking the news well, and without Danny to stand by her side, she feels she doesn't have much reason to stay near her father. Lincoln is more supportive of her choice, and tells her it's good to have someone she can connect with, no matter what society may say.
As Lincoln collects shipments, Nicki directs him to a series of races Danny set up for his own moonshine runs as a way of making them more exciting. The added money also brings in one of Burke's men known as Terry Daly or "The Bishop", a bombmaker formerly tied to the Irish Republican Army who now provides the Irish Mob with his explosive expertise. Daly provides explosives Lincoln can buy from Jackie DuVernay's van, and rigs up a harness for him to carry more of such explosives without reducing himself to ash.
Donovan's second candidate is Vito Scaletta. As Lincoln learned at the yacht club, Sal passionately hates Vito, but has been held back from killing him by the Commission due to Vito being a made man. However, Sal is now attempting to work around this by limiting how much money Vito can make in River Row. If Vito can't pay his dues to Sal, the Commission will then give him the permission needed to put Vito down. While Vito has been managing to hang on via a couple of unofficial rackets, it can't last for long, and Lincoln figures helping Vito will best get him on his side.
Work the Man Who Bleeds
Lincoln drives out to Benny's Ristorante, a seafood restaurant that Vito uses as a base of operations, only to find Marcano henchmen around the area intent on holding Vito captive until their boss arrives to kill Vito. Lincoln makes quick work of the gangsters and frees Vito from the restaurant's freezer. As the two head to Vito's office, the latter explains that after Vito heard of Sal betraying the Black Mob, he figured Sal had no intention of handing over his cut of the score. Without enough funds to flee New Bordeaux, he was forced to stay and try his damndest to make Sal work for the privilege of killing him.
In the meantime, Sal placed a guy named Michael Grecco (his nephew-by-marriage) in charge of the rackets in River Row, and Grecco had backed Vito into a corner. Lincoln gives Vito an offer to work for him and regain control of River Row. Vito accepts on one condition: that he will personally kill Michael. To start Lincoln in the right direction, he gives the scoop on the main rackets in town, smuggling in contraband from Cuba and extorting the local dockworker's union. As a welcome into Vito's services, Vito introduces Lincoln to his consigliere Betty Johnson, who will take any money Lincoln has on hand and store it for safekeeping.
Beginning with the dock union, Lincoln meets with a worker known as Jock Blanchard. Jock wants his fellow workers to get back on their jobs, but racket boss Andy Turetto is getting in the way of that. Turetto has been upping his demand for the union workers to pay more dues, and to put the ball in his court, has been holding the work permits for union jobs hostage in various trailers, which keeps the men from working.
Lincoln decides his best chance of damaging the racket is to find these trailers and rig them to blow, incinerating the work permits and keeping the mob unable to know who owes what. After destroying the permits, Lincoln follows the bagmen that collect union dues to their stash house to rob it and kills Turetto's top enforcers "Stitch" Gallo and Roberto "Bubs" Albano. When the damage draws Andy out, Lincoln confronts him at Rigolet's Canning Company and flips him to put the working men under Lincoln's control.
To learn about the contraband racket, Lincoln meets with an informant of Vito's by the name of Connie Demarco. Connie makes it clear that Roy Thibideaux, the boss of the operation, is a gangster long past his prime and aware that Michael is waiting for the first excuse to kill him. As such, he has a desperate grip on an operation to smuggle in items from Cuba. He also has a deal going to sell a large shipment of medicine to the Cubans, but has no idea where it is. Lincoln finds the answer through one of Roy's informants, who shows it to be at Skidway's Durables.
Lincoln infiltrates the building and steal the truck full of medicine, putting it to much better use by delivering it to Father James for him to distribute. Along the way, Lincoln robs a warehouse full of the racket's stash money and bumps off "Fab" Fabio Fulci and Nestor Pellegrini to get rid of Roy's enforcement. As soon as Lincoln hears Roy trying to salvage the operation, he returns to Skidaway's and convinces Roy to work for him in exchange for his life. As the second racket increases Vito's budget, he introduces Lincoln to one of his best enforcers known as Bobby Navarro (or "Ducks", as he's much more well-known for his knack of dodging bullets). If Lincoln should need backup, Bobby and a hit squad of his buddies will come to his aid.
Fish Gotta Eat
With Michael failing to make his dues to Sal, the time has come for Vito and Lincoln to collect him. Vito has tracked him to a small-time whorehouse ready to kidnap him. But as he and Lincoln begin to make their move, cars full of Sal's thugs arrive intent on putting Michael down. Michael climbs through a window and makes his escape in a car, which to Lincoln's dismay is his own Drifter. Lincoln hops into the driver's seat of Vito's car to chase Michael while Vito provides covering fire from Sal's hitmen.
After an excruciating chase, Lincoln manages to catch up to Michael and disable the car, forcing Michael to exit the vehicle. As Michael desperately tries to crawl away, Lincoln walks up and knock him unconscious. Stuffing him into the trunk, Lincoln floors it to escape the cops that have been drawn to the shootout. Once they're eluded, the two mobsters return to Benny's with Michael in tow.
The two gangsters drag Michael into the fish processing shed behind Vito's office, where Vito interrogates him on why Sal wanted Vito dead. Michael tells a pathetic lie about Sal's hatred of Vito as a Northerner being the motive, but Vito sees right through it. After one more act of painful interrogation, Michael admits that Sal has been building a casino in the northernmost part of the city in order to go straight, and was worried Vito would warn the Commission of it.
When Vito points out that gambling is illegal in New Bordeaux, Michael informs him that Sal is spending a hefty sum of money on politicians to get it legalized, but he truly does not know who Sal is specifically working. Satisfied with Michael's answer, Vito knocks him out with a pipe and prepares to feed him into one of the machines. As Lincoln leaves, Vito tells him he should speak with his lieutenant Alma Diaz at the contraband warehouse. Lincoln leaves Michael to his fate, and after some repairs, is reunited with his Drifter.
In the Marcano home, Giorgi is staring at a model of the upcoming Paradiso Casino and Resort, questioning his father on why he is building a casino when there are far more profitable ventures he could get into. Sal drills into his son that the point of the casino venture is not to make money, but to allow the Marcano family to leave organized crime for good. The criminal life has been wearing Sal to the bone for years, especially following the murder of his brother Lucio. The fear that this business will result in Giorgi's death has been the straw breaking Sal's back, and he wants Giorgi to end up running the casino to spare him that fate. As Sal rants on how the growing Civil Rights Movement is changing the world as he knows it, he receives a phone call from his older brother Lou. When the call ends, Sal tells a shocked Giorgi that it's been confirmed that Lincoln is still alive.
Seems Simple Enough
Lincoln enters the Skidaway Durables warehouse and finds Alma. Alma tells Lincoln that Vito is ordering double the smuggling runs, at the risk of attracting the Coast Guard's attention. Alma says she can handle such a matter, but the effort of that leaves her stretched thin and needing someone else to manage the effort of keeping their warehouses stocked with product. This will require Lincoln to head to the bayou and steal semi-trucks of product from the Dixie Mafia. As Lincoln leaves for his first run, Alma tells him that this takeover has brought Vito back to being the man she met him as, and she is thankful for that. However, she still has her doubts about Lincoln, wondering if he's just using Vito to take Sal down then dispose of him when he's served his purpose. Lincoln denies this, but Alma is hesitant to fully believe him.
As Lincoln brings in trucks, he finds Alma muttering to herself in anger. She explains that her grandmother back in Cuba has written to wish Alma's mother a happy birthday, despite the fact that said mother was taken away by Fidel Castro's soldiers in front of them both. When Lincoln returns with another shipment, he finds Alma listening to a record and clearly upset. The record was sent to her by her grandmother, and the song she is listening to was playing on the night the Cuban police came to take her parents.
Her father, a government clerk, was collateral damage when a drinking buddy of his known as Mr. Roberts stirred up discourse and put himself in Fidel's crosshairs. Roberts himself escaped Cuba, but Alma's father was shot dead and her mother taken away. Alma and her grandmother were only spared because they did not seem to be a threat. Alma has heard whispers of her mother still being alive, but doesn't know anything for sure. She hopes one day to sneak back into Cuba to learn the truth, but for now, she and Vito have a job to do.
As a bonus to increasing Vito's earn, Vito introduces Lincoln to a mob doctor named Gianni Bruno, otherwise known to his patients as "Doc Needles". Bruno was once an accomplished army doctor who has taken to private practice after receiving little recognition for his talents by the government. He introduces Lincoln to several treatments that increase his health and stamina.
With all his tentative alliances made, Lincoln summons his new underbosses to meet at Eaglehurst Plantation, an abandoned plantation house deep in Bayou Fantom. The underbosses arrive before him and trouble begins to brew. By the time Lincoln gets there, his underbosses are deep in argument over their past grievances. Lincoln quickly cuts through their nonsense and reminds them of all the things he's done for them lately. He warns that if any of them really can't work together, anyone who leaves will be considered an enemy just like the Marcano family.
With the group calmed down, Lincoln informs them of his strategy of taking down the lowest-ranking members of the Marcano family and working their way up the ranks. Burke suggests that they should just roll up on Sal Marcano's house and shoot him, but Cassandra retorts that it's not like everyone else will just throw up their hands and die. Lincoln adds that Sal's death alone won't let them reach their goal overall, and instead, he will take down the lieutenants of Marcano's family before moving onto the caporegimes. When both of those groups are gone, Sal will have nothing and no-one to fall back on, leaving him vulnerable for Lincoln. When Vito asks what will happen to the territories these gangsters control once the bosses are dead, Lincoln explains that he will divide them amongst the three of them and let them handle the rackets within.
Lincoln ends his speech by informing the group of Marcano's casino, explaining that he will be going after whatever he can that's involved with it since everything Sal has is tied into it. Once the underbosses have been dismissed, Lincoln meets with Donovan, who was listening in on the meeting from within his mobile operations center in the back of a catering van. Lincoln confirms that the trio are now on board with his plan of taking Sal down. Donovan warns Lincoln that if one of the underbosses gets too fixated on the power of running Lincoln's new mob, he'll have to put them down. He leaves to gather intel on the Marcano lieutenants.
Fighting the Marcano Lieutenants
Donovan and Lincoln meet in the working-class district of Barclay Hills, which is run by an elderly mobster named Enzo Conti. Conti has been with the Marcano mob for decades with his hooks in the city's waste management and primarily controls the railways. The trains are in fact how Sal is getting construction materials into New Bordeaux for his casino. Lincoln realizes that with Marcano's status as a felon, he would need a legitimate partner to acquire said materials.
Donovan is well aware of this, but his search for said partner is hitting a brick wall; if the two want to find this partner, they'll need Enzo himself to tell them. Fortunately, Enzo feels Sal is putting a knife in all of his associates' backs by building his casino, so Lincoln plans to strike Enzo's rackets to goad him into telling them. Enzo is an old friend of Sammy Robinson, so Lincoln plans to spare him from his rampage and help him retire.
The Dead Stay Gone
Lincoln meets with Connie Demarco once again to hear of Enzo's hold over the trains. Connie explains that Enzo entrusts this to his man Pete Santini, who runs a protection racket of sorts for anyone who wants to move anything by train. But this is small potatoes in comparison to Pete's main business: using the rails to bring in and sell illegal firearms. Lincoln infiltrates the Barclay Train Yard, swiping a map Pete has made of his ongoing arms deals. This lets Lincoln destroy military-grade weapons and high-grade explosives by blowing them sky high. Lincoln also finds the stash of money Santini makes off his guns by questioning Pete's train robbers. Pete returns to the train yard trying to figure out his next move, where Lincoln finds him and puts his trainyard expertise to use by recruiting him.
A Little Late for That
Hot Rubber and Cold Blood
The Connection to Cuba
Lincoln and Donovan meet in Downtown New Bordeaux, planning to go after the Marcano family's account books. The books are kept with Tony Derazio, an astute yet ruthless man who is employed as the Marcano family's accountant. He never leaves his penthouse on the top floor of the Royal Hotel.
Compromised Corruption
Everyone Will Notice
The Deaths of the Marcano Capos
The Privileged Die Slow
There's a War Goin' On
Certainly Was Exciting
The Fists and the Flames
Jesuit in New Mexico
Burn Like Napalm
Evil That Men Do
The Poor Sumbitch
Real Nice Time
Finishing the Marcano Family
After Lincoln has taken down all of Marcano's capos, he summons his underbosses for the final sitdown. The last district is placed under his control, and all three underbosses are left in complete shock that they are still alive. Through careful management, Lincoln Clay has ensured that all of his allies are alive and ready to stand with him, and they are all the more grateful for it.
With every racket and district in New Bordeaux now in Lincoln's control, the only step left is to finish Sal once and for all. Lincoln pays a visit to Donovan's motel room, where he is spreading gasoline to destroy the evidence of his tactical center. John plays the last recording of Sal he has, where the Don is lamenting the loss of his final capo to Giorgi. He now has no options left for maintaining the casino, and heading out to hunt Lincoln himself is not an option, as every two-bit thug in New Bordeaux can see Sal has no power, leaving them itching for their chance to take him down. With little else to do, Sal orders Giorgi to gather everyone who will still listen to his orders and head to the Paradiso casino, where they will wait for Lincoln and try their damndest to take him down with them.
Epilogue
If Lincoln decides to rule New Bordeaux with his underbosses:
Ultimately, Lincoln decides to take control of New Bordeaux, once again summoning his underbosses to the Eaglehurst Plantation.
If Lincoln decides to leave New Bordeaux behind:
Ultimately, Lincoln decides his best fate is to leave New Bordeaux as he had originally planned, driving out of the city limits and never looking back. He makes his way to California and accepts the job at the shipyard he was initially going to take, while under a different name of course. Agent Maguire later tracks him to the shipyard, but Lincoln has disappeared by the time he and his fellow agents arrive. The FBI later de-prioritize Lincoln's case, but Agent Maguire keeps his investigation going well after his own retirement from the Bureau.
Father James never sees Lincoln again, but regularly receives postcards from him to this day from across the globe, from places far as Brazil or Vietnam. Though it is bittersweet, James is still relieved that Lincoln has managed to find something that at least resembles peace. Meanwhile, Maguire swears that one day Lincoln will be tired of hiding or make a wrong move, and Maguire will be right there waiting for him.
In Lincoln's stead, one of his three underbosses takes the helm as head of the Clay Mob.
- Cassandra tries to prove herself.
- Burke gets a liver transplant.
- Vito finishes the casino. He lives to be the ripe old age of 91.
If Lincoln decides to rule New Bordeaux alone:
Ultimately, Lincoln decides to take control of New Bordeaux, once again summoning his underbosses to the Eaglehurst Plantation. With all of them gathered, Lincoln decides he would much rather take the city for himself. As such, he brandishes his pistol and shoots his underbosses dead. As he gets in his car to leave, he hears a sort of whirring noise right before the car explodes, incinerating him in seconds.
The documentary ends in a final interview with Father James. When James learned that Lincoln not only chose to stay in New Bordeaux, but killed his underbosses to hoard all his power, the pastor realized that Lincoln had grown just as wicked as Sal was. He decided he would not stand for it, so he wired a bomb to Lincoln's ignition starter. James admits that of all the terrible things in his past that he has done and come to regret, the murder of Lincoln Clay is one for which he has no remorse.
Agent Maguire, for his part, figures a car bomb to be too simple and clean an end to Lincoln, and has his suspicions on Father James' role in it. He relates that even today, he sometimes hears noises in his house that sound like footsteps in combat boots. Though he rationalizes that it's probably just his old house settling, he can't help but wonder if the noises actually belong to Lincoln's restless spirit, coming to end the retired agent's life.
Testimony of John Donovan
The date is 25 August 1971. John Donovan is brought before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, headed by Senator Richard Blake, to testify about his role in Lincoln's takeover of New Bordeaux.
Favors to the Underbosses
Other Adventures in New Bordeaux
