Chapter 46: Lynn, Did You Do This?
Deep in the night, inside an Upper East Side villa...
A bottle of red wine, worth tens of thousands of dollars, was violently hurled against the wall.
Glass shattered and sprayed everywhere. The amber-red liquid bloomed across the plaster like blood.
"Useless!"
Drake, hissing the word, gripped his phone, his chest heaving with rage.
An elite, fully-armed team of more than a dozen men... couldn't even take out one goddamn NYPD detective. And he'd lost his best sniper in the process!
He thought back to the absolute ass-chewing he'd just received from the Council.
Drake's fury was boiling over.
But the more pressing concern was cleanup.
The firefight had been too big, too public, and it directly involved the Manhattan precinct. Burying this was going to be next to impossible.
Even their assets in Congress probably couldn't make this go away.
'Should I ask SHIELD? Ask that bastard Alexander Pierce?'
'Goddamn it, no. He'd never help.'
Ever since Hydra split, that prick Pierce had been looking for any excuse to see the Council's power diminished.
He'd spent years sabotaging them.
If Drake went to him begging for help now, Pierce would probably end up helping that goddamn detective instead.
Just thinking of Lynn made Drake's head pound.
'Shit! A beat cop! A nobody he could have crushed like a bug any other day... why couldn't he just lie down and die?'
As his head throbbed, the lights in the grand hall flickered once, then plunged into darkness.
He figured it was a circuit breaker. Drake turned on his phone's flashlight, intending to call for his staff.
The next second, the cold, deadly-feeling muzzle of a gun pressed firmly against his head.
In the phone's glow, Drake clearly saw a handsome face, completely devoid of any expression.
"L-Lynn?"
The moment he saw him, Drake's blood ran cold. He opened his mouth, to beg, to stall, to do anything...
PFFT.
A single, clean gunshot echoed. The bullet tore through his skull.
With a heavy thud, Drake's body collapsed onto the sofa, his face frozen in the terror and desperation of his final moment.
Lynn took out a pen and crossed Drake's name off a list.
Without a moment of hesitation, he turned and vanished.
***
Half an hour later, Brooklyn Borough Hall.
"Maria, I'll leave this with you, thanks."
The Deputy Mayor handed a file to his secretary, smiling warmly. "Take your time coming in tomorrow. Call it compensation for the late night."
"Thank you, Mr. Colin."
Maria smiled back, clutched the file, and turned to leave.
Leaning back in his chair, Colin stretched, his gaze softening as he looked at the photo of his wife and daughter on his desk.
He was just about to stand and leave when, in a shower of shattered glass, a figure in black smashed through the window.
Before Colin could even react, before his hand could hit the panic button under his desk, Lynn—now in a full tactical suit—was on him.
CRACK.
With a single, brutal twist, he snapped Colin's neck. Lynn vaulted back out the window and disappeared into the night.
When the secretary returned some time later, wondering why he hadn't left, she would find him slumped over his desk, his eyes wide open in death.
***
In one night, seventeen people across New York were dead. They ranged from the Deputy Mayor and corporate millionaires down to a common convenience store clerk.
The cause of death for all of them was the same: clean, professional, and instant.
The scenes left no traces.
Their deaths were only discovered when their bodies were found.
***
The next morning.
George Stacy walked out of the Brooklyn Borough Hall, stretching his aching back.
The entire NYPD had been running ragged all night. So many homicides... and the M.O... it all pointed to one man.
As he got back into his cruiser, George felt a deep, sick sense of dread in his gut.
'Lynn did this.'
He pulled out his phone and dialed.
When it connected, he said, "Lynn, where are you?"
"Hotel. Why?"
Lynn, looking at his reflection, kept brushing his teeth. "You forget? My apartment got turned into Swiss cheese yesterday. Had to crash somewhere."
"What's up?"
George got the name of the hotel and drove there immediately.
The whole way, his mind was a wreck.
He had a gut feeling Lynn was behind this, but a part of him was praying... 'Please, God, don't let it be Lynn.'
He got to the hotel, flashing his badge to the front desk. Lynn was on the eighth floor. He knew the layout—one way in, one way out.
George immediately had the hotel manager pull the security footage.
He stood there for several long seconds, holding the backup copy in his hand.
Finally, he sighed, got in the elevator, and went up to knock on Lynn's door.
Lynn opened it, and George walked straight past him.
He grabbed an unopened bottle of water from the table and drank half of it in one go.
He sat down, offering Lynn a cigarette. "You look like you slept well. You have any idea we were running around like lunatics all night?"
"Your attack is still unsolved, and on top of that, seventeen more people turn up dead."
"And these hits were clean, professional. We're talking the Deputy Mayor. The Commissioner is about to have an aneurysm."
Hearing this, Lynn just shrugged. "Well, good luck with that. I've got more important things to do."
Seeing Lynn grab his coat to leave, George said, "The whole drive over, I kept thinking... if you did this, if you killed those seventeen people... what would I do?"
He looked Lynn straight in the eye, his voice low. "You know me. You know I'm a man who lives by his principles."
"And?"
Lynn stopped at the door, a small smile on his face. "Let's just say I did. You gonna arrest me, George?"
"I don't know."
George shook his head, his face a mask of conflict. "Maybe. Maybe not. But I know... if you did do it... you had a damn good reason."
"I just... I just wish you wouldn't hide it from me."
Lynn looked at the raw sincerity in his partner's eyes, and he laughed. "You give me too much credit, George. I don't have that kind of skill."
"Anyway, I gotta go. I'm gonna miss my flight."
He gave a small wave and walked out, leaving George alone in the room.
After Lynn was gone, George Stacy pulled the backup surveillance tape from his coat pocket.
He stared at it for a long time.
Finally, with a heavy sigh, he stood up, walked into the bathroom, and dropped it into the full bathtub, watching it sink.
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A/N: I worked really hard to give this chapter a Punisher vibe, guys. So buckle up and get ready for some real cooking!!
If we reach 400 Power Stones, I'll drop an extra chapter; if we reach 500, I'll release one more extra chapter!! You'll be supporting the story and getting bonus chapters on the same day, so GIVE ME YOUR GODDAMN INFINITY STONES!! 💎💎