At the top of this jungle of steel and glass, an office occupied the entire top floor of the building.
The interior design embodied an extreme—almost pathological—minimalism.
Walls, floors, and ceiling: everything visible was pure white.
In the center of the office stood no desk—only a vast white sofa and a low, gleaming table.
Seated upon it was a mountain of a man, his bulk nearly swallowing the custom-built sofa whole.
He wore a tailored white suit.
The fabric was expensive, the cut immaculate—yet even such craftsmanship couldn't hide the terrifying musculature beneath, coiled like live ordnance beneath silk.
Wilson Fisk—better known as Kingpin, the uncrowned king of New York's underworld.
He sat in silence, rolling a diamond cufflink between his thumb and forefinger, its facets catching the sterile light.
The door slid open without a sound.
A man in a sharp suit and gold-rimmed glasses stepped inside.
Wesley—Fisk's most trusted advisor, confidant, and right hand.
"Boss," Wesley said, stopping two meters from the sofa and giving a slight, deferential nod.
Fisk didn't look up. He kept rubbing the cold, razor-sharp edge of the cufflink.
"Explain."
"Bullseye is in intensive care at St. Agatha's Hospital. Comminuted fractures in over sixty percent of his bones. Multiple organ ruptures. The doctors say that even if he survives, he'll never walk again."
Fisk's hand stilled.
He looked up.
His face—broad, heavy, almost grotesque in its compression—belied the intelligence in his eyes. Those small, dark pupils burned with a cold, calculating fury that defied his size.
Wesley felt the weight of that gaze like a physical thing, but he held his ground, his expression steady behind his glasses.
Fisk was genuinely puzzled.
Bullseye was his premier assassin—the deadliest marksman in the city. A man who could kill a target fifty meters away with a playing card… or a toothpick. A legend who had never missed.
Few in New York could stand against him—let alone leave him broken beyond repair.
"Who did this?" Fisk asked.
His voice was calm, but Wesley heard the storm beneath it.
It wasn't grief. It was the frustration of a craftsman whose finest instrument had been shattered.
"We don't know," Wesley admitted. "No usable evidence at the scene. Every camera within a three-block radius went dark. Before he lost consciousness, Bullseye managed only one word: 'Monster.'"
"Monster?"
A cold smirk tugged at Fisk's lips.
What could possibly be considered a monster by Bullseye?
Kingpin wasn't amused. He was far more concerned with something else.
"What are the terms? Who's the employer?"
Wesley tapped his tablet, pulling up a file. "A real estate developer by the name of Thompson. He contacted Bullseye through a third party—offered two hundred thousand."
"And the target?"
"A high school student." Wesley hesitated. "Supposedly, it was retaliation. Thompson's son had a… minor altercation with the boy at school."
Silence swallowed the room.
Even the hum of the city outside seemed to hush.
Then Kingpin chuckled.
It started low—barely more than a rumble in his chest—then built into something thick and unnatural, like gravel rolling down a coffin lid. He laughed for nearly thirty seconds before cutting it off with a sharp inhale.
"Heh… heh heh…"
Shaking his head, the folds of his neck trembling, Kingpin tossed the diamond cufflink in his hand onto the coffee table. It landed with a sharp clink.
"So. My best killer—the man who's made prime ministers check under their beds—goes after a teenager… for two hundred grand. And not only does he fail… he gets broken. Every bone in his body shattered. Now he's lying in a hospital bed, begging for morphine like a kicked dog."
Kingpin leaned forward, eyes narrowing. "Has that fool Lester finally gambled away what little sanity he had left?"
Wesley stayed silent.
"Don't you think… this is hilarious, Wesley?"
"Yes, sir. It's… absurd."
Kingpin's smile vanished.
"No. It's worse than absurd. It's a disgrace. A public humiliation."
He rose. The shadow of his bulk swallowed Wesley whole.
Walking to the floor-to-ceiling window, Kingpin turned his back to the room and stared down at Manhattan—the city he owned, block by block, soul by soul.
"It took me over a decade to carve order into this chaos," he said, voice quiet but edged like a scalpel. "My name is the rule. My will is the law. When criminals whisper 'Kingpin,' they do so with trembling lips."
He turned slowly.
"And now? My sharpest blade—shattered by a child."
He stepped closer. The air grew heavier.
"What do you think the rats in the gutters will say when they hear this? The hyenas licking their chops, waiting for me to stumble?"
"They'll say you're getting soft," Wesley murmured.
"No," Kingpin corrected. "They'll say I'm blind."
And that was the real problem.
Bullseye wasn't just beaten. He was annihilated—by someone unknown, unpredictable… possibly unstoppable. A "monster" who could dismantle a killer like Bullseye as if swatting a fly.
And Kingpin hadn't seen it coming.
That… unease—a feeling he hadn't tasted since his earliest days in Hell's Kitchen—curled in his gut like poison.
He despised being outmaneuvered. Despised not knowing.
Before he hunted this "monster," he needed to erase every trace of the blunder that led to this shame.
"Wesley."
"Sir."
Kingpin settled back onto the sofa, the leather groaning under his weight. He picked up the cufflink again, rolling it between his fingers like a chess piece.
"This Thompson," he said, almost casually. "He wanted revenge for his son, didn't he?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't care about his son. But he hired my assassin. He dragged my name into a schoolyard squabble."
Kingpin's voice dropped to a whisper that carried more weight than a scream.
"My resources aren't commodities to be purchased by petulant rich men with bruised egos. If he wanted vengeance… he should've understood the price."
He looked up. Cold. Final.
"Go. Kill him."
A pause. Then, softer—but no less lethal:
"Since he loves his son so much…"
"…let the boy become an orphan."