The bottle struck the wall hard enough to explode.
Glass burst across the office in glittering shards, liquor splashing over dark wood panels and expensive carpeting as the sharp smell of alcohol flooded the room. The man standing near the door flinched instinctively, shoulders tightening as fragments skittered across the floor near his shoes.
Kane barely noticed.
"What the fuck do you mean one of my mercenary teams disappeared!" he roared, voice echoing through the office with enough force to make the windows tremble slightly.
The unfortunate messenger opened his mouth, then immediately shut it again as Kane spun away from the ruined wall, both hands gripping the edge of his desk hard enough for the wood to creak.
"And then," Kane continued, his voice lowering in a way that somehow made it worse, "you come in here and tell me that Two-Face executed Clemmons?"
His breathing was uneven now, anger bleeding through every word.
"In broad daylight," he snapped. "A known well respected attorney. One of ours. Shot dead in his own office." Kane dragged a hand harshly through his hair, pacing now. "Then they leave a fucking owl head on the desk."
The messenger swallowed hard.
"How," Kane demanded, turning sharply toward him, "did he know Clemmons was in the Court?"
"I-I don't know, sir."
Kane laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
"You don't know," he repeated quietly.
That quiet lasted only a second before he slammed a fist down onto the desk, sending papers scattering.
"Of course you don't!" he shouted.
The messenger physically recoiled.
Kane turned away again, pacing hard across the office as thoughts collided behind his eyes faster than he could organize them. Mercenary teams missing. The gangs refusing to ignite properly. Talons being destroyed. Meeting rooms compromised.
Now this, a public execution. Not just a murder he could live with a murder but the owl head sent a message. People will say if two face can do it why can't I?
Someone was pulling at the foundations carefully enough that the entire structure hadn't collapsed yet—but Kane could feel it shifting beneath him.
"That bitch Maria is going to have a field day with this," he hissed.
The messenger wisely stayed silent.
Kane stopped pacing.
Slowly, deliberately, he looked toward the darkened windows overlooking Gotham.
"She needs to be dealt with," he said at last, voice cold now instead of furious. "Before the next meeting."
The man near the door hesitated carefully. "Sir… are you suggesting—"
"I'm suggesting," Kane interrupted sharply, "that every time something goes wrong lately, she somehow ends up positioned against me perfectly."
He turned slightly, jaw tight.
"She questions the rat narrative. Questions my decisions. Questions my authority in front of the others." His eyes narrowed. "And now Clemmons dies publicly after our operations start unraveling?"
The implication hung heavy in the room.
Whether Kane truly believed it or simply needed someone to blame no longer mattered.
Because once he started thinking this way Paranoia became strategy.
***
The television mounted along the far wall replayed the footage on a loop.
Police lights. Crowds held behind barricades. Reporters speaking with barely concealed excitement as images of Clemmons' office flashed across the screen. The shattered glass. The blood. And most importantly—The owl head left behind.
Nolan sat in silence for several moments after reading the full report on his tablet. Dre stood nearby with his arms crossed, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and admiration.
"For the record," Nolan finally said, a dry grin pulling faintly at his mouth, "I was right."
Dre barked out a short laugh through his nose. "Guess you were, boss." He shook his head once, still staring toward the screen. "Coin eventually flips the way Harvey wants."
The grin on Nolan's face widened slightly at that.
"Surely we can capitalize off this somehow," Dre continued. "Court's gotta be losing their minds right now."
"We will," Nolan replied calmly. "Just not as directly as you'd imagine."
He set the tablet down and leaned back in his chair, eyes drifting toward the news coverage again.
"The Court is angry," he continued. "And honestly? Understandably so. Someone publicly executed one of their members and marked the scene like a declaration of war."
Dre nodded immediately. "So we hit them harder," he said confidently. "Start peeling off more associates while they're unstable."
Nolan shook his head before he even finished speaking, "No."
Dre frowned.
"We send the lists," Nolan said instead.
"The lists?"
"To the gangs."
Dre blinked once, then slowly exhaled. "Ah."
Nolan folded his hands together loosely. "Remember," he said, "we're working with Batman now. We can't just start executing Court members. That would be unjust."
The way he said it made Dre's eye twitch slightly.
"So instead," Nolan continued smoothly, "we let the gangs know who's connected, the list of names we have will be sufficient."
"And then?"
"And then," Nolan replied, "Batman and us will attack the base locations we have gathered directly. Shut them down. Tie up whoever we find and leave them for the police."
Dre stared at him for a second.
"That feels," he said carefully, "like cheating."
Nolan laughed quietly. "It absolutely is."
"But won't Batman be pissed anyway?" Dre asked. "We're still feeding sharks. If the gangs get those names, some Court people are going to die. He could say we broke the agreement."
Nolan considered that for a moment.
"We needed to stop the gang war the court was trying to start." he said finally. "Giving them the list was the cleanest way to redirect things quickly. If we didn't, more people would've died in the streets."
He shrugged lightly.
"Shame, really."
Dre stared at him with visible exhaustion now. "This is too complicated for me."
Nolan laughed again, softer this time.
"Me too."
***
Wind rolled across the rooftop in cold uneven gusts, carrying distant sirens and the constant hum of Gotham below. Across the street, the building they had been watching sat dark except for a handful of lit windows near the upper floors. From the outside it looked ordinary enough—another expensive property tucked among dozens of others.
But both of them knew better.
Quentin stood near the ledge, coat shifting slightly in the wind as he finished speaking.
"…so that's why I had to give them the list of names," he said with a small shrug. "Honestly, I don't even know if they'll act on it. But the conflict was escalating fast, and once they realized the Court engineered it…" He exhaled lightly. "Well. They wanted to know what I knew."
Batman stood several feet away, cape hanging motionless despite the wind, his attention fixed somewhere between Quentin and the building below.
"You are close to crossing the line, Quentin," he said
Quentin glanced toward him. "Look," he replied, "if you want to try and save them, that's fine. I mean that genuinely. We can do that." He spread his hands slightly. "But I don't know when the gangs will move, or even if they will. Right now I'd personally prefer sticking to the original plan—raid the locations, gather information, dismantle infrastructure."
Batman's gaze shifted toward him fully now.
"And what happens," he asked, voice low and controlled, "when we get more details? Do you manipulate the gangs into doing your dirty work again?"
Quentin frowned slightly at the wording.
"I'm not manipulating anyone," he said. "The Court made a catastrophic mistake. They killed people connected to these organizations." He gestured vaguely toward the city around them. "You know how Gotham works. Those groups aren't corporations pretending to be families—they are families."
There was no humor in his voice now.
"You can steal from them. Fight them. Push territory." Quentin shook his head slightly. "But once bodies start dropping? It becomes personal."
Batman remained silent.
"The Court doesn't understand that," Quentin continued. "They're used to operating from behind glass and boardrooms. They treated gangs like pieces on a board instead of people capable of retaliation."
He looked down toward the streets below.
"And now they're paying for it."
Batman's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
"After Two-Face killed Clemmons," Quentin added, "every connected member in Gotham is going to harden security. Panic spreads upward fast among rich people. If we want answers, we need to move before they disappear further underground."
For several seconds, Batman said nothing.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly as he looked toward the building they had intel on.