Death Race and Viper

Brooklyn.

A street race was underway.

On a closed-off road.

Two cars roared at full throttle, their engines spinning as their tires scraped black skid marks across the pavement.

Blue flames shot from the rear of a heavily modified muscle car, propelling it after the car ahead.

Roman saw the muscle car closing in through his rearview mirror, then glanced at the console.

"All right, baby, let's see what you can do."

This was a real surprise.

Roman hadn't expected a car that looked like a luxury executive sedan to have been modified.

At the flick of a switch, the roaring engine revved higher, and the body lowered.

Its speed increased by far more than a little.

Roman flashed his pearly whites and pressed a button.

The muscle car, which had nearly caught up, could only watch the executive sedan speed away.

Roman cheered, lifting both hands off the steering wheel in celebration.

As the luxury car crossed the finish line, the spectators went wild.

These street races always got the adrenaline pumping harder than races on official tracks.

The luxury car fishtailed to a stop in front of a beauty in a bikini. Roman opened the door and stepped out with a smile.

The tall beauty, with her healthy, wheat-colored skin, leaned against the car door and gave him a flirtatious look.

"You're a great driver."

Roman said swaggeringly, "I can go even faster."

He looked around, still hungry for more. "Too bad nobody here can give me a challenge."

"Really?" The beauty pulled a card from her nosebleed-inducing cleavage and asked seductively, "Then would you be interested in something more exciting?"

Roman took the card and first held it under his nose, inhaling deeply.

It carried a hint of fragrance, and an entranced expression spread across his face.

He opened it and took a look. "Death Race?"

The location...

Hell's Kitchen?

Roman's heart skipped a beat, but he kept his cool in front of the beauty and put the card away.

"Death Race. I'm very interested."

He chuckled, moved closer to the beauty, and slipped an arm around her waist.

"But I've got something better. Want to give it a try?"

The beauty glanced at Roman and gave an ambiguous laugh.

"I prefer men who can go fast."

She pushed against Roman's chest, turned, and walked away.

Roman spread his hands in bewilderment. "I'm not fast enough?"

"You'll have to prove yourself."

When it came to men, a woman's challenge often worked wonders.

Roman protested, "Come on-fine, I'll enter. I'll enter that Death Race!"

Fresh off a victory, Roman was brimming with confidence.

He took his winnings from the organizer, stuffed them into his pocket, and opened the door invitingly. "Come on, beautiful."

The beauty held out her hand and smiled. "Call me Sophia."

"Sophia." Roman grinned so broadly his eyes disappeared.

He had completely forgotten who actually owned this car.

Who wouldn't want a taste of a beauty this hot?

But he failed to notice the crafty gleam in Sophia's eyes as her scheme succeeded.

Death Race.

With death in its name, it naturally wouldn't be that simple.

Blood was what made the thrill of an adrenaline rush.

The doors closed, and the luxury car that should have been heading home set off for Hell's Kitchen.

Ferdinand was terrified the whole way.

He could only hope his younger brother had finished the race and returned the car in one piece.

Others might not know, but he knew exactly what kind of man the big shot behind him was.

The hand that had been pierced last time still ached faintly.

The pickup drove into Brooklyn.

Ferdinand's mother, Mrs. Pierce, was cursing up a storm.

Both her sons had gone out at night.

As a mother with a vain streak, nothing pleased her more than her sons making something of themselves.

But their refusal to listen and their leaving their aging mother home alone also made her angry.

The doorbell rang.

She put down the remote and went to answer it, a stream of rapid-fire words spilling from her mouth.

"Ferdinand, you little brat, where have you been?"

She had barely finished speaking and hadn't noticed Ferdinand's desperate grimaces at all.

"Your brother Roman isn't back either. He just called to say he was going to Hell's Kitchen for a race. That little brat is such a worry!"

"I worked myself to the bone raising you two, not so you could abandon your mother and go out enjoying yourselves!"

"If you bring a prostitute home, I swear I'll beat your ass raw with my slipper!"

Ferdinand finally couldn't take the barrage anymore.

"Mom!" He interrupted her. "Let me introduce someone."

"This is my boss, Mr. John Wick." His words finally brought Mrs. Pierce to her senses.

"And this is the lawyer, Foggy Nelson."

At the word "lawyer," her deeply ingrained fear of educated people made Mrs. Pierce stammer.

"A l-lawyer?"

She thought of her second son driving off in a luxury car worth a million. "Roman just had a momentary lapse in judgment."

"Mom, Mom!" Ferdinand quieted his mother down and said, "Let my boss come in."

Mrs. Pierce panicked, no longer knowing what to do.

Following her son's instructions, she stepped aside and invited the two men in.

To describe the place in a sentence:

It wasn't dirty, but it was nowhere near spacious or affluent.

The garage was full of wrenches and other tools, car parts, and wheels brought in from elsewhere.

Some were new, though their origins were questionable.

"Those belong to Ferdinand and his brother," Mrs. Pierce said, only for Ferdinand to interrupt her. "Mom!"

Mrs. Pierce fell silent.

John had no intention of making an issue of it. He glanced around. "Your brother went to Hell's Kitchen?"

"Roman said he had a race. Something called Death Race," Mrs. Pierce blurted out.

She was so rattled that she couldn't tell whether he was asking her or Ferdinand.

"Death Race?" Fudge said. "That's an illegal race."

"Oh, no, it wasn't Death Race." The moment Mrs. Pierce heard "illegal," she changed her story.

But it was already too late.

John looked at Fudge and asked, "What is it?"

Fudge hesitated, but faced with his employer, he chose to be honest.

"It's bad news. It's an illegal race organized by a group of Russians in Hell's Kitchen. The prize money is huge, but hardly anyone ever collects it."

"Because the race is a bloodbath."

Seeing that Mrs. Pierce was about to faint, Fudge continued, "Hell Paradise used to take bets on Death Race, but that business has moved to another bar now."

"Looks like my car is in serious danger." John narrowed his eyes and gave a cold laugh. "I thought this would be a simple race."

Like his mother, Ferdinand was drenched in sweat.

Roman's life already seemed to be hanging by a thread.

"Let's go. We'll drop Fudge home on the way."

John hadn't even sat down. He walked out and smiled at Fudge. "Maybe we'll even run into Matt."

"Matt?" Fudge paused, then walked over with a smile. "Hopefully not in some woman's arms."

A woman?

Probably not, unless she was an assassin.

Hell's Kitchen.

Matt returned home to tend to his wounds.

As a child, he had treated his boxer father's wounds. As an adult, he treated his own.

His senses were keen. Brushing his fingers over the wounds, he could clearly gauge their extent and determine how badly he was injured by touch alone.

That car accident had brought him more than disaster. It had also given him these extraordinary advantages.

Even while treating his wounds, Matt didn't abandon his work.

His ears stayed alert to the sounds coming from Hell's Kitchen.

Filtering.

That was the first thing he had grasped after beginning his training with Stick.

The jumble of sounds was enough to burst his head. He needed to learn how to sift through them.

To eliminate the sounds he didn't need.

Finer, then finer still.

Eventually, he heard a cry for help.

It was a boy. He had been kidnapped.

The kidnappers were beating his father.

Matt hurried to finish treating his wounds.

He didn't need to be too meticulous about this.

After stitching his wounds closed, he put on his mask.

Hell's Kitchen's Daredevil emerged into the night once more.

A pickup truck always lacked a certain class.

Sitting in the truck, John said in exasperation, "Can't you get another car?"

"Ahem, boss, I haven't been paid this month yet."

Ferdinand had his own difficulties. He had an aging mother at home.

He had some of the bad habits associated with his skin color, such as spending lavishly.

He had used the money from selling that gold to show off in every possible way in front of his underlings.

His biggest investment had been buying himself an expensive suit.

These days, that suit stayed in his wardrobe.

"Once we find the car, I wouldn't mind discussing these things with you."

Seeing Ferdinand angling for his wages, John simply looked outside.

"Where's that bar?"

"On the street up ahead." Fudge rubbed his hands together. "It's members-only. Sorry, are we really going?"

Fudge wasn't particularly eager to go. John chuckled. "As a lawyer, don't you think these gray areas would offer some valuable experience?"

"I think going somewhere like that makes it easier for a lawyer to get into trouble."

Fudge gave a couple of awkward chuckles.

His law firm had handled plenty of cases for the poor, and in Hell's Kitchen, many of the defendants in those cases operated illegal businesses.

The pickup stopped on a street in Hell's Kitchen.

Few people stood outside the bar. Red neon light shone over an entrance marked with a curved cobra emblem.

It was the emblem of a Hell's Kitchen gang, Viper.

A similar design appeared in Hell's Kitchen, printed on packages of contraband.

John walked toward it.

Fudge and Ferdinand followed behind him.

"I think we could avoid going in without backup." Ferdinand kept muttering. "Putting yourself in danger isn't a wise choice, boss."

"Then would you like to go in alone?" That one sentence from John shut Ferdinand up.

Sending him in alone would be no better than killing him.

At the entrance, John pushed open the door.

He strode brazenly inside.

The door led to an underground passage.

On the other side of the passage, four people in floral shirts turned in unison to look at them.

John pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding a wad of cash.

"Who can arrange entry for me?"

The moment the cash appeared, silence fell for a few seconds.

Fudge took a deep breath.

An employer with a superpower like that...

How could you not love him?