One Winter Knight | Arkhamverse

Chapter 4: Hell's Gate

"She wore a smile like a loaded gun," ~ Atticus

Jacqueline Martell is having a fairly ordinary day. The familiar buzzing chaos of the Gotham Globe bustles around her, the thirty-five-year-old journalist accustomed to the anarchy that ensues once the media catches wind of vigilante or crime lord drama. Very little has been disclosed in regards to last night's events, which is no surprise to the South African born journalist. The police likely know about as much as they do at this point in time, despite several media outlets – including her own – grilling them for every last fragment of information known.

An empty dockyard between Blüdhaven and Gotham, and several arrested Black Mask henchmen, courtesy of a vigilante. Likely Nightwing, Jackie surmises, aware of the crime lord's ongoing history with Blüdhaven's defender. Every journalist at the Gotham Globe seems to be in a frenzied panic over the affair, not because it's particularly memorable – cases such as these occur almost nightly in this city – but because it has yet to be reported on. No one, not one media outlet possesses enough information on what transpired last night to write a legible story on it yet. With Roman Sionis inching in closer and closer to Gotham once again, every move he takes is piquing the interest of journalists citywide, waiting for the rogue to establish a foot of power in this city like he did many a year ago. If there's one thing Jackie has learned over the years she's resided in this city, it's that once a person in power falls within the criminal underworld, a power vacuum is left behind. It's taken three long, frighteningly quiet months, but the thirty-five-year-old can see it playing out now. With Salvatore Maroni gone, and his entire empire with him, the other bosses have begun to make their moves. Perhaps not in the eyes of the media yet, but it's only a matter of time, especially with more Black Mask crimes being reported around Gotham.

Pushing aside her meddlesome concerns and filing through her emails rather absent-mindedly, blocking out the humming drone of the office around her, a puzzled knot abruptly forms between the brows on Jackie's deep caramel coloured face. The journalist's lips part in shock when one distinct email sticks out like a sore thumb, the name of the sender attached immediately striking a cautious yet intrigued nerve within her.

From: Evangeline Winter

All Jackie can do is stare at the name blankly for a couple minutes, jumbled thoughts tossing and turning and flitting about her head like leaves in the winds of a storm. A million questions begin to press against the journalist's brain already, and Jacqueline hasn't even opened the damn thing yet.

Evangeline Winter is Gotham city's newest big player, the plain Southerner having seemingly come out of nowhere and wiped out one of the longest standing, most powerful crime families in Gotham's history. The Maroni crime family was born when Gotham was born; the only other families that hold the privilege of saying the same being the Falcone crime family and the illustrious socialites, the Waynes. And in one fell swoop, rather like the Godfather, Evangeline Winter, private investigator of Angel Investigations, struck the deep-rooted mafia family clean off the board, all in one night. Being one of the Gotham Globe's more respected journalists, Jackie was even assigned to head the story, running a small team of editors, photographers and other journalists to dig up as much information as possible on the milestone in Gotham history. Her own two daughters, six-year-old Kaya and two-year-old Lilah, thought the detective a hero, vaguely understanding that Maroni is a horrid man, and that Evangeline Winter is the one responsible for his capture.

Miss Winter was admittedly fairly adept in avoiding the media, managing to dodge interviews and questions thrown her way for weeks. Only the photographers bore any fruit in regards to the PI, snapping a couple photos of her around the GCPD precinct and elsewhere. So for Jackie to all of a sudden, unprompted and without any form of communication or provocation, to find an email from the obscure private investigator in her inbox, having never even met the woman, simultaneously excites and puts her on edge. Unable to contain her curiosity bursting at the seams, Jacqueline hovers over the email and opens the message with a firm click against the mouse.