The shiny glass shards littering the floor reflected a cold, hard light under the moon.
Joanne held the most common plastic broom from the supermarket, standing at the edge of the trashed balcony.
The broom’s aluminum alloy handle felt incredibly fragile in her palm; if she exerted even a fraction of a percent more force with her fingers, the hollow tube would be crushed into a pancake.
With a stiff expression, she awkwardly swept the scattered glass shards into a pile.
Zack Vance sat on the undamaged single sofa in the living room, a bottle of iodophor and a few cotton swabs in hand.
Using his phone’s front-facing camera, he carefully cleaned the thin cut on his neck.
The high-carbon steel dagger had been extremely sharp, leaving a clean cut.
Although it hadn’t hit an artery, the iodophor touching the broken skin still brought a needle-like sting.
“Hiss…”
Zack gasped softly, his brow furrowing.
With that slight intake of breath, the harsh sound of sweeping in the living room came to an abrupt halt.
Joanne spun around, her gaze locking onto Zack’s neck.
The bloody scratch coated in brown iodophor was exceptionally eyesore in her azure eyes.
The violent aura she had just forced down began to crawl up her spine once more.
“I should have just ripped his head off.”
Joanne’s voice was cold as ice, a faint red glow churning in her eyes.
“He actually dared to make you bleed.
If I chase him now, it won’t take ten seconds for me to snatch him out of the sky and tear him to shreds.”
Zack put down the cotton swab and pulled out a tissue to press beside the wound.
“And then what?” Zack looked up, meeting her fury with a calm gaze.
“Bring a bloody head back to show me?
Or maybe drop by Manhattan to wreck Madelyn’s office too, so all of New York knows you completely lost control over a regular human?”
Joanne bit her lip, staying silent, though her chest still heaved violently.
“Hold the broom properly.” Zack pointed to a few shards of glass on the edge of the carpet.
“He didn’t take my life, and he paid the price of a few broken ribs.
As for Vought, after tonight, they won’t dare cause trouble in this apartment for a very long time.”
She let out an annoyed huff, turning back around to deal with the glass shards.
However, her movements were noticeably gentler, as if she were terrified of making any more noise that might disturb the patient treating his wound.
At the same time, the 99th floor of Vought Tower, Manhattan.
The Vice President’s office was thick with the smell of rubbing alcohol and blood.
Madelyn Stillwell stood before her desk, her face grim.
On the high-end leather sofa across from her leaned the silent killer who had once struck terror into the hearts of countless supes.
Black Noir looked in an extremely terrible state.
The polymer armor on his chest, which could withstand close-range sniper rounds, was deeply dented and spiderwebbed with cracks.
His black mask was torn in half, revealing a pale, bloodless jaw underneath.
Most lethal was his neck, where a dark purple, horrifying choke mark was clearly visible—an imprint left by an absolute, crushing grip.
Had the person wielding that power held on for even half a second longer, The Seven would have lost a core member forever.
Ashley stood in the corner, her hands clamped tightly over her mouth, trembling like a leaf, not even daring to glance at Black Noir.
Madelyn’s fingers tightly gripped a glass of whiskey.
The holographic projector on the desk was looping a first-person video.
It was the final footage transmitted back from the micro-recorder hidden on Black Noir’s suit.
In the footage, Zack Vance lay on the bed, letting the blade press against his neck.
The young Asian man’s voice echoed clearly in the office:
“You treat her like a god, like a cash cow…
but I treat her like a human…”
“If tomorrow night she pushes open that glass door and smells the scent of blood spraying from my neck instead of the aroma of food…
she will throw you off the ninety-ninth floor, Ms.
Stillwell…”
Immediately following that, the camera shook violently, accompanied by a deafening sonic boom.
A crimson glare, a beast-like roar of fury, and the despair-filled point of view of Black Noir being lifted into midair by one hand.
Madelyn downed her whiskey in one gulp.
The ice-cold liquid did nothing to suppress the fear in her heart; instead, the chill seeped straight into her bones.
“He actually dares to threaten me…” Madelyn’s voice turned shrill with extreme fury.
“An insect we could squash at any moment actually dares to threaten me with Vought’s number one asset!”
Ashley spoke up tremulously from the corner.
“Ma’am…
do we need to…
do we need to send a tactical squad to…”
“Shut up!”
Madelyn whipped her head around.
“Send a tactical squad?
To their deaths?
Or do you think Vought’s stock price isn’t dropping fast enough, and you want to see the headline ‘Homelander Bloodbaths the Streets of New York’ on tomorrow morning’s news?”
She walked up to the holographic projector, looking at the frame frozen on Joanne’s crimson eyes, her chest heaving violently.
Joanne’s rampage tonight had proven everything.
The ordinary man named Zack Vance had successfully welded himself into Joanne’s mental core.
As long as something happened to Zack, Joanne would definitely drag the entire Vought empire down to hell with him.
Madelyn closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced herself to suppress all her anger and murderous intent deep down.
When she opened her eyes again, her face had returned to its chillingly cold, calculating expression.
“Terminate all physical operations against that apartment in Queens.
Withdraw all lookouts in the area.”
Madelyn’s voice was cold as winter ice, devoid of any emotion.
Ashley froze, barely able to believe her ears.
When had Vought International ever taken such a loss lying down from an ordinary person?
“But ma’am, he is a massive hazard!
He knows Joanne’s weakness, and he’s even exploiting it…”
“I said, withdraw the operation,” Madelyn interrupted, her eyes terrifyingly deep.
“Since he has turned himself into the leash holding the monster, we can’t cut that leash.
Otherwise, the monster will tear us to pieces.”
Madelyn turned her head, looking at Black Noir, who was gasping for air on the sofa.
“Untouchable.”
She gritted her teeth, handing down the final verdict on Zack Vance’s status in this world.
“Put him on the S-class Untouchable list.
From now on, as long as he shows no direct intent to destroy Vought, he is safe.
We need him alive, well and alive, until we find a way that won’t provoke Joanne, or…”
The corner of Madelyn’s mouth curled into a cold, dark smirk.
“…until that monster gets tired of him.”