Frank Castle—though almost nobody knew him by that name anymore—had discovered that there was something strangely comforting about routine. Wake up before sunrise. Pull on his work clothes. Lace up his boots. Drive to the construction site. Work until his muscles burned, then go home and do it all again the next morning. There were no guns; no skull, no names written on scraps of paper, no criminals waiting for him in the darkness.

Just work.

These days, he went by Pete Castiglione.

It was a name that belonged to nobody important. A name that didn't attract attention, didn't appear in newspaper headlines and didn't make criminals glance over their shoulders. To the men he worked alongside in Brooklyn, Pete was simply a quiet construction and demolition worker. He wasn't particularly friendly, but he wasn't unpleasant either. He showed up when he was supposed to, did his job without complaining and kept mostly to himself.

He preferred it that way.

Frank had spent too many years surrounded by people who wanted something from him. The military had taught him how to become a weapon, how to survive combat and how to keep moving when everything around him was falling apart. Maria, Lisa and Frank Jr. had once given him something entirely different—a reason to come home. Then Central Park had taken them from him, leaving Frank with nothing but grief and an anger he hadn't known how to control.

That anger had turned him into the Punisher.

For years, Frank had lived as though the war had never ended. He hunted criminals, followed leads and tore through the people he believed were responsible for his family's deaths. Eventually, he discovered that the truth went deeper than he'd ever imagined. Operation Cerberus, Billy Russo, William Rawlins and the people connected to his military past had all been tangled in the events surrounding his family's murder.

By the time it was over, Frank had lost almost everything that remained of the man he'd once been.

So he disappeared.

He buried Frank Castle beneath another name and another life.

Construction was almost fitting in a way. There was something honest about it. Buildings were destroyed and rebuilt. Walls came down. Foundations were cleared. Broken pieces were hauled away so something new could eventually take their place.

Frank understood that better than most.

He didn't talk about his past. When coworkers asked where he was from, he'd give them vague answers. When they asked about his family, he'd find some way to change the subject. Nobody knew about Maria. Nobody knew about his children. Nobody knew about the Marines, the prison, the Punisher or the years he'd spent living on the edge of a war that never seemed to end.

As far as they knew, Pete Castiglione was just a man who worked hard and didn't have much to say. And that was exactly what Frank wanted them to believe.

It had been late one night when Frank had found himself at the bar—the one he frequently found himself at after his shifts at the construction site. He didn’t drink or go with anyone, just sat at the same chair at the bar counter every time he showed up. He’d go there when his thoughts got too loud and they could be drowned out by the loud music; distract him from everything.

He’d been nursing a glass of water, his eyes looking around the bar for no apparent reason… when his gaze had landed on her. A woman, sat in a booth in the far corner. A man had been with her, forcing a drink into her hand even though she was barely standing up straight.

In the state she was in, Frank didn’t have to guess what the man’s intentions were. Before he could even register his movements, Frank stood from his chair and made his way over.