[You said your sister was taken to the Blackwood District yesterday, right? She was held in an abandoned old church?]“Yeah, that’s right.”[Well, last night, people went there. Dozens of them. Guess who they were.]Magnus thought for a second, then said, “The Xavius family’s goons?”[Spot on. And among them is one guy you really need to watch out for. His name is Evan. He used to be an active secret agent, with extensive access to the national security system. If he's working for the Xavius family now, I reckon he’s a hell of a lot more dangerous than Charles Xavius. At some point, you’re probably going to butt heads with him, buddy.]Magnus narrowed his eyes. A secret agent, huh? It wasn't surprising, really. The Xavius family could certainly pay top dollar for people with specialized skills like that to work for them.“This guy named Evan... what was he doing at that old church last night?”[Based on the intel I managed to pull, he was leading those dozens of men to recover the bod

Jonas was quiet for a while. Magnus waited patiently. He picked up the remote and turned off the television.[She’s threatening to spread rumors at school, about all the things we were doing. She secretly recorded some of our hook-ups, and she said she’d send it to the principal, framing it like I forced her to do it. She looked dead serious when she said it. I... I can’t take that risk.]Magnus clenched his left hand into a fist. He wanted nothing more than to smash Gloria with it.“What else? What else did she tell you when you met yesterday?”[About her ID.]“Her ID?”[Yeah. She said her ID was missing. And she guessed right, it was left behind at our apartment. Rose gave it to me this morning.]Magnus frowned. He hadn’t known anything about that.“So today you’re meeting that woman again, and returning her ID is part of it?”[Yeah.]Magnus closed his eyes and massaged his temples. If he let this go, his younger brother would be caught in Gloria's trap again. He had to do something

The shift in the situation was completely unexpected for Gloria. She was confused, unsure what to do. Clara, on the other hand, seemed relaxed. Clearly, the current situation was under her control.Jonas had finished getting dressed. Clara glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and said, “You head out first. I’ll handle this woman.”Jonas looked at Clara full of questions. He had never met Clara before, but he could tell she was on his side. He finally left the room. Gloria couldn't do anything to stop him because Clara was watching her every move.Now it was just Clara and Gloria in the room. Gloria returned to her desk, sitting down in her chair. Clara knew Gloria was planning something.“Who the hell are you? You don’t look like a friend of Jonas’s. Did his brother send you here?” Gloria asked, her eyes fixed on Clara but her hands under the desk.“Yeah, Magnus did ask me to come here—to help his little brother escape a sly bitch like you,” Clara replied, swinging the whip in

The next day, around 2 p.m. Jasmine was working part-time as usual. Occasionally, she scanned the room. Although nothing strange or suspicious had happened so far, she remained vigilant. What she had experienced two days earlier made it difficult for her to do her job relaxed.Magnus had indeed guaranteed that she would be safe. She also hadn't dismissed Magnus's hired guards who were secretly watching over her, even though she didn't know where they were hiding. But still, she was worried. She probably wouldn't feel truly calm and relieved until Magnus told her he had dealt with the people involved in her kidnapping.Yesterday had been problem-free. Coming home quite late, she was briefly anxious, worried that people would follow the taxi she was in again. But her worries proved unfounded. This morning was safe too. So far, everything was normal except for the lingering feeling of anxiety.At this point, she was surprised by the appearance of Bianca. Entering the coffee shop alone,

The Giant Skull mobsters—including the silver-haired buzzcut—turned toward the explosion and were stunned. Someone had just fired a rocket. Their cars were now engulfed in flames. Fireballs and black smoke billowed into the air.“Do you understand your situation now?” the deep-voiced man sneered. “Now let the woman go before something worse happens to you and your freshly arrived buddies.”The buzzcut stared at him, suppressing his rage. The backup he’d called, which had just arrived, was suddenly crippled—useless. They realized that someone was in place to shoot at them from a distance. And given that this person could easily blow up those cars, taking all of them down shouldn't be a problem either.As a result, they were hesitant. They looked at the buzzcut questioningly, hoping their superior in The Giant Skull would give them direction or an order.But the buzzcut was at a dead end himself. The situation had changed too suddenly, too drastically. He didn't have enough time to thin