The famous Black Widow clearly wasn't going to take a restaurant owner's threat seriously.
Alvin was tall and imposing, but who cared?
Natasha's expression turned stern. "I represent S.H.I.E.L.D., and I'm ordering you to cooperate with my work.
"Or I can arrest you for illegally concealing weapons, take over your restaurant, and conduct my work from there."
She spoke as though it were only natural, leaving Alvin no room to refuse.
Alvin hadn't expected S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to act like this!
To treat an ordinary person so high-handedly! Granted, Alvin wasn't exactly ordinary, and he did possess weapons illegally.
But this was Hell's Kitchen. Most people who lived here had weapons to defend themselves.
They needed them against dangers that could appear at any moment.
Even Big Apple City's police wouldn't arrest a Hell's Kitchen resident on that charge.
Alvin stared for a moment, disappointed by Natasha's attitude. So the Avengers aren't all as decent as they seem in the movies!
Alvin had no desire to keep arguing. He looked at Natasha coldly and said, "I don't know what kind of agency S.H.I.E.L.D. is, and I don't care!
"If you want to charge me with anything, call the police or the FBI.
"Oh, and tell them to bring a search warrant."
Alvin turned, opened the back door of his restaurant in the alley, and went inside. Before closing it, he paused and looked back. "This is Hell's Kitchen. Customers are welcome to eat at my restaurant.
"But if anyone enters the second floor where I live, I'll exercise my right to defend myself."
Bang! The iron door slammed shut.
Natasha's face darkened. This was what she'd wanted, but how long had it been since an ordinary person had gotten the better of her?
First Alvin had ignored her looks, then her threat. She didn't feel defeated, but she was certainly curious.
Especially when a woman's voice mocked her through her earpiece. "If you're going to sabotage your undercover assignment, you need to make it convincing. Coulson isn't easy to fool!
"This restaurant owner isn't bad. He might give you what you want.
"I hear John Gadtler is about to take over the investigation into your attack. You'd better hurry!"
Natasha touched the wound on her waist from the previous attack, muttered a curse, and walked out of the alley.
Still in a foul mood, Natasha passed the thugs who'd been knocked unconscious and kicked one who had just come around—a Black thug—right in the head.
His head struck a nearby dumpster with a loud thud, and he passed out again.
Kicking the thug unconscious seemed to improve Natasha's mood. For an elite agent, what had happened was nothing more than a minor setback.
Her original plan had been to get into the restaurant quickly, find an opportunity to approach her target, and finish the mission fast—not lurk around watching.
Now it seemed there was something wrong with her intelligence. The restaurant owner's name and background matched, but his personality didn't match at all.
Natasha had assumed a man of Chinese descent would be relatively timid, though Alvin had managed to run a small restaurant in Hell's Kitchen, the most chaotic part of Big Apple City.
That showed he had some ability. But the way Alvin had shrugged off her threat and answered her so firmly had caught her completely off guard.
Even if she wanted to finish this mission quickly—or ruin it—she still had to go through the motions.
Natasha walked slowly out of the alley, turned right, and headed toward the front entrance of Alvin's restaurant.
Alvin's restaurant occupied a converted two-story building facing the street. The restaurant was on the ground floor, Ye Qing lived upstairs, and the basement served as a storeroom.
It was the only inheritance Alvin's parents had left him in this world.
A sign bearing the Chinese characters for "Peace Hotel" hung above the wooden front door. A red lantern hung on either side, each distinctly Chinese in style.
Beneath each lantern lay a huge black dog whose shoulder stood over 120 centimeters high.
Anyone with experience could tell they were actually two enormous wolves. Yet none of the local residents passing the restaurant seemed afraid. A few mischievous children even hugged their necks and played with them.
Whenever the wolves encountered unruly children, they played along with an almost human understanding, then patted their bottoms with their forepaws and sent them back to their parents.
Natasha was astonished. It was ten at night, and this was Hell's Kitchen. After midnight, even police patrol cars didn't dare come in.
Yet this street looked like an ordinary residential neighborhood. Local residents could be seen strolling along it.
You would never see that in the other twenty-four blocks of Hell's Kitchen. Normally, there were hardly any pedestrians after eight.
After dark, the figures under the dim streetlights were drug dealers or pimps. Even prostitutes didn't want to solicit customers here.
But the street before Natasha was nothing like the Hell's Kitchen she knew. Something in her intelligence had to be wrong.
The mission hadn't even begun, and Natasha had already run into one surprise after another.
She found it intriguing. Natasha, who had been eager to get this simple mission over with, was interested now—not in the target, but in Alvin, the restaurant owner.
Anyone could see that the peace on this street had something to do with the restaurant called Peace Hotel.
Almost everyone slowed as they passed its entrance. Even those who didn't go in greeted the two wolves. "Hey, Thor. Hey, Dom."
Men who looked like gangsters, on the other hand, hurried past on the sidewalk across the street, careful to stay out of the wolves' sight.
Natasha approached the restaurant with growing interest and copied the passersby. "Hey, Thor. Hey, Dom."
The wolves sniffed the air. They clearly didn't like her scent. They rose and gave low, rumbling growls, openly hostile toward her.
Natasha wasn't exactly afraid under their gaze, but she was tense. She hadn't brought a gun on today's mission, only a few small things for self-defense. Whether those could stop two wolves like these was anyone's guess.
She didn't know why wolves that were so friendly to everyone else were hostile to her.
If they attacked, she wasn't at all sure she could get away unscathed.
"Miss, I'd advise you to take a couple of steps back. Thor and Dom aren't to be messed with." A young man's voice came from behind Natasha.
She turned and found two young men who had arrived together.
One was a chubby young man with curly hair who seemed to be smiling all the time. The other was blind and held a white cane.
The curly-haired man had spoken. As he talked to Natasha, he eagerly approached the wolves. "Hey, Thor. Hey, Dom." He reached out to pet their heads, but they knocked his hand away with their forepaws.
After giving Natasha a cold stare, the wolves patted the chubby man's thigh in greeting, then returned to their places beside the door and lay down.
The friendly young man turned to Natasha with a broad, sincere smile. "It's rare to see a stranger in Hell's Kitchen this late, especially a beautiful woman like you. I'm guessing you might be in trouble.
"I'm Foggy Nelson, an attorney at Nelson & Murdock. I'd be delighted to help you!" Foggy pulled out a business card and offered it to Natasha.
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