Harvey Harmon was confident. In his mind, the Bloodhead Gang's name still carried enough weight to sway even the most brutal criminals. With his position as second-in-command and Paul Mark's reputation backing him, he believed that anyone even this masked attacker would at least pause and listen to reason.
But unfortunately, Ethan was not "anyone." And this wasn't a negotiation.
To Ethan, Harvey's voice sounded no different than background noise a faint, meaningless bark from a rabid dog.
"Think it over," Harvey coughed, blood in his throat. "What I'm offering you is worth far more than anything those bastards promised. I can cough!"
Before he could finish, Ethan's boot crashed into Harvey's ribs again, sending him sprawling against the cold wall with a wet crack. The pain was immediate and sharp judging by the angle of his body, at least two or three ribs had snapped this time.
"Son of a bitch… I'll kill you!" Harvey howled, clutching his side. His eyes burned with rage.
He had earned a reputation as the Bloodhead Gang's deadliest weapon. And even now, pinned and bruised, he still growled like a beast, refusing to show weakness.
But Ethan had seen tougher. He had fought creatures from another dimension. He had wrestled with the will of a living symbiote. Harvey Harmon's defiance barely registered.
Without a word, several black tendrils burst from Ethan's back living shadows, rippling with power. One lashed around Harvey's neck and hoisted him off the ground like a ragdoll. The others pierced through his arms and thighs, pinning him against the cracked concrete wall with ruthless precision.
After multiple battles, Ethan had developed a methodical approach to dealing with enemies like this. The symbiote Venom had helped refine his tactics. This crucifixion-style binding wasn't just effective it broke the target's will and amplified their pain in all the right places.
Harvey gasped, blood trailing from his lips as he hung limply. But Ethan wasn't done.
He stepped closer. His black mask peeled away slowly, revealing the face beneath young, sharp-jawed, calm, and cold. The face of someone Harvey had once wronged, even if he couldn't yet recall how.
"You think gritting your teeth makes you strong?" Ethan said, his voice low and devoid of emotion. "You think pain earns respect? I have a hundred ways to peel back your soul. If I were you, I'd choose my next words very carefully."
Ethan pointed at his own face. "Look. Really look. Do I look familiar? Your answer determines how this ends. One way, you lose a few bones. The other… you'll wish you were never born."
Harvey squinted through the haze of agony, trying to place the face. It tugged at something in the back of his mind, but no name came. No memory. Just vague discomfort.
Ethan smirked and retracted the mask again. "Thought so."
The tentacle around Harvey's throat surged into his mouth, cutting off any reply. The others twisted deeper, slowly rotating inside his flesh. Barbs extended outward from within, slicing through muscle fibers and tendons with surgical cruelty.
Harvey convulsed. His veins bulged. His eyes rolled back from the silent, overwhelming agony.
Ethan waited.
When Harvey started to fade, Ethan knocked his knuckles against the side of his skull.
"Wake up," he said, as if shaking a lazy student awake. "We're not done yet."
Harvey groaned.
"Let's try this again," Ethan continued. "Where is your brother, Jon Harmon? Not just a name. I want places. Hangouts. Safehouses. Exact locations. Make it useful."
Harvey's mouth twitched into a grin despite the pain. "Guess."
"I'll never betray my brother. Kill me if you want but you'll get nothing from me."
He spat blood, then laughed.
"Oh, and now I remember. You yeah, it's you. You're the freak from the Oscorp warehouse raid. You ruined everything. The whole deal, the shipment, the lab. You're the reason everything went sideways."
Ethan's face darkened.
Oscorp.
Even the name left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Gwen. MJ. Peter. The black sites. The experiments.
"You helped them," Ethan said slowly, the words heavy with restrained fury. "You and Jon you fed people into those labs like cattle. Human testing. Forced symbiote bonding. Gwen Stacy was nearly killed because of you."
Venom stirred, eager and wild.
"Let us devour him," the symbiote snarled through jagged teeth, emerging from Ethan's shoulder. "He bleeds guilt."
"Not yet," Ethan murmured, never breaking eye contact. "I want him to understand."
"You're insane," Harvey coughed, shaking. "You're just like the rest of them… pretending to be righteous behind a mask."
"I'm not pretending anything," Ethan said. "I'm not a hero."
He leaned in closer until his face was inches away from Harvey's. "I'm just a man with a memory. And you're part of it."
Electricity sparked through the air, the room dimming as the symbiote's influence surged. Ethan's anger fed it. The lights flickered. The shadows lengthened.
"You remember me now?" Ethan asked again, quiet and cold.
Harvey's breath hitched.
He did.
Not the face but the energy. The unrelenting pressure. The black terror that had torn through the Oscorp facility like a god of wrath. The creature that left no witnesses.
The thing that hunted in the dark.
This wasn't business.
This was retribution.
And Harvey Harmon had finally realized…
This was not a negotiation.
This was an execution waiting to be scheduled.
"You were the delivery guy that day, right? What a damn twist of fate," Harvey Harmon sneered through blood-streaked lips. "And Paul Mark what a useless bastard. He couldn't even handle a simple warehouse deal without screwing everything up."
He spat blood onto the floor, grinning despite the pain. "I've seen your file. Yeah, I've seen it. Deep SHIELD scan flagged it back when you pulled that stunt at the Oscorp lab. Didn't expect you to be hiding that deep, though. That old man you lived with… what was his name? Old York? He was just a damn prop in your play, wasn't he?"
"You son of a "
But Harvey's venomous rant was cut short by his own scream. Ethan had heard enough.
The black blade formed from Venom's mass sliced cleanly through Harvey's left wrist, severing the hand in a spray of blood. His body jerked, pain overtaking his defiance.
"Stop talking," Ethan said, voice gravelly beneath the weight of rage. "Say another word about Old York, and I'll carve it into your bones. You don't even deserve to speak his name."
To Ethan, York wasn't just a guardian. He was the only person who'd ever believed in him after he crossed over into this world. A man who stood by him when the symbiote first bonded with his body and his soul teetered on the edge. To hear that name leave the mouth of scum like Harvey Harmon was worse than a death threat.
Harvey bit into his lip, trying to stay conscious through the waves of pain. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, mixing with the spit and the pride he refused to swallow.
He spat to the side, breathing hard. "I won't talk. Do what you want. Just kill me."
He knew what Ethan wanted. Information about Jon Harmon. His brother. The one behind the deal with Oscorp. The one responsible for trafficking test subjects to Norman Osborn for symbiote experimentation. If Harvey said anything, Jon would be next.
But Ethan had no patience for misguided loyalty. The irony of Harvey's so-called martyrdom made his stomach twist not with disgust, but with bitter amusement.
"Hah… ha… HAHAHA!" Ethan's laughter echoed through the warehouse like a curse.
The absurdity of it all struck him. Harvey Harmon murderer, enforcer, traitor now posturing like a loyal brother willing to die to protect family. A man responsible for helping feed innocents into symbiote tests, now pretending to stand on principle.
"You?" Ethan scoffed, shaking his head. "You're garbage. You executed teenagers for money. You trafficked women and children into illegal research labs. And now you want to play the noble brother? That's rich."
The laughter stopped abruptly. Another scream ripped from Harvey's throat as Ethan severed his remaining palm with the same efficient brutality. The blood hit the floor in wet splashes.
Ethan stood over him, venom swirling behind his back like a pack of restless wolves.
"You care about someone?" Ethan growled, eyes glowing faintly. "You feel something? You think you deserve to?! Don't you dare act like you're more than a monster!"
Harvey writhed in agony, the stumps of his wrists pulsing with pain.
"You talk about loyalty like it's currency," Ethan continued, voice sharp as the blades. "But men like you don't understand loyalty. You understand leverage. Threats. Power."
He stared down at the man before him howling, broken, but still trying to look defiant.
"I've killed people like you in the dark corners of this city. I've cleaned up the filth your gang spreads like disease. You're not even worth the breath it takes to judge you."
Ethan took a deep breath, then pulled something from the floor Harvey's phone.
He held it up and let a grim smirk form across his lips.
"You think keeping quiet protects him? Think again."
He waved the phone slightly. "Your brother won't ignore a call from you. What do you think he'll do if he sees a photo your body torn up, bleeding, half-dead and a message: Come alone if you want to save him?"
Harvey's bloodshot eyes widened.
He knew the man standing in front of him wasn't bluffing. He wasn't posturing. He wasn't trying to make a deal.
Ethan was executing a plan. And Jon Harmon was next on the list.
If Jon came alone, he would die. Harvey had no illusions about that. Not after seeing what Ethan had become. Not after seeing the creature that lived in his shadow whispers of Venom in the corners of the room, slithering, hissing.
Desperation overtook defiance. Harvey roared, red-faced, veins bulging: "Damn you! If you want to settle the score, do it with me! Let me go and face me like a man!"
"I gave the order to eliminate you! I'm the one who botched the Oscorp hit! What does this have to do with my brother?!"
Ethan stared down at him, unmoved.
"You think I just want revenge?"
"I'm not here to teach lessons. I'm here to erase threats."
He crouched down, the black suit peeling back to reveal his eyes burning, cold, and inhuman.
"I'm not sparing anyone who played a part in this. You, your brother, your supplier, your handler. The entire chain burns."
"Because when you declared war on me back then… when you helped capture Gwen… when you signed off on MJ's disappearance… you stopped being people."
"You became targets."