For a brief moment—even the savage, iron-hearted Black Mask froze.
Then, slowly… he laughed.
It was mockery. Sharp, slicing, laced with contempt so thick it could choke.
"Hahahaha—officer, are you serious?" he said at last, eyes glittering like dying stars under that death's-head mask. "You're gonna help me?"
He drew himself up like a stage actor delivering a grand monologue, hands behind his back, striding in a half-circle around Adam with theatrical disdain.
"With all due respect, I don't see a damn thing you can do for me. What.. are you offering to be my defense lawyer? Gonna send me some big-titted brunette to whisper legalese into a judge's ear?"
A ripple of laughter erupted from the goons around him, knuckles cracking, eyes gleaming, as they looked to their boss for the cue to turn this into a bloodbath.
Black Mask just kept talking.
"Let me enlighten you, little cop. I've got a platoon of lawyers. Harvard-trained. Paid in gold and favors. I don't need help."
He gestured lazily at the still-bleeding corpse beside them.
"See this guy?" he said, calm as if commenting on the weather. "Chicago boys would've strung him up in a slaughterhouse. Let the stench of dead pigs mask the blood. Grind him down into meat filler. Lunchables for low-income families."
He leaned slightly closer to Adam, voice dropping.
"Me? I'm classier than that."
He pointed at the concrete pillars rising unfinished from the floor.
"I'll pour him into the foundation. Let him become part of the building he failed to finish. Mix his bones with the rebar. And when I'm done, I'll take his wife to that exact spot… and we'll have a romantic night right over his grave. Poetic, don't you think?"
Adam's expression didn't change, but behind his eyes, calculations were spinning.
So that's it. Black Mask had known the project would turn a profit. He'd already seized the land as collateral, then bled the man dry so he could claim the profits solo. A clean sweep. No partners. No witnesses. Just the sweet hum of a money machine lubricated with blood.
"You misunderstood," Adam said finally, his voice tight.
He didn't explain further. Instead, he walked past the sneering killer. Straight to the mangled corpse on the ground.
And then he did something that made even Gotham's monsters stop and stare.
Adam picked up a broken brick.
And started smashing the man's skull.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The gunshot wound had already ruptured the bone, but Adam turned it into rubble. Blood and brain matter sprayed across his coat, into his hair, onto the floor. Wet, sticky thuds echoed like hammer strikes in a morgue.
"This isn't real," Adam muttered under his breath, brick rising and falling. "This is just a comic. A movie. Some sketch on a fucking storyboard. He's not a person. He's not—he's not real."
Adam grabbed another.
It wasn't rage. It wasn't cruelty. It was survival. He had to do this. He had to make a point. Even if it cracked his soul open in the process.
At last, breath ragged, face dripping, he reached into the ruined skull and plucked something out.
A warped, blood-soaked bullet.
The very same one that had ended the man's life.
Adam turned and held it out.
For a moment, no one moved.
Black Mask didn't take it. Just stared at Adam like he was seeing a rare animal in a glass tank. Dangerous. Exotic. Unpredictable.
Adam didn't flinch. He casually lowered the bullet, flipped it in his palm, and turned to address the room.
"You wanna bury him in the concrete?" he said, voice sharp as glass. "Fine. That's efficient. But you better be damn careful."
He raised the bullet.
"Because this—this—doesn't melt. Doesn't vanish. Thirty years from now, some repairman hits the wrong beam, finds a skull, and this little souvenir? It leads straight back to you."
"You think you're above the law. Maybe you are. But warheads leave traces. Residue. Trajectory. Heat pattern. Fingerprints."
He paused. Smiled grimly.
"And guess what? That… is my department."
The tension in the air thickened like smoke.
Finally, Black Mask broke the silence.
He chuckled softly, his tone laced with curiosity now. He made a casual gesture, and one of his thugs walked over to take the bullet from Adam's palm.
"Well," he said, voice low and amused, "that was dramatic."
He stepped closer, looming over Adam.
"It's been a long time since anyone's greeted me like that," he said, relighting his cigar, the cherry flare glowing briefly under the skull mask. "Not even the street kings talk to me like that anymore. You know why?"
He took a slow drag, then exhaled through the side of his mask.
"Because they're all dead."
Adam didn't answer. Just held his ground. Blood dried against his face. Hands trembling, but not from fear.
Black Mask tilted his head, genuinely intrigued.
"So… are you really a cop?" he asked. "Since when did that loser Loeb have men like you under him?"
Didn't move. Didn't speak.
Because if he opened his mouth, he'd puke all over Roman's custom loafers.
But Black Mask didn't notice. He mistook the silence for something else.
"Well now," he said, finally stepping back, "you didn't just come here to pay your debt, did you?"
He gestured with the hand holding his cigar, circling it in the air like a maestro conducting the conversation.
"You've got something else in mind, don't you?"
Adam nodded once, steady. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn NovᴇlFir(e).nᴇt
Black Mask leaned in close. Real close.
"Well then, let's hear it."
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