Vanessa was dead!
Jason’s brows drew together sharply.
He was a cold-blooded man.
Just because he’d slept with Vanessa didn’t mean her death filled him with grief or regret.
He was simply surprised that Kingpin had actually been able to do it.
Whenever Kingpin had been with Vanessa in the past, he’d always been gentle and refined, witty in conversation, every movement full of gentlemanly grace.
He hadn’t looked anything like a crime lord with blood on his hands.
If anything, he’d acted like an obedient lapdog hopelessly devoted to her.
Yet that same harmless little puppy had turned on her without hesitation and killed Vanessa the moment she betrayed him, and in an exceptionally brutal way at that.
Jason’s frown gradually eased.
Kingpin’s decision surprised him, but at the same time, Jason understood it.
From Jason’s perspective, sleeping with Kingpin’s woman had been thrilling, exciting, and even a little addictive.
But if he put himself in Kingpin’s shoes…
Yeah.
That would probably drive any man insane.
No matter how mature or levelheaded someone was, being cheated on could turn him hysterical.
And Kingpin was a murderous crime lord who’d killed more people than he could count.
Vanessa’s betrayal had become a stain on his life.
A humiliation he could never erase.
For Kingpin to torture her to death in a fit of rage wasn’t exactly difficult to understand.
The more Jason imagined Kingpin’s fury, the happier he became.
What was that saying again?
Happiness is built on other people’s misery.
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Jason spent the entire day holed up in the storage unit playing with his phone.
Judging by the time, it was about right.
He took off the tracksuit he’d stolen from the Nike store and changed into an old padded jacket and a pair of ripped jeans.
Then he rubbed his palms over the dust-covered furniture and smeared the grime across his hands, face, and neck.
Finally, he messed up his hair until it looked like a bird’s nest.
With that simple disguise, Jason transformed from a clean-cut young man into one of the countless homeless men wandering New York’s streets and alleys.
He slipped a suppressed Glock 20 into his coat pocket and raised the storage-unit door.
Outside, the sky was pitch black, while the distant skyscrapers blazed with light.
Jason stretched contentedly and started walking toward Midtown South Manhattan.
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Kingpin had been able to dominate gangs large and small across New York not only because his own fighting ability had nearly reached the limits of what a human body could achieve.
His two most capable lieutenants had also played an enormous role.
One handled muscle.
The other handled brains.
Jason had come from poverty.
Both of his parents had been at the bottom of society, without money, status, or connections.
Everything Jason had achieved, he’d carved out for himself with his own fists.
After joining Kingpin’s organization, his ferocity and formidable fighting ability helped Kingpin crush countless rival gangs and seize an enormous amount of territory.
In time, Jason became Kingpin’s most trusted enforcer.
From having nothing to becoming one of the most powerful figures in New York’s underworld, Jason’s story sounded almost inspirational.
Plenty of young men newly entering the criminal world looked up to him, convinced that if they worked hard enough, one day they too could climb as high as Jason.
But as the old saying went, conquering an empire was easier than ruling one.
Once territory had been fought for and won, someone who actually knew what he was doing had to manage it.
Jason couldn’t.
Neither could Kingpin.
So Kingpin recruited a number of advisers to devise strategies and help administer the organization.
Among all of them, the man Kingpin trusted most was a white man named James Wesley.
And Wesley was the man Jason intended to meet tonight.
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After walking several miles, Jason arrived at an upscale residential neighborhood in Midtown South Manhattan.
The neighborhood consisted of detached American-style houses, each separated from the next by roughly thirty meters, providing plenty of privacy for the residents.
Tree-lined streets, immaculate roads, an extremely low crime rate—
It was a very nice place to live.
Wesley’s house was here.
He loved the quiet, elegant environment and had once suggested that Jason move into the neighborhood as well.
Jason had refused.
He preferred excitement, modern high-rise apartments, and city life.
These oversized suburban-style houses felt more like places where old men went to retire.
At ten in the evening, central Manhattan was still buzzing with life, countless attractive men and women partying in plazas and nightspots.
This neighborhood, however, had already gone quiet.
Most of the houses were completely dark.
Walking along the broad road while listening to insects chirping and birds calling from the trees, Jason couldn’t help feeling that his original decision had been absolutely correct.
Go to bed at ten?
Jesus.
You might as well kill me.
Jason had visited Wesley’s home many times and knew the place well.
The house itself wasn’t especially large, but it was surrounded by six or seven hundred square meters of lawn and garden.
That had always left an impression on him.
The lights on the first floor were already off.
Apparently, Mr.
Wesley hadn’t been sleeping very well lately.
Jason drew his pistol, attached the suppressor, and fired a single shot into the security camera mounted near the roof.
[Ding! You damaged someone else’s property. You have earned 5 Villain Points. Current progress: 465/3,000.]
He circled around to the back of the house.
Jason tested the living-room window.
It didn’t budge.
Then he tried the kitchen window.
It slid open immediately.
Jason carefully climbed inside without making a sound.
Using the bright moonlight spilling in through the windows, he checked each room on the first floor.
Just as he’d expected, no one was there.
With his pistol gripped in one hand, Jason silently crept upstairs.
The master-bedroom door wasn’t fully closed.
Light spilled through the narrow gap.
There also seemed to be voices coming from inside.
Jason hugged the wall and quietly approached.
Then…
His expression became extremely strange.
Jason stared blankly at the door.
He had imagined all kinds of possibilities before coming here tonight.
But this…
This was not one of them.
Jason froze.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
Go in or not?
Back when they were both working under Kingpin, Jason and Wesley had gotten along fairly well.
Before coming tonight, Jason had already decided that if Wesley had nothing to do with the leak, he wasn’t going to kill him.
After hesitating for a while, Jason sat down on the sofa upstairs and quietly waited.
Damn.
I’m such a kindhearted guy.
Jason was practically moved by his own generosity.
Eventually, though, he couldn’t take it anymore.
Jason raised his Glock, kicked the bedroom door open, and shouted at the two people on the bed.
“Hey, Wesley! Got a big surprise for you! You—”
Jason stopped dead.
His eyes widened.
“Who the fuck are you?!”