Numb.

That was the only word Sarah Wright's present state of mind allowed her vocabulary to describe how it was feeling. The police had arrived as she had a thousand times, and within minutes they'd secured her living room to run forensics. She sat on the loveseat in the den, just in the next room with her nightgown pulled up around her and a fresh cup of coffee sitting on the glass table in front of her.

She'd always liked that table. It was expensive… and it was too small for the room… but she'd bought it anyway. Sarah blinked at it and turned her head, as if by shame.

"I can't go on lying to you, Sarah," One of the detectives read Michael's suicide note out loud, holding it between his gloved fingers. He sighed, and even though Sarah couldn't see him through the wall of her den, she could tell his head was shaking. "Poor bastard." Sarah winced.

"Have some fuckin' respect, Dave. She's still in the house."

Her eyes lowered slowly, her expression dampening as she glanced over to the steaming coffee sitting on the table in front of her, and she considered taking a sip.

"Sarah Wright?"

She looked up at the doorway of the den to the familiar detective standing there in a long coat and holding another cup of coffee, assuming that she would have already finished the first one he'd poured for her. When he noticed she hadn't touched the first one, he set it down on the way in. Sarah nodded slowly and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with her free hand, her eyes turning from him. "Yeah." She said after a few seconds, for the sake of answering his question, and the one that would inevitably come after it, which he asked anyway.

"My name is Detective Jason Dodson. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions about your husband?"

She nodded again and curled her legs up on the couch beside her, holding them there with her free hand. The detective took a seat on the couch across from her and sat forward, his two index fingers propping up his chin once he'd set the file folders down on his lap. "Do you have any idea why your husband would commit suicide, Mrs. Wright?"

She shook her head and swallowed, trying to hold back another outburst of tears that began welling up in her throat. After a breath she was finally able to speak, but the words came out runny and choked. "We were happy…"

Dodson dropped his eyes out of respect, his fingers untwining the red string that secured the flap on the file folders, slowly and deliberately so, as if they didn't want to have to reveal what they knew were inside. "Ma'am… did you know that your husband was involved in organized crime?"

What remained of the pulsating mass that had once been her heart detonated into razor fragments and her eyes shot up at him, deeply offended. How could he say something like that to her? How could…

"H-….How could…?" She quivered, raising her free hand to cover her mouth as her eyes distorted and the tears came. "How could you say that…?"

Jason Dodson was merciless. "Mrs. Wright, we have reason to believe that Michael was involved in an mob activities for several years. The NYPD have evidence that point towards Michael being caught up with some very dangerous people. We believe that he committed suicide to protect you from them."

Sarah's numbness ebbed away, and a dagger of white-hot pain shot through her chest, which she winced to, her face contorting in a noiseless cough as the tears streamed down her face. Detective Dodson began sliding various file photos and documents out of the folder, his eyes averted to give her time to digest the information. He was merciless, but he was not heartless. Sarah began to wonder, painfully, the difference between the two.

"Why?" She asked, her red, puffy eyes demanded angrily. She wasn't entirely sure where this new anger had come from, but she held on to it, clutched it. For it was less painful than sorrow.

Dodson ignored her question entirely, instead continuing his point. "We can stop the people that Michael was involved with, Sarah, but we need your help. Is there anything, anything at all that could point us in their direction?" His eyes pleaded with her out of sympathy and compassion, but Sarah would have none of it. "Did he mention anything to you about his career… or the people he worked with…?"

Mike was a flourist. He worked in a greenhouse… he would bring her home flowers when she was sad… when they were fighting…

"No." She said, her eyes defiant. "He didn't tell me anything."

Dodson leaned forward in her peripheral vision, and Sarah looked up, noticing that he'd extended a card to her. "Take it." He said, "If you need anything- give me a call."

Sarah took his card and held it up as if she were reading it, but her eyes were focused on Detective Dodson, unmoving, as she studied his face. She nodded slowly, not necessarily to his words, but perhaps to humor him. Jason stood and put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing sympathetically as the investigators and police officers gathered their forensics and finished taking photographs, moving to leave the apartment. "We'll get them, Sarah." The hand lifted.

"I promise."

Sarah didn't watch him leave.

Hate.

That was the only word Sarah Wright's present state of mind allowed her vocabulary to describe how it was feeling. She hated the people that did this to Michael. She hated the police for being powerless. And she hated herself for not knowing. She could feel her grief beginning to melt away. Her hatred consumed the substance of her very soul. It burned out the fine lines of logic and ate away at her sanity. She found it comforting. It whispered devilish nothings in her ear. Her hatred was less painful than her grief. She succumbed to it, accepted it, and became it. Her hatred allowed her to blink the tears from her eyes and crumple Dodson's card in her fist, her eyes lowering in pure fury and unthinking anger.

"Yes," She whispered, standing slowly and letting the tails of her nightgown swing open.

"We will get them."

'Central.'

The car pulled up on the lateral street, overlooking the squared-out landscape of central park. It was too early in the morning for anyone to be around there now. Everyone was too afraid to go near the park until the sun came up. It was too dangerous. The driver killed the headlights and sat silently, watching. His gloved hands gripping the steering wheel as if he were about to be blown free.

'It was a sunny day the last time I was here. Thirty years and I can still remember the expression on my wife's face when she crumpled on the grass.'

The car started forward at a trolling pace, stalking along the street. The driver's face was stone and steel, unmoving, illuminated only by the occasional passing headlight from traffic moving in the opposite direction.

'Central Park is a graveyard filled with ghosts and buried shell casings. With wise guys wearing cement boots and skeletons with gags in their mouths. Police tape and witnesses. Saints and sinners.

And for twelve dollars a man with a horse can give you a tour.'

The driver knew nobody would attack him outright. Too many tourists, too many people to be caught in the crossfire. Too many wasted bullets. The real war, he knew, took place behind closed doors and in the darkness of the labyrinthine alley ways and ditches. So the people from out of town could enjoy the sunshine and the bliss without having to live with what everyone else knew was going on behind those doors and in those alleys.

Where the world was still sane and gas prices were low.

'Every time I kick the door in, every time I set the explosives, every time I find myself getting lazy, getting sloppy, Maria and Lisa and Frank Jr. look back at me and I shoot straight. Fight harder. And keep going.

But they're dead. And nothing I do is going to change that.

So I live every day like it was their last.'

The car parked slowly in a lot connected to a small diner, which according to the sign on the door wouldn't be open for another four hours. To the general public this declaration was valid.

For drug pushers, murderers, sadists and psychos- it was ladies' night.

The Punisher lowered his eyes.

'If my information is correct- which it always is- this diner's a front for a number of illegal activities.

Narcotic trafficking, prostitution, and illegal gambling.

A pimp gave me a key to the back door before he bled out, so I figured I'd give it a shot.

If Malachi has strings attached to this place, I'm going to follow them straight to his fingers.

Then I'm going to chop them off.'

Castle spun around the circumference of the car and opened the trunk, taking its contents into both hands and pulling them out. A duffel bag in one hand and an Uzi in the other. He made his way brazenly towards the back of the building across the parking lot, tossing the bag carelessly next to the door and fished around inside of his coat until he retrieved a set of keys attached to an eight ball key chain, shoving it into the lock and twisting before shoving the door open with his fingers and snatching up the bag again, heading downstairs.

The basement was nothing but strobe, dark, and blaring music that sounded like the vocalist was vomiting into a bucket with a throat ache. A sea of people pulsated and vibrated against each other in the darkness, with dancers elevated above them grinding against poles.

Half of them were under aged minors.

'Fuck this.'

The sound of gunfire reverberated through the sound-proof basement so loud nobody could scream. Halfway through the thirty round magazine, somebody got the idea that turning the lights on and killing the music would be a good idea.

Castle stood with a meter-wide circle of breadth around him, every set of eyes in the room were locked on him, unable to do anything but not blink.

"I'm going to reload now- and when I'm done I'm going to shoot anyone still in this room." He dropped the magazine out of his weapon and fished around inside his coat. When nobody moved Castle frowned.

'Three…

two…

one…'

"I-I-It's the PUNISHER!"

"He's going to kill us all!"

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"

"Run!"

The Punisher dropped the duffel bag and fed another magazine into his sub-machine gun, jerking back the locking bolt as soon as the room had cleared out.

'They better not scratch my car.'

His blue eyes glanced over to the women cowering in the corner. By the look of them, the average age was sixteen. Castle strode over to them, the weapon held at his side and his eyes cold and lowered. None of them were brave enough to ask what they were all wondering, but none of them had to.

"You're okay, I'm not going to hurt you."

The words didn't seem to help very much, and did even less to aliviate their fears. The Punisher was about to say something when he heard movement behind the bar. He clutched his weapon tighter and sneered.

"Get out of here and call the police. Right now."

They did as they were told. Unquestioningly. That was good, because he didn't want them to see what he was about to do to their boss who threw his hands up and waved a white handkerchief, his head still ducked behind the bar.

"I surrender!"

A hand of gloved steel grabbed him by the back of his collar and jerked him to his feet, followed by a second one in the form of a fist in his nose. Blood splattered, and the man was thrown backwards into the shelves of his illegal bar, sending a variety of alcohol spilling out onto the floor.

"Business been good lately? Do you pay them student wages? Or do they volunteer?"

The same set of hands took hold of him again and dragged him across the bar, throwing him out on the dance floor. The man rolled as he landed and tried to scramble to his feet when a boot caught him in the groin and he jolted into the air, landing on his stomach with a yelp of missing wind.

"Let's tell each other secrets," The Punisher kicked him again in the side, then reached down and pulled him up within a hand's breadth of his sneering face. The owner wet himself.

Castle curled a lip at him, scowling as he explained the rules of his game.

"You first."