[b][center][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1PAkKD3Q4]Ready or Not: 
Pt. I[/url][/center]
[/b]

[@DocTachyon]

[b]Blüdhaven
3:15 PM[/b]



Carmine Falcone scowled as he stepped out the back of his limo and headed inside the lobby of the Blüdhaven Four Seasons. As bad as Gotham was, Blüdhaven was a real shit-hole. It'd always been in Gotham's shadow, and it was easy to guess why. The town wasn't even a third the size of Gotham, but the city's crime was almost on par with Gotham's. He had a few business associates here, but nothing too serious. You could make money but it was just chump-change to a guy with rackets like his. Plus this place was like the goddamn wild west with all the hits and drive-by shootings that went on. It wasn't civilized here. The criminals who ran this place were savages. Fuck Russo, he thought. Sending him out all the way out here for this meeting.

Falcone headed through the opulent lobby with two of his bodyguards flanking him. They headed to the conference room where Falcone and his men were the last to arrive. The ugly son of a bitch with the square head was already waiting. Hammerhead sat at the table with three of his men behind him. They looked impassively at Falcone and his guys, sizing the three mobsters up.

"Here he is," a voice from the head of the table said with a touch of humor in his voice. Billy "The Beaut" Russo, acting boss of the Gnucci Family, walked towards Falcone and warmly embraced him. Falcone managed a strained style as he patted the younger man on the back. 
"You look good, Carmine. Come, have a seat."

Billy was all of thirty-one when he took the reigns of the Gnucci Family from their matriarch. Ma Gnucci got sent up for life at the women's state pen. Since that time Billy had turned the sinking mob family around. He'd gotten a good deal when the families split up Maroni's territory. With confidence, ambition, youth, and now prime territory, Billy Russo was a comer. And he was starting to become a threat to Falcone.

After swapping pleasantries with Falcone, Hammerhead finally asked the question. "Out with it, kid," he grunted. "The hell are we doing here?"

"Exactly," Falcone said as he lit up a cigar. "What's so goddamn important we had to come to the state's sewage pipe to discuss it?"

"Batman," Russo said with a glint in his eyes. "It's time to get rid of him."

"Great plan," Hammerhead said sarcastically. "Why the hell haven't we thought of that before?! We kill Batman, and that's the end of it. Wow, you're a fucking genius."

"Funny," Russo said. "But here's the thing: you've sent killers after him and they've all failed. I finally got the right guy for the job."

Falcone exhaled a swirling plum of smoke from his mouth and looked at Russo, his eyelids have closed. "Hammerhead said the same thing six months ago. That weird fuck with the target on his head."

"That was the problem," Russo said. "You sent killers. The man I have for is so much more."

"That explains it," Hammerhead said with a sigh. "I figure that's why you called us here. Afraid the big, bad bat is listening."

"You can never be too careful," Russo said with a nod.

"How much," Falcone asked, stubbing his cigar in the ashtray beside him.

"Pretty cheap. Only a half mil from all of us."

"A half mil?" Hammerhead asked with a raised eyebrow. "Just a mil and a half for this job? It cost us five mil for Bullseye. Why's this guy cheap?"

"He gets off on it," Russo said. "Thrill of the chase and all that. He's here. Let me bring him out."

Both Hammerhead and Falcone stared at the man as he came in. His outlandish outfit threw both mobsters for a loop.

"This guy?" Falcone asked with a laugh. "He looks like a goddamn acrobat, not a killer."

"Killer is not what you need," the man said with a slight Russian accent. "Killer is what you used before. Killer will not work. You have animal problem in your city, you do not call killer..."

[img]https://comicvine1.cbsistatic.com/uploads/original/6/66472/1307080-kraven_3.jpg[/img]

"You call hunter."