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[center][sup][sub]IV. Consequences[/sub][/sup][/center][hr]
Elektra's mournful, defeated voice played on Matt's mind as he followed Harry Ricci, Mob Lawyer, along his winding night-on-the-town. He played the short, awkward conversation over and over in his mind, only paying half-attention to the movements of his target - but enough to notice that, despite bouncing from bar to bar to bar all evening - the better part of four hours since finding him initially - the smell of alcohol was one that merely clinged to Ricci, rather than originated from him. When the wind hit him Matt could smell only cola, not bourbon, on his breath, and his heartbeat had been the elevated [i]thudthudthud[/i] of a stressed and anxious man all night, and not the lax [i]thump - thump[/i] of a sedated drunkard like many of the other patrons of the bars and club that Ricci had visited this evening. They were making a slow, winding path downtown, inching ever closer and closer to the address that had been whispered to Ricci some hours earlier; but Matt couldn't help but wonder why he bothered with the charade of trawling the clubs at all, rather than heading straight to the end destination. It reeked of suspicion. It reeked of a trap. Matt double checked his positioning, ensuring he was following at a safe distance, reassuring himself that he hadn't been made. The trail continued to the next block over - 35th - and as Ricci entered yet another bar, Matt chose the moment to softly descend from the rooftop via a fire escape on the exterior of the building. He hit the ground with a [i]crunch[/i] and crouched low, hunkering down behind a large dumpster to wait for Ricci. The address was now just two streets over; Matthew had no doubt this bar was the last before the end destination, and whatever or whoever lay there for Ricci.

Matt wasn't sure what to prepare for, but he poised on the balls of his feet and hovered his hands over the holsters of his batons on his thighs nonetheless; the night was noisy, thick with the smell and heat of drunkards young and old. Matt lost himself in them, letting his senses wander the street, astrally moving from couple to couple, in and out of bars. A whiskey chaser and laughter at the one friend who chucked it down the wrong pipe and now spluttered, heat blossoming on their cheeks. A jibe and a joke as a group left one bar and debated on the next, each member arguing for their own suggestion and deriding the others. A couple sitting across from each other, a glass of wine each, fingers wordlessly intertwined and a heat building at their cores as the woman used her legs to play with her partner's. Two long-time friends reuniting, arguing over who gets to purchase the first round, a warm, loving tone in both voices, before the decision is made and four drinks are bought, a clink of glasses saying more than either of them could put into words. All of this surrounded Matthew, a living, breathing city of good people with kind hearts. 

But surrounding [i]that[/i] was the darkness Matthew fought against. Up high in the flats above him, there were sobs as a husband drunkenly berated his wife and son.  In the next building over, halfway up, two young men - too young to be in this world, but involved all the same - compared guns and knives and organised weed, cocaine, and heroin for a night of selling. Two streets over, shivering women in provocative clothing solicited passing men, their hearts thudding with cold and anxiety about bringing enough money back to their pimp. It was always there, cloying and clawing at Matt's mind, an underlying decay that threatened to rot away the very foundations of the city and bring it all down until everything sunk into the murky pits that the bad men and women of Hell's Kitchen called home. He would not - [i]could[/i] not - allow them to hollow out his city any more. He had made small progress since beginning his crusade, the saviour of the people, beating back would-be muggers and rapists, assaulting laundering operations or arms deals. But these were simply symptoms of a greater illness; now, Matthew needed to be the cure to the disease, not the medication to treat it. He needed to go after the biggest fish he could. The assault began here and now, with Ricci and his mysterious contact.

The door to the bar Matt was watching from his vantage point in the alley across the street swung open, and from it erupted sound and smells, but Matthew cared only about the smell of Ricci's cologne and the sound of Ricci's heartbeat. The cologne was tinged with a nervous sweat now, and his heartbeat had elevated to an even higher level. Matthew was worried his mark might pop and have a brain aneurysm before they reached the meeting point.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Ricci's brain remained unruptured as he stepped out of the bar and let the door close behind him, straightening his tie as he looked up and down the street both ways. Matthew waited for a few tense moments, holding his breath unconciously, and then Ricci turned and began walk to their final destination, one block over. 34th and Lexington; a nondescript street with a bodega and laundrette on one side, and low-income apartment buildings on the other. There was a service alley down the side of the bodega and Matthew could already feel the presence of someone there, a low heat and a steady pulse as they waited patiently. Ricci beelined for the alleyway, and Matthew tensed up in anticipation. This was it.

The man nodded as Ricci approached and then he asked, as previously instructed, for a 'house special with a sour twist'. The contact nodded again, and wordlessly retrieved something from his coat before handing it to Ricci. It seemed to be some manner of large envelope, but it was bulky and Matthew heard a rattle from within as Ricci gripped it, a sound that seemed familiar to him but he was somehow unable to place within the context. Whatever was in that envelope, it was what Ricci had arrived for. The contact spoke as Ricci tore the top of the envelope off and peered at what was inside. His heartbeat spiked again, and now Matthew began to move across the street to the alleyway, his own pulse rising as he prepared for action.

"You've done excellent work thusfar, and he extends his gratitude. He asks you for only for one final favour."

Ricci gave him a long stare, and then nodded with a particular sense of finality. 

"The organisation thanks you for your commendable loyalty. Naturally, we all wish you good luck."

The contact left and Matthew waited for Ricci to move before he approached - but Ricci didn't move, he just stood in the alley alone, clutching his envelope and...waiting. Matthew grew impatient. He removed his batons from their holsters and stepped around the corner, quiet and menacing, letting his boots crunch on the badly-kept ground of the alleyway to announce his presence, doing his best to appear intimidating and frightening. Ricci pushed his hand into his envelope as he turned around and Matthew immediately broke into a sprint as he realised where he recognised that metallic rattling and slight clinking. Ricci had pulled a pistol out, and as the envelope dropped to the ground he stretched out his arm and pulled the trigger haphazardly, squeezing it over and over. Matthew threw himself into a slide underneath the first two bullets, feeling the air split in front of them and the shockwaves of pressure left behind them, the white-heat of the shot lingering in the gun's barrel before exploding again and again and again, every new shot another cacophony that overwhelmed Matt's mind; from the slide he slung himself into a sideways roll before springing up and pushing a boot against the wall to vault backwards. Sparks and mortar flew as a bullet crumpled against brick where Matthew had been mere moments before - and as Matt practically flew through the air, propelled by adrenaline alone, he swung his batons down on Ricci's arm, shattering the radius bone and putting his shooting arm out of action. Matt landed to the side and flipped, bringing his boot aggressively into Ricci's chest and taking him to the floor, before following the fall with his baton again, this time cracking ribs. The gun clattered to the floor, and Matthew stood slowly, looming over the panting Ricci. He made a vague clawing at the discarded pistol with his non-broken arm, and Matt stepped on his wrist with an aggressive amount of pressure, letting Ricci squirm and groan for a few seconds before he dropped and drove his knee into the side of his head, knocking Ricci unconscious, and allowing Matt to search his body.

There wasn't much; change and small notes from the bars, a balled up napkin that reeked of sweat, a wallet with a few business cards and very little else. In his left jacket pocket, however, Matt found a phone - modern, sleek. No case. He flipped the silent switch on the side off and pressed the home button, feeling the faintest whirring from within as it fired up out of standby, but there was no forthcoming click as the phone unlocked; he pressed the home button again, and the phone gave out a slight vibration. Entry locked. He had a good idea how to gain passage however; reaching down, he took the broken arm of Ricci in hand - the dominant hand, he made an educated guess at, as it had been the hand Ricci had taken the pistol in initially - and pressed the thumb against the home button. The phone unlocked, and Murdock dropped the arm, to a significant groan from the groggy, semi-unconcious Ricci. He held the home button down until the voice command system activated.

"Activate text-to-speech dictation." The phone dinged with an affirmative. "Open messages." The phone made a swishing sound as the relevant app opened, and at this point, began to dictate the names of those whom Ricci currently held conversations with. Matt listened with growing impatience as the phone listed known low-level mob thugs, local business, several different females including one that shared Ricci's name...and then it said 'Kingpin', with as much anticlimactic aplomb as Matthew would expect a waiter reading the day's special soup for the fifth time in one dinner order. His heart skipped a beat, and he opened his mouth to say, 'Open my conversation with Kingpin', but only got as far as "Open-" before he heard Ricci's weight shifting behind him with a considerable groan, and then that metallic clank of the gun being picked up from the ground, and how could he have been so [i]careless[/i] to not have kicked it away, clenching the phone in hand as he tensed his legs to dive out of the way of the incoming bullet-

There was a gunshot that felt louder than any of the shots before it, but Matthew felt no air splitting in his direction, no belch of heat towards him. He heard a wet, squelching sound; the unmistakable thick trickle of blood hitting ground; a low, moaning gurgle. The smell of fresh blood exploded forth, and he heard Ricci's pulse quiver and become thinner and faster  - and then there was a final, sickening [i]thud[/i] and a following clatter of metal on concrete. 

Matt turned around. He already knew where the last bullet had gone, and it mattered little now. Angry as he was, any frustration or rage at lost answers - or even lost lives - was impotent and irrelevant. The phone pinged, vibrating as it rang and dictated its call aloud. 

'INCOMING CALL FROM: KINGPIN'

Matthew answered, and brought the phone to his ear. He couldn't bring himself to find appropriate words. He wasn't sure he needed to. The dulcet, menacing tones of his nemesis soon erased all other thoughts from his mind.

"[b]I am so sorry that we must first meet in such unpleasant circumstances. Believe me, were your self-imposed involvement in my affairs not to have come at such... inopportune a time, I may have admired your...tenacity. Alas, your indomitable efforts have proved an unbearable thorn in my side, and so, the time has come for such an opponent to be...removed. Obviously, my men have found themselves...outmatched, in the past. And it would seem that subterfuge, though poorly executed, still underestimates your abilities. And so, we have come to the only remaining solution to you, my final problem.[/b]"

Matt cleared his throat. "I am far from your [i]final[/i] problem. Even if you kill me, there will be more that come for you. And I will [i]not go down easy.[/i]"

Through the phone, Kingpin chuckled, and Matt struck the wall with the baton in his free hand, removing a chunk of brick at the impact point."[b]Please, have no doubt that I [i]will[/i] kill you. But before that...[i]inevitable[/i] end, I will first make an [i]example[/i] of you. I will show the world that those who seek to hinder me will lose...[i]everything.[/i] You see, this city is [i]mine[/i]. And it shall [i]remain[/i]. Mine. What you do now is of no concern; you have already chosen your fate, and the fates of others, through your actions. There is a universal truth, [i]Mr. Murdock.[/i] And it is that everything...[i]everything.[/i] Has consequences.[/b]"

The phone hit the ground before the line went dead. Matthew was already running.