Revenge is Best Served Cold

Let the Bodies Hit the Floor

Chief Anderson was eating a huge doughnut as one of his cops entered his office.

-Chief, apparently some big guy from the mob has just been found in the bottom of the river.

-How?

-Seems like an intern execution.

The middle-aged man groaned. Mobsters ruled the whole city, hell, the whole country. It was almost necessary to beg the mob to investigate anything mob-related.

-Collect evidence. Tag everything, file it. - The Chief said, cleaning the raspberry jam mess that fell over his tie.

Then several phones started ringing at the same time and all hell broke loose.

Five heads of families had been found dead in extremely secluded and protected places.

In the next days, seven different mobsters from different ranks turned up dead, each one in more secluded and impossible to reach places, which difficulties the whole operation to the point they had to borrow officers from all over the city to look for the mob families thugs on their hideouts.

Bodies started piling up on the morgues as more dead mobsters were found.

Bucky had been following the news as the killings had the criminals scared to death when he received a message from Sam asking him to meet him at the nearest precinct.

Chief Anderson looked like he hadn't slept for the whole week as he greeted both the Avengers.

-What's the occasion? - Sam asked the middle-aged guy with a bald spot on his head.

-Mobsters. Dying like flies. - He replied as he threw a folder over one of the investigator's desk with a frustrated sigh.

-And why do you need us? - Bucky wondered, narrowing my eyes on the guy's gesture.

He massaged his face roughly and sighed, indicating that we shhould follow him to his office.

He closed the door behind them and the man let out an exhasperaed sigh.

-We suspect the person might be a mutant. - Anderson let out as he started gathering folders and handed them to the men.

-Why? - Sam asked as Bucky started looking into the pages.

-It's... Simply not possible. - The guy explained.

The killings really sounded impossible.

The men were afraid, so they were hiding in bunkers, places virtually impossible to reach.

They all died in a matter of a few weeks.

-This thing, this is all wrong. We don't even have a clue. The killings have been done in a meticulous and clean way. No clues, no witnesses, and especially, they were all criminals. Mob guys, absolute scum. The police are just relieved that those guys aren't around anymore. I'm having a rough time convincing them to dig up more. It's completely out of control. Every day people call in to let us know about another low life connected to the mob that was found dead in bizarre places. They were all hiding. - Chief Anderson blurted out, now pacing his small and stuffed office.

Bucky narrowed his eyes at the files as he read them. The guy wasn't lying: one of the guys had been found dead inside his bunker. He was completely alone and locked from within. His men had to blow down the door to find him.

-All of them follow the same pattern: a knife to the chest, horrified looks on their faces, and a pen-drive with all of their felonies specified with dates, footage, bills, evidence, everything. - Anderson told them as he massaged his temples. Bucky looked at Sam and he raised a brow at him.

-Let us examine one of the bodies. - Sam asked the man.

The morgue literally had more bodies in than they could handle. The ongoing investigations required the bodies to be available for an undetermined time period and the whole thing was messy beyond limits.

Bucky frowned as the medical staff led them between the narrow corridors filled with improvised stretchers that added to the dreadful and sinister sensation of being in a morgue.

The legist led them to one of the most detailed killings and Bucky observed the body stretched in front of the men.

"Pedophile pig" was written all over the mobster's putrid skin, hiding between his many tattoos and scars. Bucky squinted his eyes on the crafty work.

Someone had used their time to carve some of the words with a knife before the guy died.

-This guy. Why would he receive this special treatment? - Sam asked and Bucky hummed as they inspected the skin.

-I know this guy. - Bucky said in a low tone as the legist walked out of the room and Sam raised a brow at him.

-He was a smuggler. I knew him from the time in Hydra. - Bucky explained and Sam didn't press further.

-Let's go. - Sam said and Bucky simply nodded, anxious to get out of there. The smell of death was sticking into his nose and he hated the feeling.

Sam and Bucky went to the nearest caffé to talk over the case.

-It's passionate. Someone is putting a lot of work into killing these guys. It's not only an inside job, it's a very personal, very insider job. - Sam observed as Bucky picked his black coffee and the men chose a table.

-Someone who has been wronged by the mob. But why target all of them? How did the person know all of this? They were in hiding. They knew something was going on. We need to find who knows what. - Bucky said and Sam nodded.

-We also need to know who to trust. At least half the cops must be in someone's pocket. I think we'll need to investigate by ourselves if we want to get to the bottom of it. - Sam looked around, speaking in a slightly hushed tone.

Bucky's phone chimed with a spam message.

-I can't get rid of these spam messages, Wison. I thought you had helped me with those. - Buky mumbled and Sam rolled his eyes.

-Welcome to the 21st century, tin man. There's spam everywhere. - He mused. - Now, where to begin?

-I say we talk to the contacts. The families won't be available if they think they're in danger.

-Agreed. Let's go, then.

The two men went back to the precinct and gathered a list of names of people of interest to search for.

Across the town, two smugglers were being murdered in quiet alleys and dark rooms.