Manhattan, three blocks from the former site of Fisk Tower, in the D'Amico Group's luxurious top-floor office.
Frank D'Amico took a deep drag on a thick Cuban cigar and slowly exhaled pale blue smoke. He sank into a hand-stitched Italian leather sofa, his feet propped brazenly on the mahogany desk.
Bliss.
Fucking bliss.
Kingpin, that fat pig, had been roasted medium-rare by Green Goblin and flown all the way to Switzerland for skin grafts.
Now the whole New York underworld answered to him, Frank D'Amico.
Without that mountain of flesh looming over him, even the air in his office smelled sweet with money.
Bang!
The office's mahogany double doors were shoved open.
D'Amico's son Chris-the unemployed rich kid who went by "Red Mist" online-came scrambling in, his face as white as if he'd just rolled through a pile of flour.
"Dad! We've got trouble! Huge trouble!" Chris shouted, his voice cracking.
D'Amico frowned and took his feet off the desk. "Call me boss! What happened? Why the panic? Is the sky falling?"
"The sky isn't falling, but our operations are!" Chris rushed to the desk, grabbed the ice water on it, and gulped down a mouthful. Water ran down his chin into his garish jacket.
"That freak in the red-and-blue bodysuit covered the ceiling of our powder processing plant on Fifteenth Street in Hell's Kitchen with webs last night! All the merchandise got strung up on streetlights, and the cops came to clean up!"
D'Amico's eyelid twitched. Spider-Man.
"And there's more!" Chris swallowed.
"The lunatic with the skull on his chest wiped out our weapons depot at the Brooklyn docks. Six Gatlings, twenty crates of C-4-all blown up like fireworks. Every one of the twelve guys guarding it had his head blown open. Not one body was left intact!"
Punisher.