Chapter 29: Chain Reactions from the Magia Gang's Collapse
Tony Stark's disappearance hit New York like a stone thrown into still water. By the time the ripples reached the financial markets, Stark Industries stock was in freefall.
The man responsible for all of this was, at the same moment, finishing a press conference.
Back in his office, Obadiah Stane shed the grief he had performed for the cameras, poured himself a glass of whiskey on ice, settled into the sofa, and lit a cigar. He looked at the television, which was cycling through wall-to-wall Stark coverage, and let a smile come onto his face.
"Tony Stark." He exhaled smoke at the ceiling. "I hope you won't hold this against me, wherever you end up."
"I've given everything to this company. Everything that's happening now is nothing more than what I'm owed."
"And you were simply the first thing in my way."
He was still in this mood when his computer screen lit up without warning.
[You have a new message.]
Stane set down his glass and frowned at the screen. He opened it.
No sender listed. Only a video file.
He clicked it.
On screen, a group of armed men in Middle Eastern surroundings were speaking into the camera. In front of them, Tony Stark sat in the dirt, looking dazed and diminished, nothing like the man who had stood across from Matthew on a Manhattan street weeks ago.
The man speaking addressed the camera directly.
"My dear employer. You never mentioned that the man you hired us to kill was Tony Stark."
"Paying us this amount to eliminate someone of his stature... doesn't that seem a little unreasonable to you?"
"So, Obadiah. You'll be paying a premium for the deception. The price to eliminate Tony Stark has gone up. Wire five hundred million dollars to the account we previously agreed on. If you don't, there's a reasonable chance he comes back to you himself and looks for you personally. And then you lose everything you have."
"Think it over carefully. Five hundred million, or everything you own and the rest of your life in a cell."
"I'll give you time to decide. In the meantime, we'll take good care of him."
The video ended.
Stane's expression had gone through several stages during the playback and arrived somewhere dark. He drove his fist into the computer screen.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
Meanwhile. Hell's Kitchen.
Hammerhead's disappearance had not brought peace to Hell's Kitchen. It had brought the opposite.
With no central organization holding the territory together, the Magia Gang's rank and file had splintered. Small factions, loose crews, individuals with nothing left to lose and scores to settle. All of them fighting each other over whatever scraps of Hammerhead's former operation they could reach. Robbery, extravagance, running into storefronts. The neighborhood had descended into something that looked less like a criminal organization and more like a collapse.
The chaos wasn't contained to Hell's Kitchen. The crime rate across all of New York had climbed visibly. Even the NYPD, which had elevated non-engagement to something approaching policy, was no longer in a position to ignore it.
A corner office in Manhattan.
Wilson Fisk stood in front of floor-to-ceiling windows in a white suit, the city spread below him like something he owned. The interior of the room ran in dark tones throughout: deep red carpet that absorbed sound, an ebony desk you could see your reflection in, an antique vase on the corner that looked like it belonged in a museum.
Three measured knocks on the door.
"Come in." Fisk turned his head slightly. The weight in his voice was the kind that accumulated over years of being the most dangerous thing in any room he entered.
The door opened. A woman in a fitted suit walked in carrying a folder.
"Boss. The matter you asked us to look into."
"We don't know exactly what Hammerhead did to draw Umbrella's attention, but the Magia Gang's destruction appears to be directly connected to the new head of Umbrella's security division. Matthew Lawrence."
Fisk took the folder and looked through it.
After a moment, he closed it.
"Matthew Lawrence." He considered the name. "Takes out Hammerhead without making noise about it. That's someone worth noting."
He knew Hammerhead's capabilities. Not at Fisk's level across the board, but that skull had done real work over the years. Whoever had put him down quietly deserved at least a moment of acknowledgment.
"With Hammerhead gone, there's less competition in the Kitchen. Have our people move to absorb as much of his operation as they can while the window is open. I'll handle the NYPD side."
He said it the way someone states something that has already been arranged.
The shadows of New York never cleared, in his view. One receded and another took its place. He was simply the largest shadow the city had ever produced.
He noticed the woman hadn't moved. He turned.
"Something else?"
"Yes." She produced a second folder.
He took it with a slight frown.
On the first page: a photograph of a mask. Black and white, seemingly made of wood, with an unsettling quality that was difficult to pin down exactly.
"What is this? New acquisition?" His eyes moved to his secretary.
Collecting and trading antiques was not a secret interest of Fisk's. His first assumption was that she had found him something unusual.
"Not an antique. This is the insignia of a group calling themselves the Devil's Gang."
"Every member wears this type of mask. Since the Magia Gang's collapse, they've moved fast. They've absorbed Hammerhead's casino operations, the smuggling networks, and the loan business. They've consolidated quickly."
She paused.
"I've also begun to notice what looks like expansion pressure in the direction of our territory."
Fisk turned the page slowly. "The Devil's Gang. Recent?"
"Very recent. They weren't on anyone's radar before this."
"There's one more item." The secretary's voice stayed even. "The Punisher, Daredevil, and Spider-Man have all been more active lately. Our revenue is down by roughly half because of them."
"Do you want us to move against the Devil's Gang? And the street-level vigilantes?"
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