CHAPTER 14: THE CONSPIRACY
Karen's desk looked like a bomb had gone off.
Papers everywhere. Post-it notes crawling across the wall behind her chair. String connecting photographs to documents to newspaper clippings in a web of conspiracy that would have made a detective novelist proud.
"You've been busy," I said, stepping into the office.
She didn't look up from her computer. "Union Allied isn't the top."
"I'm sorry?"
"Union Allied." She gestured at the chaos. "The construction company. The pension fraud. I thought they were the bad guys—the end of the line. But they're not. They're a middle layer."
I set down the coffee I'd brought—her usual order, memorized weeks ago—and studied the wall. Shell company names. Money amounts. Arrows pointing to other arrows pointing to question marks.
"Show me."
Karen's eyes lit up the way they always did when someone took her seriously. "Okay. So we know Union Allied was running a pension fraud—stealing from their workers. But the money didn't stay with Union Allied. It flowed out through these shell companies." She pointed to three names I didn't recognize. "From there, it goes to... everything."
"Define everything."
"Russian operations. Real estate holdings. Construction fronts. Protection rackets." She pulled up a spreadsheet. "At least twelve different criminal enterprises, all receiving funds from the same network of shells. Someone is consolidating crime in Hell's Kitchen."
I studied the documents, keeping my face neutral.
Wilson Fisk.
The name sat in my head like a weight. I knew exactly who was behind this—had known since before I walked into that bar to meet Foggy Nelson. Fisk's rise to power. His consolidation of the criminal underworld. His public emergence as a "philanthropist" while his people killed and stole and destroyed.
I couldn't tell her.
No explanation existed for how I'd know. No reasonable way to say "I know the mastermind's name because I watched a television show about it in another life." Karen would think I was crazy. Or worse—think I was involved.
So I nodded at the wall and asked: "Do you have a name for whoever's at the top?"
"Not yet." Frustration crept into her voice. "Every trail leads to another shell company. Another layer of protection. But I'm getting closer."
"Have you talked to anyone else about this? Someone with investigative experience?"
Karen hesitated. "There's a reporter at the Bulletin. Ben Urich. He's been tracking patterns like this for years—never had enough evidence to publish. I reached out."
"And?"
"He wants to meet. Tonight."
Foggy found me in the conference room an hour later, staring at Karen's web of connections.
"She's getting obsessive," he said, not quite a criticism. "I'm worried about her."
"She's onto something."
"That's what worries me." He leaned against the doorframe. "The people behind Union Allied already tried to kill her once. If she keeps digging..."
"We're protecting her. Security, safe locations, the whole package."
"Are we?" Foggy's voice was quiet. "Or are we just funding her ability to put herself in more danger?"
I didn't have a good answer for that.
Karen's investigation was her choice. Her crusade. I could provide resources, protection, support—but I couldn't stop her from chasing the truth. Wouldn't, even if I could.
"She needs this," I said finally. "After everything that happened—being framed, the attack—she needs to feel like she's fighting back. We take that away from her, we take away everything that makes her Karen."
Foggy sighed. "I know. I just... I wish she'd be more careful."
"She's got Ben Urich now. Someone who knows how to investigate without getting killed."
"Hopefully." He pushed off the doorframe. "You're going to the meeting tonight?"
"Just to set up the secure communications. Make sure everything's protected."
"Okay." A pause. "Thanks, Roy. For all of this. The investment, the security, Karen's case... you didn't have to do any of it."
I thought about the woman feeding pigeons my first day in Hell's Kitchen. The promise I'd made to myself while drinking overpriced coffee and watching a neighborhood that was about to burn.
"Yeah," I said. "I did."
Ben Urich was older than I expected.
Late fifties, maybe early sixties. Gray hair thinning at the temples. The kind of face that had seen too many stories end badly. He smoked constantly—a habit he was clearly trying to quit, based on the nicotine gum he chewed between cigarettes.
We met at a diner in Midtown, neutral territory far from Hell's Kitchen's eyes. Karen made introductions. I stayed in the background, observing.
"The pattern matches," Ben said, spreading documents across the table. "I've been tracking this for years. Money moving through layers of protection. Criminal enterprises that shouldn't be connected, all answering to the same invisible hand."
"Do you have a name?"
"Not yet. But I'm closer than I've ever been." He looked at Karen with something like recognition. "You found trails I missed. Different starting point, same destination."
"So we work together," Karen said. "Pool our resources."
Ben was quiet for a moment. "This is dangerous, Miss Page. The people we're investigating don't leave witnesses. Don't leave trails. The fact that we've gotten this far means we're either very good or very lucky."
"Or both."
A smile cracked Ben's weathered face. "Or both."
I stepped forward, pulling out an envelope. "Secure phone. Encrypted email accounts. A fund for expenses—research, travel, whatever you need." I handed it to Karen. "For both of you."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "You're the money man."
"I'm a concerned citizen."
"Uh-huh." He didn't push further. Smart.
It was nearly midnight when Karen finally stopped working.
She'd fallen asleep at her desk, head pillowed on a stack of Union Allied documents. The office was dark except for her desk lamp, casting long shadows across the conspiracy wall.
I draped my jacket over her shoulders. Dimmed the lamp.
She didn't wake. Just stirred slightly, burrowing into the warmth.
I stood there for a moment, watching her breathe.
Karen Page. She'd survived a frame-up, an assassination attempt, and the kind of corporate conspiracy that would have broken most people. Now she was hunting the invisible king of Hell's Kitchen's criminal underworld, armed with nothing but determination and a growing stack of evidence.
She was magnificent. And she had no idea how dangerous the name she was chasing really was.
Wilson Fisk.
I knew it. Couldn't tell her. Couldn't warn her. Couldn't do anything except fund her investigation and pray she found the truth before Fisk found her.
I let myself out quietly, locking the door behind me.
Ben Urich's office at the Bulletin was exactly what I'd expected—a cave of papers and old coffee cups, covered in notes from stories he'd been chasing for decades.
I wasn't supposed to know that. Wasn't supposed to know about the file he kept in his bottom drawer, labeled only with a question mark. The file that contained everything he'd gathered on Hell's Kitchen's mysterious kingpin.
But I knew.
After our meeting, Ben pulled out that file. Spread the contents across his desk. Financial records. Crime patterns. Real estate transactions.
One name appeared three times, redacted by Ben's own hand.
He circled it.
Fisk.
He was so close now. They both were. And when they finally connected the dots, when they finally put a name to the monster...
Everything would change.
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