"Join us—or we'll sample your lovely wife and daughter first, then toss you into the Hudson."
"All your boys have already gone over to Kingpin. Why are you still resisting?"
Hell's Kitchen, the Manhattan district by the Hudson River. On the pier, a thug pressed a gun to the head of a small-time boss named Kevin.
Kevin knelt with his hands tied behind him. The cold muzzle at his temple made the vein there throb. He forced an ugly grin.
"Every time night falls, a few small crews in New York mysteriously vanish, and some other outfit scoops up their cash and grows… You're Kingpin's boys, right, Anthony?"
"Bingo," said Anthony, licking his lips, gun in hand. "Go on, refuse me. I can't wait to have a real good time with your wife."
Around them, seven or eight armed Kingpin goons and a dozen former "Kevin Crew" members who'd just defected burst into laughter.
"Go ahead and do it," Kevin sneered. "I got drunk last night and killed them by mistake. I'm sober now, but I'm not planning to stick around."
A flicker of regret crossed Anthony's face. "Boss said to avoid killing if we can. He wants to absorb crews, not just wipe them out.
"But you're an exception."
Bang!
The shot cracked. Kevin flinched, eyes shut.
He thought he was dead, but his pounding heart said otherwise.
"Gun to the head and he still missed?"
The thought flashed absurdly through Kevin's mind. Then he heard meaty thuds, bones snapping in rapid succession, and strangled screams.
Someone was saving him.
He opened his eyes and caught glimpses of a sharp-eared silhouette flickering through the dark. Every appearance was followed by Kingpin's men dropping, clutching broken limbs or bellies, howling on the ground.
Tat-tat.
Gunfire sputtered and died, drowned out by the drumbeat of fists on flesh. A few breaths later even the moans faded; bodies lay twisted everywhere, dead or alive he couldn't tell.
"What… happened…"
Kevin couldn't remember knowing anyone who could drop a dozen armed brutes in seconds. He was still reeling when a pistol rose behind him and pressed to his temple again.
"Who is it? Come out! If you don't, I'll shoot!"
The voice shook, and so did the hand, but Kevin knew it—Anthony.
"You took my gun, but you didn't think I had a spare, did you? Show yourself!" Anthony shouted.
He'd been KO'd by a sudden blow, only to wake in agony. First instinct: grab Kevin as a hostage.
"H-help! I don't want to die!"
Dragged back from the edge, Kevin felt the muzzle again and his survival instinct smothered the death wish. He cried out.
Thwip.
In the pitch-dark pier, a faint sound. A black webline snapped onto Kevin's leg.
He lurched, yanked forward by a brutal force—straight into the sharp-eared figure's fist. His body nearly folded in half. He blacked out on the spot.
"Huh?"
One second Anthony had a hostage. The next, it flew away. His brain stalled at the impossible sight.
Before he could react, the shadow vanished—and reappeared right in front of him.
No time to fire. He felt like he'd been hit by a speeding truck, flung through the air, then wrenched backward by something that grabbed him midflight.
"Ah!"
The scream barely left his throat when a hand clamped around his neck. A low voice rolled over him like a demon's growl:
"Tell me—where is Kingpin?"
"Aaahhh!"
Anthony was losing his mind. He prayed wildly, but the only answer was a hammering punch to his face—his jaw popped out of place.
The shock brought a flicker of sense—then a wave of pain drowned it.
Crack!
Batman squeezed, and Anthony's jaw snapped back in. He asked again:
"Where is Kingpin?"
Batman hadn't left all hopes of forcing Kingpin out of Oscorp to Black Cat. He was running his own hunt.
"I don't know…"
With his jaw reset, half the pain ebbed and the words tumbled out.
Crack!
This time a finger broke. Batman stared without expression.
"Talk."
"I really don't know—sniff—" Anthony started to cry. "All I know is the boss is Kingpin. Orders come down through different guys every day. I've never even seen him!"
"Who passes the orders?" Batman held the hulking thug like a crying child, unmoved.
"I don't know…" Seeing the devil's fist rise again, Anthony racked his brain. "W-wait! They all have one thing in common!"
"What?" Batman lowered his hand.
"They all wear suits!"
A heavy chop landed at the back of Anthony's head.
Batman rifled his pockets, found a phone, dialed 911, and was gone before the sirens arrived.
Ten minutes later NYPD units rolled in with lights and wails.
"Looks like a gang-on-gang hit, Chief," said Aug, George Stacy's aide, eyeing the bodies strewn across the pier.
Stacy said nothing, sweeping his flashlight over every corner. At last he found black webbing on Anthony's chest and Kevin's leg.
"Same as the last few days—the unseen perp we can't name or ID," Stacy said, frowning. "We can't let him run wild. Pull all nearby CCTV. I want to know who did this."
Having left Hell's Kitchen, Batman slipped into an office building.
"I need to trace every camera along my route and wipe any footage that caught me.
"When the sun's up, I need to build a new workstation and go see Dr. Octavius… Hopefully he's still steady."
~~~
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