Rainwater from Lake Street poured through the holes in the Roll-up Door.
Thud.
Yang Ming let go. Bullseye's nearly two-hundred-pound body slammed onto the shattered glass like a sack of rotten potatoes. Muddy water mixed with blood, leaving a long, dark-red smear across the floor.
Jessica tossed aside the cast-iron radiator pipe smeared with blood and flesh, breathing hard. She glanced at the unconscious man on the floor, then at Yang Ming, her eyes carrying a trace of disbelief, as though she had seen a ghost.
Just thirty seconds ago, this man had been swaggering around outside. Now she hadn't even seen how he had gone down.
"Storage room two. Bring out the restraint chair with the leather straps." Yang Ming took off his gas mask and tossed it onto the Triage Desk.
Jessica turned and did as he asked without a word. Soon, a rusty iron chair originally intended for patients with severe schizophrenia stood in the middle of the lobby.
Yang Ming grabbed Bullseye by the back of his collar with one hand, lifted him like a chick, and slammed him into the chair.
The cowhide restraints tightened around his wrists, ankles, waist, chest, and even his forehead. Eight-point restraint. The buckles clicked with cold, mechanical precision. Every strap had been pulled as tight as possible, digging deep into Bullseye's combat suit.
The intense pain briefly dragged Bullseye back to consciousness.
His eyes snapped open. His vision was still blurry, and he instinctively tried to wrench himself free. Then he realized he couldn't move so much as a finger.
"Awake?"
Yang Ming stood in front of him, holding a five-milliliter syringe. With the needle pointing upward, he gently pressed the plunger with his thumb, sending a few drops of clear liquid spurting out.
"You... do you know who I am..." Bullseye rasped. Muscle spasms distorted the white bull's-eye on his forehead. He stared at Yang Ming with the venomous hatred of a snake.
"I do." Yang Ming's face remained expressionless. He gripped Bullseye's jaw with his left hand, forcing him to expose the side of his neck. "Kingpin's number-one rabid dog. A top-tier bargaining chip with considerable commercial value."
Without warning, the needle pierced Bullseye's jugular vein.
"What did you inject me with?!" Bullseye's pupils contracted sharply.
"A trace dose of propofol mixed with a specially formulated sedative. It keeps your cerebral cortex half-asleep. You'll hear sounds, but you won't be able to control your muscles." Yang Ming withdrew the needle and tossed it into the medical waste bin.
The drug took effect almost instantly. Bullseye's eyelids fluttered wildly. In less than three seconds, his head lolled to one side, and he slipped back into profound physical paralysis.
"You can't do this."
A weak but exceptionally stern voice came from the sterile chamber.
Matt Murdock lay inside. Beneath his dark-red cowl, his eyes could see nothing, but his superhuman hearing had perfectly reconstructed everything that had just happened.
The scrape of tightening straps, the hydraulic sound of the syringe being depressed, Bullseye's gradually slowing heartbeat.
Matt's chest heaved. Every breath tugged at the wound that pierced his chest, and the pain brought him out in a cold sweat.
But he still gritted his teeth, his voice carrying an unyielding stubbornness. "That's Bullseye. A key figure in Kingpin's criminal empire. He has hundreds of lives on his hands, and he's a crucial witness against Kingpin!"
Yang Ming walked to the sink and turned on the faucet to wash his hands. Water rinsed away the blood. He said nothing.
Thinking Yang Ming was listening, Matt continued, his tone growing more forceful:
"You're detaining him without legal authority, even torturing him. How does that make you any different from those gangs? Hand him over to the NYPD, or to the District Attorney I'm in contact with. Only proper legal proceedings can truly put Kingpin behind bars. All you're doing is inviting even more vicious retaliation!"
The faucet shut off.
Yang Ming pulled out a paper towel and dried his hands. He turned to look at the blind lawyer in the sterile chamber, whose head was filled with idealism.
"Jessica," Yang Ming said suddenly.
"Huh?" Jessica turned from inspecting the damage to the Roll-up Door.
"Get my calculator from the drawer."
Jessica paused, then walked over and opened the Triage Desk's drawer. She pulled out an old, grease-stained Casio calculator and handed it to Yang Ming.
Calculator in hand, Yang Ming walked up to the sterile chamber.
"Clear." Yang Ming pressed a key. The old calculator gave an electronic beep.
Matt froze. His keen hearing naturally told him what it was. "What are you doing?"
"Adding up the bill." Yang Ming's voice was flat, without the slightest inflection.
"Beep, beep, beep, beep-"
"Custom blast-resistant Roll-up Door at 22 Lake Street, reduced to scrap by an RPG. Replacement installation, rush service. Fifty thousand dollars."
"Clinic surgical light, imported optical glass from Germany, shattered by a stray bullet. Thirty thousand dollars."
"Outer blast-resistant glass on the sterile chamber, specialized material from a Stark Industries laboratory, cracked by the shock wave just now. One hundred fifty thousand dollars."
"The cost of cleaning the street outside, the cost of shutting down my clinic for repairs, plus emotional distress compensation for the three of us." Yang Ming's fingers tapped rapidly across the keypad, producing a string of crisp clicks.
"Beep-"
"Total: five hundred thirty thousand dollars. Add the hundred-thousand-dollar emergency treatment fee for that hole in your chest. I'll round it down. Six hundred thousand altogether."
Yang Ming slapped the calculator onto the sterile chamber's metal rim.
"Counselor Murdock." Yang Ming looked down at him. "You said you wanted to hand Bullseye over to the police? Fine. Transfer those six hundred thousand dollars to my anonymous offshore account right now, and I'll personally package up this rabid dog and deliver him to the police station's front door."
Matt opened his mouth, but it felt as though a wad of rags had been stuffed down his throat.
Six hundred thousand dollars. He was a broke lawyer who specialized in representing the poor. His bank balance rarely exceeded three figures.
"I... I don't have the money." Matt clenched his teeth. "But that doesn't give you the right to-"
"If you don't have the money, shut up," Yang Ming cut him off coldly.
"On my turf, the rules of survival are simple. Anyone who breaks my things pays with their life. Bullseye isn't a witness right now. He's my asset. I'm keeping him so I can squeeze my renovation costs out of that fat bastard Kingpin, with interest."
That utterly unscrupulous yet internally consistent argument left Matt speechless. The faith in the law he took such pride in seemed pale and ridiculous before this back-alley doctor who saw nothing but bills.
"The doctor's right."
Frank stepped out of the shadows in the corner, where he had been leaning against the wall. He still carried the empty Remington shotgun.
Frank walked up to the sterile chamber and looked coldly at Matt.
"Your procedural justice won't save Hell's Kitchen. Kingpin has the best legal team in New York. Even if Bullseye gets arrested, he'll be out on bail tomorrow morning, citing insufficient evidence or mental illness. There's only one way to deal with scum like that."
Frank turned to Yang Ming, his eyes showing the recognition of one kindred spirit for another.
"Wipe them out completely."
Yang Ming had no interest in Frank's approval. All he cared about was money and hard currency.
"Enough talk. The deposit." Yang Ming held out his hand.
Frank tossed the shotgun onto the table. He took a short, slender tactical pencil from a pocket on his tactical vest and pulled over a prescription sheet.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
The pencil raced across the paper. Frank drew with remarkable speed and precision, marking the exact location.
Then he flipped the paper over and drew another diagram.
Before long, Frank stopped drawing and looked up at Yang Ming. "There were originally fifty guards there. The explosion killed half of them. The rest should be panicking and in complete disarray right now. Kingpin's reinforcements will take at least twenty minutes to arrive."
Frank pushed the diagrams toward Yang Ming. "You have twenty minutes to clear out all the remaining weapons. But I'm warning you, each crate weighs three hundred pounds. On your own, even with a truck, you'll be hard-pressed to finish in time."
Yang Ming picked up the diagrams and scanned them.
The tactical instincts granted by World-Class Firearms Mastery let him instantly identify the blind spots in the fields of fire and the infiltration routes.
"Three hundred pounds?" A barely perceptible cold smile tugged at Yang Ming's lips.
He had a hundred cubic meters of subspace. Even a main battle tank could be tucked inside in a second.
"Jessica." Yang Ming folded the diagrams and slipped them into his pocket.
"Here." Jessica was holding a rag, wiping blood off the table with a look of disgust.
"Watch the door. If any idiots with a death wish try to get in, smash their kneecaps." Yang Ming walked to the sink and took off his slightly dusty white coat.
"What about this one?" Jessica pointed at Bullseye, strapped to the chair.
"If he wakes up and starts yelling, break his arms and legs. Just don't kill him. A bargaining chip is only worth something alive."
Yang Ming picked up the deep-black windproof coat draped over the back of a chair and put it on.
He walked over to the pile of weapons he had just seized from Gotham City and picked up a Thompson submachine gun with one hand.
Standing nearby, Frank narrowed his eyes slightly as he watched Yang Ming's movements.
Yang Ming's thumb pressed the magazine release with effortless familiarity. His left hand caught the drum magazine, and his index finger slid lightly over the follower to check the spring tension. Then he clicked it back into place and pulled the charging handle.
The whole process flowed seamlessly. He never once looked down. It was pure muscle memory.
Frank's eyes narrowed further. That level of familiarity with firearms was definitely not something a scalpel-wielding doctor should possess. Only the world's most elite soldiers handled weapons that way. Had he served in the military?
Yang Ming hooked the Thompson onto a tactical clip inside his coat, then slipped his right hand into his pocket. His fingertips brushed the cold Osborn high-carbon titanium alloy blades.
"You're going alone?" Hearing Yang Ming ready his equipment, Matt couldn't help speaking up from inside the sterile chamber.
"What? Does Counselor Murdock want to come along and teach those punks about the law?" Yang Ming didn't look back.
Matt had no answer.
Yang Ming walked up to the battered Roll-up Door. Outside, the downpour showed no sign of stopping, and thunder rolled through the clouds.
"Relax. I'm just going to collect a debt," Yang Ming murmured to himself.
He pushed open one warped half of the metal door, and his black coat vanished into the unfathomable depths of Hell's Kitchen's rain-soaked night.