Maroni sat on a leather sofa with a thick cigar between his teeth, watching the live broadcast on the TV.
The man on the screen had thick blond hair.
He stood calmly under the flashing lights of hundreds of media cameras, speaking with complete confidence.
“…Once this set of new laws takes effect, Gotham’s crime rate will drop by twenty percent.
I will personally oversee their enforcement to make sure no criminal escapes justice.
Whether they are corrupt officials or powerful mob bosses, the criminals of this city will be held accountable.” The man pointed straight at the camera.
“I am Harvey Dent, and I will make you pay for your crimes!” *Puff.* Maroni blew out a massive cloud of gray smoke, resting his arms casually along the back of the sofa as he addressed the empty room.
“Boyle, did you hear that?
Did that bastard just mock me?
Ha!
He’s literally mocking me through the fucking screen.
It looks like Harvey Dent is every bit as obnoxious as the rumors say.
No wonder those pussy politicians in New York shipped him to Gotham.” Maroni leaned forward, his voice dropping into a low, dark tone.
“Let’s prepare a little welcome gift for him.
We’ll use your corpse.
We’ll rig it above his office door.
The moment he walks in, it’ll fall and cover his pretty face in blood.” “Why aren’t you speaking, Boyle?
Oh…
right.
I forgot I stuffed your mouth!” Maroni laughed coldly, leaning down to glance at Boyle, who was tied up on the floor.
With a brutal yank, he ripped the blood-stained handkerchief out of his mouth.
“Boss, I messed up!
Boss, please!” Boyle begged, his bruised face twitching in terror.
“I didn’t want to work for Falcone!
He kidnapped my wife, he forced me into it!
I didn’t have a choice!” Maroni remained completely silent, calmly flicking the ash from his cigar.
“I know.
But betryal is betrayal.
And you know what I do to traitors.” His voice changed from icy calm to explosive, psychotic rage.
Maroni forced Boyle’s eyelids open with two fingers.
Ignoring the man’s terrified screams and desperate begging, he pressed the burning tip of his cigar directly against his exposed eye.
The agonizing, shrill screams echoed through the brownstone for a long, terrible time.
A few minutes later, Maroni walked out of his study with elegant, confident steps.
He snapped his fingers to call over his chief enforcer.
“Pack the body exactly the way I told you.
Then deliver it straight to Mr.
Harvey Dent.” “Hold on.” As if he had just remembered something, Maroni called the guard back.
He stepped closer, grabbed the guard’s chin, and turned his face from side to side, studying his features.
“Oh, Jesus Christ…
Your face is absolutely perfect.” …
After a small chat over coffee, Vincent finally left Selina’s apartment.
Fortunately, he had worried for nothing.
The girl didn’t try anything, and they really did just have coffee.
Compared to all the seductive tricks she had used before, Selina seemed to have dropped the Catwoman act and treated him like a genuine friend.
It was a huge relief.
But right before he left, she had dropped a casual bomb.
“I almost forgot to ask,” Selina had said, leaning against the doorframe.
“Do you know who owns that aircraft that pulled us out of the river the other night?
The thing looked like a massive bat.” *The Batwing?
So I wasn’t the only one who saw it!* Vincent felt like he was losing his mind.
Every single time he convinced himself to abandon his obsession with Batman, a new piece of evidence would drop right in front of him, as if the dark knight was intentionally playing hide-and-seek with his sanity.
*Forget it.
Don’t think about it.* Since he was already on a sinking ship, he might as well give up on the righteous path for good.
His only real concern was what would happen if Batman suddenly appeared once he and Oswald became too powerful.
That was why he kept pushing Oswald into the spotlight.
According to the original story, Penguin was always meant to become one of Gotham’s biggest crime bosses anyway.
As long as he maintained an unbreakable bond with Oswald right now, he could comfortably hide behind the Penguin’s shadow and live a peaceful, quiet life.
Vincent didn’t want to be a two-faced, calculating bastard, but if you wanted to survive in a city like Gotham, you had to play dirty.
As he walked down the street, he saw a group of thugs beating a homeless man.
Hearing the man’s painful screams, Vincent frowned.
But unlike that day on the train, he had changed.
He didn’t step in.
He gave them a cold glance, pulled his jacket tighter around himself, and walked away into the darkness.
The city was slowly turning his heart to stone.
As he reached the intersection, his phone buzzed.
He slid the screen open to see Gordon’s name flashing on the display.
“Are you free?
Someone wants to meet you.” “Harvey Dent?” Vincent asked immediately.
He glanced at a newspaper by the curb.
The front page was completely dominated by Dent’s inauguration, featuring a huge picture of him beneath a bold headline: *Can the White Knight Bring Hope to Gotham?* “Yeah,” Gordon said in his gravelly voice.
“He wants to bring down Maroni first, and he needs your insight into the situation.” Vincent hesitated.
He knew he had to face Harvey Dent sooner or later, but definitely not right now.
At this exact moment, every mob crew in Gotham was hyper-focused on the new District Attorney.
Meeting the man under the spotlight was a death sentence.
“Why me?” “Because you’re the only civilian I can trust with this, and I figure you’re the most likely to cooperate.” “Then you figured wrong.” Vincent prepared to end the call, but his thumb hovered over the hang-up button, trembling.
He was paralyzed with doubt.
He had checked the comic book in his pocket earlier, and every page was blank.
Blank pages meant the story had reached a critical turning point.
In the past, the comic only updated when the story reached a life-or-death climax.
The fact that the comic was blank before the chapter even began meant the choice he was making now was deadly.
One wrong move, and he wouldn’t live to see tomorrow.
His gut told him that this meeting would decide whether he lived or died.
“Meet me at the station in thirty minutes,” Vincent sighed, giving in.
“Tell Dent to cover his face and leave through the back alley.
No one can see him leave.” He hung up and walked into a clothing store on the corner.
He took off his black suit; the standard outfit of Falcone’s men; messed up his slicked-back hair, and bought a loose, oversized gray hoodie.
With the hood pulled low, he looked like a completely different person.
At the agreed time, Gordon led him through the busy, noisy bullpen of the precinct and into a private conference room.
Harvey Dent was already waiting.
The second Vincent walked in, the DA stood up and extended a hand.
Dent had a strong, powerful handshake.
His skin had a slightly yellowish tone compared to most white men.
He had a square jaw and a prominent nose.
He wasn’t handsome in the usual way, but the confidence in his smile gave him a presence that rivaled Vincent’s.
After a brief introduction, Dent offered a calm suggestion.
“Before we dive into the details, we should shut off our cellphones.” Vincent didn’t argue.
He pulled out his phone, popped the battery casing open, and tossed the pieces onto the table.
“You’re a cautious man,” Dent noted, his eyes flashing with approval.
“I think our partnership is going to be very productive.” …
Meanwhile, outside the abandoned Senate building in the Lower District, Oswald slammed his steering wheel in frustration and parked his Mustang by the curb.
This was the fifth consecutive day of his recruitment drive.
He didn’t know if the casino massacre had permanently ruined the Roman Empire’s reputation, or if Dent’s speech had scared off the low-level thugs, but he hadn’t managed to sign up a single soldier.
He was just wasting gas money.
He had talked confidently about crushing Maroni and knocking Falcone off his throne, but right now he was just a low-level captain who couldn’t even recruit a crew.
His dream of ruling Gotham felt like a sick joke.
Oswald found himself missing Vincent.
Whenever his head was in a mess, grabbing a drink and talking to Vincent always set him straight.
But Vincent had left early in the morning and still hadn’t returned, even though it was nearly midnight.
He looked at the passenger seat.
The hot dogs he had bought for Vincent were cold, and the beer was no longer cold.
Leaning his head against the car window, Oswald opened a can and took two big gulps of warm beer.
*Tap, tap.* Someone knocked the glass.
“Are you Mr.
Oswald?” The man standing outside wore a fedora pulled low enough to shade half his face, paired with dark sunglasses in the middle of night.
He looked suspicious as hell.
Oswald’s entire posture locked into defensive mode.
His right hand grabbed the door lock while his left slid behind his belt, wrapping around the hilt of his daggers, ready to slice.
But the moment the man lowered his sunglasses a little, revealing his face, Oswald’s grip went limp.
His jaw dropped, and his cheeks puffed out like an angry pufferfish.
He never in a million fucking years expected this specific man to hunt him down.
“Harvey Dent!” …