Chapter 683

Once Fisk had made up his mind, he wasted no time.

He brought Vanessa and a few of his men and headed straight for Gospel Corporation. Fortunately, being a powerful man with powerful friends had its advantages. They traveled by ambulance, which let them cut through the rush-hour traffic without getting caught in the usual nightmare.

When Fisk arrived at Gospel Corporation, he explained who he was and why he was there.

That left Nadia, the receptionist, staring at him in confusion.

She had absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do with a dying woman from one of New York’s most notorious crime bosses.

So she did the only sensible thing.

She passed the problem upstairs.

Eventually, the matter reached Moira.

After taking one look at Vanessa, Moira sighed.

She knew their boss hated unnecessary complications. But simply turning away someone who had come begging the company to save a life would be terrible for Gospel’s reputation. More importantly, Fisk’s words had made one thing clear: whether officially or not, he seemed to believe he already had some connection to the company.

That made throwing him out considerably more troublesome.

Since Moira wasn’t willing to make the decision herself, she put Vanessa into a life-support pod first, ensuring the woman wouldn’t die while they figured out what to do.

Then she reported the situation directly to the Eredar twins.

Their response was remarkably simple.

"She can live or die. What does that have to do with us?"

The twins had been born into the upper nobility of the Eredar. They had always looked down on the sort of criminal enterprises that only flourished in the shadows.

When they had first arrived in this world, circumstances had forced them to dabble in a few less-than-legal businesses themselves. Fortunately, Evenson had stopped them before things got completely out of hand.

Otherwise, they probably would have conquered half the American underworld by now.

So men like Fisk had never earned much respect from them.

"Come on. Don’t be like that."

Evenson, however, seemed rather more interested in the matter.

"They paid us for a service. Someone came here asking us to save her life, and we’ve taken quite a bit of their money already. It’d look bad to turn them away now."

Oleseth raised an eyebrow.

"You’re actually going to deal with this?"

Evenson normally couldn’t be bothered with this sort of petty business.

By his own standards, it was simply beneath him.

That had been the case for years.

Before he had truly stepped onto the stage, he had been perfectly content to remain unknown. That was one reason the Deathlock Gang had been able to establish itself in Brooklyn without attracting his attention.

But once Evenson had decided to make himself known, his starting position had been absurdly high.

He had become a SHIELD consultant and could casually trade jokes with Director Nick Fury. He could advise senior agents on their work, call Tony Stark a brother, and somehow find himself mediating Captain America’s family disputes.

He had even turned Daniel Whitehall, a direct disciple of the Red Skull, into a human shield while leaving Hydra elder Gideon Malick with nothing but losses, both financial and otherwise, and possibly a daughter he no longer had.

With a résumé like that, what reason did he have to spend his time playing around with street gangs?

"Dog meat may not belong on a banquet table," Evenson said with a cold smile, "but it’ll still satisfy a craving."

He glanced toward Vanessa’s life-support pod.

"Saving a woman who’s already half dead is barely any effort at all. Fisk, on the other hand, is probably going to bleed quite a bit for the privilege."

Somewhere far away, a certain dog suddenly shivered.

Habs had been taking a leisurely stroll down the street. He had just finished lifting one hind leg against a fire hydrant when an inexplicable chill ran down his spine.

A terrible premonition struck him.

His canine eyes darted around.

A Porsche 911 was slowing down nearby.

Habs made his decision.

He abruptly swerved ninety degrees, charged into the street, lightly bumped the front of the Porsche, and collapsed.

The Porsche driver stepped out.

He looked at the dog.

Then at his car.

Then back at the dog.

What the hell?

Were dogs running insurance scams now?

Before he could even process what had happened, a gnome came sprinting down the street and threw himself onto Habs.

"Little Habs! What happened to you?!"

The gnome wailed as though he’d just lost a brother.

"We were supposed to share life and death! To struggle together, build our little business, serve our lord shoulder to shoulder! If you have to go, how can I possibly..."

He broke down sobbing.

"How can we not die together?!"

The performance was so convincing that the Porsche driver stood there in stunned silence.

The gnome wiped away his tears, looked at him, and held up five fingers.

"Five hundred."

The driver blinked twice.

Then he pulled out a wad of cash and stuffed it into the gnome’s hands.

"I’ll give you a thousand if you tell me how you trained a husky to do that."

Only after the thousand dollars had changed hands did the ominous feeling surrounding Habs finally disappear.

Back at Gospel Corporation, the Eredar twins waved dismissively.

"If you’re so interested, handle it yourself. We have no interest in this."

"Sure thing."

Evenson stood up and walked toward a wardrobe.

"I’ll just change into a different outfit and go take care of it."

Fisk was meanwhile sitting in a private room, staring anxiously at the life-support pod.

Vanessa lay inside, pale and almost completely motionless.

Every second that passed made his anxiety worse.

He gripped the armrest of the sofa hard enough that it looked as though he might tear it off.

But Fisk wasn’t the only one in the room who was nervous.

Madame Gao was even more unsettled.

The elderly woman sat beside him with her usual composed posture, her ancient face giving little away. Yet the dragon-headed cane clenched in her hand creaked beneath the pressure of her grip.

She was anything but calm.

To be perfectly honest, Madame Gao had desperately wanted to avoid coming here.

The last time she had visited Gospel Corporation, she had sensed, however faintly, just how terrifying the Eredar twins truly were.

That power had been unlike anything she had encountered before. It carried the dreadful sensation of something capable of cutting off life itself.

Even thinking about it made cold sweat gather on her back.

If she had any choice, she certainly wouldn’t have come back to provoke them.

Unfortunately, there was another reason she hated being here.

Vanessa’s poisoning was her fault.

The Hand was currently preparing a major operation in the United States, but carrying it out required an enormous amount of money.

To raise those funds, they had entered an extraordinarily profitable business.

Drugs.

To get their product onto the market quickly, sell it at scale, and avoid unnecessary interference, Madame Gao had decided to cooperate with the local kingpin.

Wilson Fisk.

Gao supplied the product.

Fisk handled the overall operation.

A Russian criminal organization operating taxis handled transportation.

And another party took care of the books.

Together, the four groups formed the foundation of the operation.

Now the business was nearing its final stage.

The Russian gang had outlived its usefulness, and Fisk had already wiped them out.

All that remained was to finish cleaning up the loose ends, settle the accounts, and divide the profits.

Then the unexpected complications began.

First, some masked vigilante had appeared out of nowhere and started interfering with their operations.

Then the damnable Fisk had fallen in love.

Madame Gao hadn’t cared at first.

People fell in love. It happened.

She had no interest in meddling in someone else’s personal affairs.

Unfortunately, the old saying about beautiful women ruining great men had proven disturbingly accurate.

Fisk had once been a ruthless, decisive, cold-blooded crime lord.

Since becoming involved with Vanessa, however, he had grown increasingly emotional and distracted.

Their business had become a mess.

Madame Gao had finally bitten the bullet.

For the sake of the Hand’s greater plan, Fisk needed to return to normal.

And that meant Vanessa had to die.

So Madame Gao had given poison to the man responsible for keeping their accounts and instructed him to administer it to Vanessa.

She had never expected the woman to survive.

She certainly hadn’t expected Fisk to drag her to Gospel Corporation and beg them to save her.

Now, sitting in that room and waiting for the people inside the company to decide Vanessa’s fate, Madame Gao couldn’t help wondering if she had made a terrible mistake.