The penthouse of the high-rise in Midtown didn't look like a war room. It looked like the lounge of a private Swiss bank—all floor-to-ceiling glass, white marble, and minimalist furniture that cost more than a Queens bungalow. Outside, the New York skyline was a jagged crown of lights, but inside, the air was pressurized and silent, smelling of expensive tea and the faint, metallic tang of gun oil.
With the money given by Luc, Delilah and Masque had upgraded from Robert's mistress's home that was transferred to Delilah's name. She hadn't sold it, as it could still serve as a place to lay low in the future.
Felicia Hardy smoothed the front of her charcoal-grey pencil skirt. Gone was the fur-collared leather of the Black Cat; in its place was the "Executive Secretary" persona Ethan had meticulously crafted for her. Her hair was pulled back into a severe, professional bun, and her glasses, non-prescription, gave her the look of a woman who destroyed lives with spreadsheets rather than claws.
Across from her, the power dynamic of the new underworld sat in wait.
Delilah moved like a caged leopard. She had spent the last twenty-four hours in a "reconnaissance trance," memorizing every patrol rotation and ventilation duct of Fisk's primary armories until they were muscle memory.
Beside her sat Giuletta Nefaria—Madame Masque. Her gold mask gleamed under the recessed lighting, a frozen, aristocratic sneer that hid the scarred vulnerability beneath. She sat with her spine perfectly straight, her hands folded in her lap with the poise of a dispossessed queen.
"The NYPD is biting," Felicia began, her voice cool and authoritative. She didn't look at the files on the table; she had skimmed the data before arriving. "The NYPD has already mobilized the first wave of tactical teams. Within the hour, they will be kicking in the doors of Fisk's primary 'dry cleaning' fronts. They'll be too busy counting blood-stained cash and cataloging offshore ledgers to laundered money to notice the perimeter of the city fraying."
"Money is a distraction," Masque said, her voice echoing hollowly behind the gold plate. "Wilson Fisk has survived poverty before, many times in fact. You can burn his banks, but as long as he has the hardware to enforce his will, he is still the Kingpin. He will simply take what he needs from the smaller families to recoup his losses."
"Which is why we aren't just burning his banks," Felicia countered. She opened the file showing a map of the tri-state area. Blue icons represented likely locations where the police would strike; the red icons represented Fisk's hidden arms caches—the ones Ethan knew about from his knowledge of the Marvel world. "While the NYPD is busy with the money, you two will hit the arms caches. We take his teeth while the police take his wallet."
Delilah leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as she studied the red icons. "I've mapped the Long Island depot. It's guarded by a rotation of sixty men, mostly Maggia defectors and Fisk's personal 'street-samurai' units. Efficient, but they rely on a central alarm hub. If we try to hit one hub in the first ten seconds, the rest will be alert and either shell up or move the guns."
"Even if we take his guns and his gold," Masque interrupted, her tone sharpening with a hint of disdain, "the man himself is a fortress. He has built a mythos of invulnerability. He is the sun around which the filth of this city orbits. You cannot simply 'evict' such a man."
Felicia adjusted her glasses, a small, secret smile playing on her lips. "Fisk has two weaknesses, Masque. Weaknesses that people like Luc—and by extension, we—don't have to worry about."
She stepped toward the window, looking down at the city. "First, he's famous. He's spent decades turning 'Wilson Fisk' into a brand of legitimate power. That makes him heavy. A leak to the media about his specific ties to the recent warehouse fires or his involvement with the Maggia's human trafficking routes will tie his hands. He can't go to war with us if he's spending eighteen hours a day with his lawyers trying to keep his face off the front pages of newspapers like the Daily Bugle and Insight."
"And the second?" Delilah asked, her interest piqued.
"The second is the view from the top," Felicia said. "It's lonely, and it's precarious. Right now, every mid-level boss in this city—from Hammerhead to Tombstone—is looking at Fisk and waiting for him to stumble. They don't love him; they fear him. The moment we create the perception that he is losing his grip, the 'sharks' will do half our work for us. They'll rip pieces off his throne just to see if they can get away with it."
Masque stood up, her silken robes whispering against the marble. "Luc did say a power vacuum was coming. I guess he's right. But nature abhors a vacuum, and so do I. If we dismantle Fisk, who stops the Maggia from tearing itself apart in the streets? Or Mister Negative from turning the subway system into a graveyard? Removing Fisk risks igniting a gang war. We have the capital, thanks to our... patron... but we lack the 'presence.' We have no army. No name that makes the others bow."
Felicia turned back, her expression shifting from the playful flirtation of the Cat to the cold pragmatism of an architect. This was the part where Ethan's influence was most visible—the way she was starting to think three moves ahead, treating people like assets on a balance sheet.
"We aren't filling the vacuum," Felicia said firmly. "Not yet. Luc's advice is simple: be the shore, not the wave. While Fisk, Hammerhead, and Negative kill each other for the crown, we sit aside and absorb. We buy the debt. We recruit the survivors. We consolidate. By the time the dust settles, the 'King' will find that the ground he's standing on has already been bought out from under him."
She turned to Masque. "To that end, Luc has authorized me to grant you full administrative access to the fund he granted Ms. Delilah. Half a billion dollars. Not for petty things like guns or goons, but for real power. We aren't just hitting Fisk; we'll take everything he has to offer, like his shell companies and banks; we're buying them all. We're going to his properties and share. He already owns the city, so we'll buy it cheap once he's lost his grip."
Masque's hand went instinctively to the edge of her mask. Half a billion. It was a staggering sum, even for a Nefaria. "He trusts me with this? Even though mere weeks ago I worked for the Hood?"
"He trusts your decisiveness and ruthlessness," Felicia said. "And your pride. You won't let Fisk win because he represents everything the 'Old Maggia' hates—a commoner who thinks he can rule through sheer bulk. Use the money to begin the restructuring. By the time Fisk realizes he's broke, you'll be the one signing his eviction notice. You were born to be at the top, and this might be your only chance to get there. Under Ms. Delilah, of course, as she is the boss."
Delilah let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. "That I am. Also, I like it. It's a bit dirty, so I've done dirtier. It's the kind of play you'd see in a mob ambush, just with more zeroes at the end." She looked at Felicia with a new kind of respect. "You're starting to sound a lot like him, you know. Luc. You've got that way of talking like the world is already yours and everyone else is just late to the meeting."
Felicia felt a cold shiver go down her spine. She realized Delilah was right. This plan—the systematic dismantling of an empire through media manipulation, financial strangulation, and proxy warfare—was a mirror image of the plan Ethan had used to kill Norman Osborn.
She wasn't rubbing off on him, but he was rubbing off on her. A scary thought in itself.
"I'm a quick study," Felicia said, her voice betraying nothing. "Now, let's go over the armory hit. Ms. Delilah, Luc informed me that you have a relationship with a mercenary named Silver Sable and her squad, the Wildpack. Since this group is available for hire, I say we do so, which would allow us to simultaneously hit all the targets at once. Masque, here is a list of all Fisk's holdings, both domestic and international. I leave the plan on how to swallow as much as we can of these up to you. I'll handle the NYPD—make sure they stay focused on the 'legitimate' targets so Fisk's eyes stay off us."
As the two women began to dive into the tactical data, Felicia stepped back into the shadows of the penthouse. She pulled out the obsidian phone and sent a short, coded message to Ethan: Things are proceeding as you wanted. However, the city might face an upheaval in the next week or two. It might be best to get Peter's aunt and those two kids, Amy and Paige, to safety. I'd rather avoid any casualties, but Peter would never forgive either of us if those three were hurt.
She watched the "send" icon blink out. For a moment, she missed the simple thrill of cracking a safe or the weight of a stolen diamond in her palm. This new life was cleaner, but it was also heavier.
"Next target," Felicia said, her voice steady and in control. "Let's also talk about the Maggia's shipping lanes. Masque, you should have intimate knowledge of their inner circle, so we should focus on absorbing them too."