Chapter 7

It was late out and the bright moon shone down on Gotham. Standing outside a newly bought building in East End was Kira Chen with three of her body guards. She didn't need them, but appearances were necessary.

The building wasn't tall, however it was massive. It used to be a boxing a club in the past before the city's crime became too much and it had to close down. The plan was to reopen the gym and train a few fighters of her own, and then proceed to have them compete professionally. This was something she had gotten from Falcone after the Godfather claimed it was an easy game if you knew who was gonna win. 'Money for nothing' he said. All you need is a good fighter, control when he wins and when he loses.

Besides from the gym she had purchased other businesses and properties in East End including a large, abandoned apartment complex. The owner was happy to get rid of it since it was filled with nothing but homeless scum that used it as a drug den. Kira had it cleared out by her men and hoped to put it to good use. The building still had its foundations and didn't take more than 3 weeks to fix up.

Despite her initial success things didn't go entirely to plan. As anticipated with a blow dealt to Batman others were looking to expand into East End, meaning she had competition. Fortunately though it didn't seem to be a big player, with Batman MIA the big leagues were focusing on larger things rather then East End, and whilst Kira wanted to be on the same playing field she believed slow and steady won the race.

From what she could tell the main perpetrator was the Bertinelli family which was surprising. They definitely weren't the type to eye such a troublesome area. East End has the most street crime within the entirety of Gotham City, littered with thugs, rapists, prostitutes and everything in between. The Bertinelli were similar to the Falcones, not that were as powerful, but they only focused on organised crime, leading her to believe they wanted more than territory. After all East End wasn't that large.

Now that she had half of the district within her reach all that was needed was a final push. Pulling out her phone she made a call.

*𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚* *𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚* *𝗥𝗜𝗡𝗚*

After the third ring someone picked up, "𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘴? 𝘐𝘵 𝘒𝘪𝘳𝘢, 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘶𝘱 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺." She spoke in Chinese. On the other end was her young secretary, Curtis Zhu.

Just like anywhere else Chinatown boasted its own impressive homeless and unemployed population. Kira had all these people be prepared for the opportunity's she'd provide with the new homes and businesses she'd open in East End. Kira didn't care about qualifications or experience, as long as they could get the job done and didn't cause problems they were hired. As for the people that used to work and live in these places, they were fired or evicted. She didn't know if she could trust them, the people taking their positions had families in her care and were connected to the triad. They're less likely to get in her way. Surrounding herself with the untrustworthy would be foolish.

With that one call the west side of East End had people teeming in from Chinatown. This would clean up both districts when Kira made sure to run out most of the hobos that didn't work for her.

Beside from the expansion she had everything that was illegal put under a second name and identity. Kiyah Chen. She had chosen her old name as it would be easy to remember, but also to not forget where she came from. The simplest way to complete this task was to start a new company and have all the legal businesses owned by that company. The illegal ones would stay separate under the name Kiyah Chen. As far as anybody was concerned Kiyah was a long lost relative of Kira.

Kira was now the proud CEO of Angel industries. It wasn't hard as a company registration form generally takes around 15 minutes to complete. Once submitted, the company will usually be registered within 2-3 mins.

Turning around she got in her car and told the driver to get going.

...

𝐔͟𝐩͟𝐩͟𝐞͟𝐫͟ ͟𝐖͟𝐞͟𝐬͟𝐭͟ ͟𝐒͟𝐢͟𝐝͟𝐞͟ ͟𝐆͟𝐨͟𝐭͟𝐡͟𝐚͟𝐦͟

In a dark room 3 men sat in a tense silence. Two were dressed in normal suits whilst the third was dressed the same, but with a black fedora. He was short and fat, with no facial hair other than a black moustache. It was clear who the leader was.

"One of you useless fucks wanna tell me why this is taking so fucking long?" The fedora growled.

The two men both began to sweat profusely, "Some new gang called the 'Angel Triad' is pushing into East Ends west side from Chinatown. They... they've already taken the west from what we can te-" the nervous voice was cut off by a clicking sound as a gun was suddenly pointed at his head.

*𝐁𝐀𝐍𝐆*

Before he could react Alfredo Bertinelli put a bullet through his skull. Turning to the second mafioso his eyes narrowed, "I'm busy trying to hold off Falcone and the Odessa mob and you can't even take East freaking END!!" Alfredo slammed his hand on the table, Looking absolutely livid.

"You have two weeks"

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𝐁͟𝐚͟𝐭͟𝐜͟𝐚͟𝐯͟𝐞͟

Sitting in the darkness of his cave a tired looking Bruce Wayne was waiting for a message.

After having been deemed responsible for the loss of two innocent lives Bruce continued to search for ways to prove his own innocence. He knew there was more to this, he hadn't imagined the voice in his ear after all. It was the same voice that lead to him striking that man. Only to hit a second bystander with his car seconds later. What are the chances?

A coincidence? No. He didn't believe in 'coincidences'. Whoever that voice belonged to was responsible for both deaths. Not him!

*𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆*

Bruce's head snapped toward the closest screen and he swiftly opened a file sent from Alfred. He spent a minute reading through the massive file, making sure not to miss a single word. By the end of it he came to one conclusion. Dang Hao didn't have any previous heart problems. In fact, he had been rather healthy for his age, and while it was still possible for him to have a heart attack, it was unlikely.

Now he just needed to figure out who was behind everything and how. The most likely perpetrator? Kira Chen. This all took place in Chinatown as soon as he decided to investigate her. The voice was also distinctly that of a young female.

As much as batman wanted to go after her he had a lot to deal with due to his absence, not in just Gotham, but also with the justice league. Robin had been trying to protect the city alone, however it was too difficult of a task for the child. The big criminals didn't take him seriously.