[Roman Sionis POV]
The morning sun hadn't yet touched Gotham, and the city outside his penthouse windows still looked half-asleep, cloaked in pale gray. Inside, Roman Sionis sat reclined in his leather chair, awake far earlier than usual, though his robe and slippers made it seem like he'd never gone to bed at all. A half-empty bottle of whiskey rested on the glass table beside him, and in his hand he cradled a short glass of the same amber poison.
He swirled it lazily, humming a low tune under his breath, staring not at the skyline but into the void of his own thoughts. Last night's move should have ended the Red Hood problem. The matter was supposed to be closed. Yet no amount of alcohol dulled the anxious itch crawling under his skin. It gnawed at him in silence, whispering that the bastard was still out there.
Red Hood felt less like a man and more like some roach that refused to die, no matter how many boots came down on him.
The sudden buzz of his phone cut through the stillness. The vibration rattled faintly against the wooden stool where he had left it, its glow stark against the dim room. Roman's jaw tightened. He knocked back the rest of his whiskey in a single gulp before reaching for the device.
"This better be good news, Li," he said flatly, irritation bleeding into his tone as though he could already smell the stench of disappointment.
"Turns out we underestimated the Red Hood," Li's voice came thin and cautious. "Three of them are dead. Only the woman survived. For some reason… he didn't kill her."
Roman froze for a heartbeat, then sat forward in his chair. "What?" His voice cracked into anger. "Only the bitch survived?" The words spilled sharp and venomous, his teeth bared in disbelief. He slammed his free hand down on the armrest, the sound echoing across the quiet room.
He knew it. He'd known the plan wasn't fulproof from the start, but desperation had pushed him to take it. And now the outcome only confirmed what his gut had screamed all along. The Red Hood wasn't some random thug playing tough—he was relentless, lucky, and far too precise to be taken out like any ordinary rival.
"That bastard's luckier than a turkey surviving Thanksgiving," Roman spat, pacing the words as he pressed his palm against his forehead. "He left her alive for a reason. It's a message. Straight to me." He was overthinking what it meant.
The thought turned his stomach. Red Hood's unpredictability wasn't just a nuisance anymore—it was poison. It made every shadow in the room feel too thick, every silence too loud. His paranoia shifted into overdrive instantly.
"Triple security," he snapped, his voice tightening as if the order itself could anchor him. "He'll come for me next. I know it." He didn't wait for Li's reply before ending the call, tossing the phone back onto the stool with a clatter.
Roman's chest heaved as he poured himself another drink, the clinking of ice cubes sounding harsher than it should. He stalked across the room toward the fireplace, its orange glow spilling over the expensive rug and polished floorboards. Lifting the glass, he raised it halfway to his lips, but his hand stopped trembling in midair. His own reflection flickered in the glass—a man who'd just played his strongest card and missed.
A man marked.
The realization boiled into rage. With a guttural roar, Roman hurled the glass into the flames, shattering it in a burst of whiskey and embers. The fire hissed, swallowing the drink whole, and he stood over it, chest heaving, hands clenched so tightly his knuckles whitened.
He knew the truth, whether he wanted to face it or not. The Red Hood was coming. It wasn't a matter of if. It was a matter of when. And until then, every second of his life would be spent looking over his shoulder, waiting for the ghost in the red mask to finally collect.
- - -
Three days later, Red Hood personally walked Raymond into Big Lou's world, and the introductions went smoother than anyone could have expected. A deal was struck—clean and firm—something both Big Lou and Raymond could live with. On the surface, it looked like simple business, but Jason knew it was more than that. He'd just shifted the balance of power in that faction of Gotham without firing a single bullet.
The rest of the week was spent tightening his grip. He moved through the streets like a shadow, diverting drug traffickers operating under his territory away from Black Mask's supply line. Instead, he funneled them under the wings of Big Lou and Sophia Falcone, rotating his introductions carefully, deliberately.
Jason knew people like them; they weren't chess pieces, they were wild cards with tempers, egos, and paranoia. So he played to their personalities, talked business in a way that matched their temperaments, and let them believe they were making the choices. It was a delicate shuffle, but it worked—without raising fists or drawing guns.
Both Lou and Sophia were all too happy to snatch bread out of Black Mask's hands. They wanted in, and Red Hood made sure they felt like kings and queens walking through new doors. Each accepted his proposals, and now Jason skimmed his percentage clean off the top.
Every distributor he'd introduced was now funneling him a cut. His role as middleman had turned into a steady river of income. He kept his protection racket untouched too—forty percent flowing from both Black Mask's old network and protection from Batman's ever-present shadow. Jason was collecting from every side of the game without lifting more than a finger.
Meanwhile, on Gotham's surface, it was like he'd vanished. For a week, Red Hood activity was nonexistent. No shipments were hit, no stash houses blown open, no figure in a red mask kicking down doors. It was radio silence, and that silence was deafening for Roman Sionis.
Black Mask wrestled with it. On one hand, he wanted to believe Red Hood had gone to ground, hiding like a scared dog after realizing what kind of assassins and mercenaries Roman could buy with his money.
He told himself that story in the mirror, repeated it when Ms. Li gave her daily reports. Top-tier professionals, men who lived and breathed bloodshed—that was the caliber Roman could summon. Surely Red Hood had wised up and vanished.
But in the corners of his mind—where paranoia ate at him like acid—he couldn't ignore the darker possibility. What if Red Hood wasn't hiding? What if he was plotting? Lurking. Watching. Waiting for Roman to breathe too easy before tearing his world apart again.
The contradiction drove him mad. Each day, the false stalemate chipped away at his nerves. He lost Raymond, his golden goose of the eastern district, and with him, a major artery of his drug empire. Other traffickers started peeling away too, quiet exits that stung more than any gunshot wound.
The harassment had already slowed down his shipments, cut his profits, and made his operations brittle. Now, with his distributors slipping through his fingers, Roman felt the walls of his drug empire cracking.
His temper boiled. He could take many things—the blood, the backstabbing, the dirty games of Gotham's underworld—but not this. Not the steady drain of money. Not the humiliation of losing men and markets to a ghost in a red helmet. Not the endless pressure of waking each day with the thought that Red Hood might already have a rifle trained on him.
At times, his secretary found him standing behind the tall glass windows of his office at Janus Cosmetics, staring into the city skyline.
His masked face tilted slightly, as though he expected to catch a silhouette in the distance, a shadow ducking across rooftops. Even with his security trippled and armed guards stationed at every hall, Roman had no peace of mind.
Because deep down, he knew the truth: he had underestimated Red Hood. He had come to the realization that this wasn't some punk with a gun and a vendetta. This was a strategist, a predator who knew how to bleed him slow while never truely showing his hand. The uncertainty of it—the not knowing how far Red Hood was willing to go or how much he was willing to sacrifice—gnawed at Roman worse than any scar.
For the first time, Black Mask felt like he was fighting a battle he couldn't win alone. He needed allies. He needed other sharks to circle the waters with him, to make Gotham a smaller, suffocating cage that Red Hood couldn't escape from.
So, with his pride in one hand and desperation in the other, he ordered Ms. Li to arrange a meeting with Big Lou—the head of the Maroni crime family. But even as the decision settled, another problem arose. How to stage it.
Roman wasn't a fool. He knew appearances mattered. He couldn't come off desperate, not in front of Lou. He needed the setting itself to speak for him, to remind Lou whose city this was. Normally, he'd leave details like this to Ms. Li, but not this time. This time, Roman had to orchestrate it himself.
And this was where his paranoia sank its teeth in.
Every possible location he considered carried the phantom shadow of Red Hood. He imagined himself walking into a warehouse on the docks, only to see the red-helmeted silhouette perched high in the rafters, rifle trained on his skull. Too cliché, yes, but also too exposed.
Roman pictured the flash of a muzzle lighting the dark, imagined the spray of glass as bullets ripped through the walls. No—no docks. That was a grave waiting to be dug.
His mind shifted to The Tristessa Casino & Nightclub. A place full of noise, bodies, and eyes. Business and pleasure, yes, but pleasure was messy. He imagined Lou watching him too closely under the neon glow, noticing the twitch in his gloved hand as Roman poured a drink, noticing the way he flinched every time the bass from the speakers rattled the table.
He imagined a crowded floor where Red Hood could hide in plain sight, a helmet blending with the chaos, a shot fired from between dancers while strobe lights blinded the room. The thought made his jaw tighten.
Then there was Janus Cosmetics, his corporate throne. Sterile, clean, untouchable. That building was his fortress, his face of legitimacy.
Dragging Lou there was power incarnate. But even as he pictured the gleam of the glass, he imagined Red Hood slipping in through the elevators, disguising himself as one of the suits, a gun hidden beneath a pressed jacket. Roman could almost hear the click of a suppressed round echoing off the white walls. He drummed his fingers hard on the desk, the sound echoing in the silence like a metronome counting down to his death.
Every scenario ended with Red Hood. No matter how secure, no matter how fortified, the bastard always appeared in the corners of Roman's imagination. It wasn't just planning anymore—it was a paranoid war game with a ghost who refused to stay gone.
Still, he had to choose. He had to force himself to believe that appearances mattered more than the shadows clawing at his mind.
Once Lou agreed, once he shook on the hunt for Red Hood, Roman already had the next move lined up. Sophia Falcone. And with the rivalry between Maroni and Falcone still simmering beneath Gotham's surface, Lou's compliance would be the bait he'd use to pull Sophia in too. Divide and conquer, but with his own empire rebuilt brick by brick beneath their feet.
They were likely to comply since they shared closs territories.
Roman's plan was set, but his paranoia never left him. Even as he settled on a location, he found himself glancing at the window again, the city stretching endlessly below. Somewhere out there, he knew, Red Hood was waiting. And Roman hated that he couldn't tell if the waiting was real—or just in his head.
- - -
The next day, Ms. Li stepped into Roman Sionis's office with her usual clipped calm, the kind that made people second-guess whether she was human or machine. Her tablet was tucked against her chest like a shield, her heels clicking once against the polished floor before she came to a stop. No wasted words, no pleasantries—just business.
"Big Lou rejected your request for a meeting," she said, her tone flat, professional. "So I extended another to Sophia Falcone, but she declined as well."
Roman's head snapped up from behind his desk. Afternoon light cut through the blinds, throwing sharp stripes across the glossy surface of the desk, across the skull mask staring back at her. He leaned back, the leather chair groaning, his silence stretching until the weight of it pressed on the room. Then his jaw tightened.
"What?" The word ripped out of him, guttural and raw.
"They both made it clear," Li continued, completely unfazed, "that if you want to meet them, it has to be on neutral ground. A public establishment. Their terms."
Roman let out a sharp, humorless laugh. He leaned forward, the carved skull catching the light so its hollow grin almost glared. "Those assholes think they're all high and mighty? They forget their place in this city. I was running the game when their predecessors were still polishing their daddy's shoes. And now? Now they strut around like they invented crime." His voice dropped into a growl. His gloved hand slammed down on the desk, rattling the ashtray.
Li adjusted her glasses with a single flick of her finger, calm as ever. "Well," she said matter-of-factly, "you're the one asking for the meeting."
The line hit like a jab. Roman's masked face tilted, staring at her hard enough to burn holes through the glass. But Li didn't blink, and that was part of why he kept her close. Everyone else trembled. She didn't.
Finally, he exhaled, waving a gloved hand in reluctant dismissal. "Fine. Talk to Big Lou. Confirm if a public spot—one of mine—will do. I'm done waiting around while this Red Hood prick chews through my business. Every day he breathes makes me look weak. I need him gone like…yesterday." His voice cracked with frustration, the words echoing sharp against the walls.
"On it," Li said simply. She tapped quick notes on her tablet and turned to leave, her heels fading into the distance, leaving Roman alone with the quiet hiss of his anger.