Daisy lowered her finger. The fork returned to the table as she released the psychic suggestion.
"You stay president. Make James Wesley your VP—let him handle the day-to-day. I'm going to get some sleep. Wake me when we land."
"Right. Waiter, bring Ms. Johnson a blanket." Justin had already settled into his new role. He hadn't quite prostrated himself in submission, but he'd positioned himself firmly in a lackey's role.
While Daisy flew toward California thirty thousand feet above the clouds, former mob consigliere James Wesley took over as vice president. He spent the afternoon running himself ragged—back-to-back meetings with every division head at Hammer Industries. With Daisy and Justin both backing him, and his own considerable skill in play, he had the place stabilized in no time.
Hammer Industries employees had never had much sense of ownership. A lightning-fast leadership change barely registered as strange.
As the workday wound down, Wesley took a phone call. After some hesitation, he decided to go to the meeting.
As president of both Skye Data and Skye Pictures, between salary, stock dividends, and various off-the-books income streams, Wesley's personal net worth had already cleared eight figures. Now that he was officially inside Hammer Industries, it was about to multiply several times over. Daisy was generous with her trusted inner circle.
He didn't bring bodyguards. He drove alone into Hell's Kitchen in a Ford, watching the familiar-yet-foreign streets roll past, meeting the stares—some resentful, some afraid. It had been what, two years? Yet it felt like a past life.
In his crisp suit and polished shoes, walking streets slick with dirty water, he felt utterly out of place.
He pushed open the door of a restaurant. Once upon a time, he'd been a regular here—had spent more time in this place than he had at home. But the interior had been redone, and walking in now felt like stepping into somewhere he'd never been.
He descended the stairs into the basement. The dim yellow light made him frown. Everything about this—things that had once been second nature—now grated on him. What had once been comfortable was frankly unpleasant now.
Still, he straightened his suit and gently pushed open the wooden door.
Beyond the narrow staircase and beat-up door, the space opened up: a five-hundred-square-meter underground hall, wall-to-wall with mob soldiers drinking, playing cards, and swapping stories.
They clocked Wesley—a face they didn't know—and a few hands went straight to guns. But some of the older ones recognized him and waved their younger colleagues down.
Whatever was about to happen, it was above their pay grade. Better to keep their eyes elsewhere.
"James! My friend!"
Two meters tall, built like a concrete wall—Wilson Fisk, a white man the underworld knew as Kingpin, walked slowly toward Wesley. His voice was low, his face serious, his arms spread for an embrace.
Kingpin kept his emotions locked down and his voice heavy. It was hard to read likes or dislikes from his outward manner.
Wesley wasn't the least bit worried Fisk might move on him. He'd always considered Fisk a friend, and that hadn't changed. He was sure Fisk felt the same.
Their embrace was warm enough—nothing broken, no ribs crushed—which left the foot soldiers looking on in quiet confusion.
Ignoring the rank-and-file, they walked into Fisk's office. Or rather, what used to be Wesley's office.
Two years later, stepping back into this modest room hit Wesley hard. Fisk hadn't changed a thing. It was as though the whole place had been frozen since he left.
But today there was a third man in the office. He wore a blue skin-tight combat suit, white wrist guards, white boots. Most striking was the circular disc on his forehead—it looked like a bullseye.
He was leaning sideways against the wall, sizing Wesley up. Whatever he was looking for, he apparently didn't find anything impressive.
"James, this is Lester. Codenamed Bullseye." Fisk made the introductions. "Bullseye, this is my close friend, James Wesley."
Wesley offered a handshake. Bullseye didn't so much as glance at it. He went back to fiddling with two playing cards.
Fisk's brow creased slightly. He motioned for Wesley to sit, and the two of them spent some time reminiscing. Fisk wasn't a man of long speeches—as the conversation stretched, it started to feel forced. Eventually he got to the point.
"Will you come back?" Fisk's voice was firm. Unadorned.
Wesley wasn't used to being spoken to like that anymore. He phrased his answer more diplomatically. "I want to keep proving my worth."
From the wall, Bullseye let out a small grunt. One of the playing cards in his hand flew across the room—whipping through the air at an impossible angle, burying itself in the wooden target on the far wall, right at the throat. The threat was undisguised.
"James is my friend. You're out of line." Fisk's head whipped around, voice sharp. Bullseye dropped his gaze as if nothing had happened.
"Whenever you're in trouble, come to me." Fisk made the promise with genuine weight.
He hadn't called Wesley here purely for old times' sake or to bring him back into the fold. He had another agenda.
Fisk chose his next words carefully. "I'm just back from Spain. I need weapons—a lot of them. I was hoping..."
Wesley didn't refuse his old friend. He laced his fingers together on the desk. "How much? What kind?"
"As much as you can spare." Fisk had no idea what Wesley's actual position at Hammer Industries was. All he knew was that his surveillance team had watched the place all afternoon, and Wesley hadn't once left the building.
"Heh." An old friend, a former boss—coming to him to buy weapons. Wesley felt the surreal edge of it.
"Fisk." He reached for the old form of address. "Give me a headcount and I'll authorize a shipment."
Even after only one afternoon, Wesley already had more than enough clearance at Hammer Industries to sign off on a standard weapons requisition. Easy.
He thought of it as a small matter. Others disagreed. Bullseye drawled, a sneer in his voice, "Don't you need to clear that with your new boss?"
Wesley had spent most of his life in the underworld. He wasn't the type to take a slight lying down. Sure, he was hopeless in a fight—but he knew Fisk wouldn't lay a hand on him, and would in fact protect him. So Bullseye didn't intimidate him in the slightest.
He smiled coldly. "What are you shopping for? Tomahawks? Hellfires, Sidewinders? A submarine? Those are the things that need Ms. Johnson's signature. Anything below that, I can authorize myself. If you need them, I can even spare a couple of armored personnel carriers and a gunship—though personally, for street-level work, I don't think you'll get much use out of those."
Fisk didn't want missiles. Nothing would set off alarms in high places faster than ordnance like that. Mob disputes never escalated to weapons at that tier. As for a submarine—forget it. You could gift it to him and he'd have nowhere to put it.