Castle survives and is nursed back to health by a local fisherman. With the police and FBI unwilling to pursue the killers due to Saint's power and influence, Castle moves into an abandoned apartment occupied by three outcasts, Joan, Bumpo and Dave, and begins his mission to bring the Saints down. With information provided by Mickey Duka, one of Saint's less malevolent and more disgruntled minions, Castle studies the Saint family and learns their every move, in the process discovering Glass to be a closeted homosexual. He openly attacks Saint's business and sabotages his partnership with his Cuban partners. Saint discovers Castle is alive and sends assassins to kill him. The first, Harry Heck, ambushes Castle on a bridge but is killed when Castle slits his throat with a ballistic knife. The second, a Russian behemoth, nearly beats Castle to death in his own apartment. Castle kills him by dousing his face in boiling oil and pushing him down a flight of stairs, breaking his neck. John, Glass and the goons arrive for Castle. The tenants hide Castle and refuse to disclose his location, despite Glass pulling Dave's piercings out with pliers. They leave one of their men to intercept Castle, but Castle kills him after they leave. With Mickey's help, Castle poses as an anonymous blackmailer and arranges for Glass to be at certain places while planting Livia's car in the same location, and ultimately placing one of Livia's earrings in Glass's bed, leading Saint to believe they are having an affair. Saint confronts Glass in his own home and stabs him to death, and throws Livia off an overpass onto a railroad track, where she is run over by a train. With Saint despondent, Castle assaults Saint's club and kills every member of his mob, among them his remaining son John, though Saint, wounded, escapes the building. Castle pursues him and shoots him in a duel. As Saint lies dying, Castle reveals his schemes that led Saint to kill his friend and wife. He ties Saint to a car and sends it into the club's parking lot, which is laced with explosives. Saint dies in the subsequent explosion. Castle returns home and prepares to kill himself with his mission fulfilled, but sees a vision of his wife and changes his mind, instead deciding to continue to fight crime as the Punisher. He leaves some of Saint's money as a farewell gift to the tenants for protecting him. The film ends with Castle standing alone on the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, as he vows, "Those who do evil to others...the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists...you will come to know me well.