Kingsman's Return

Friendship

Old district, outside Moretti Rickshaw Stand.

Adam picked up an old backpack from the janitor's room and dusted it off. This was all he had accumulated over three years—a few old clothes, a pair of worn sneakers, an old wallet, and a faded photograph.

Jerome stood beside him with a worried expression and sighed: "Adam, you were too impulsive. Tony has been around this area for years and knows a lot of people. If we've offended him, it'll be hard for us to find work in the old district again. And the wages he owes us—he'll probably just keep them."

"Grace and I are already divorced," Adam said calmly.

"What?" Jerome was taken aback. "Divorced?"

"Yeah. To be precise, I was kicked out." Adam smiled bitterly and lifted the old backpack in his hand. "I signed the divorce papers this morning. They packed up all my things and threw them out."

"Well..." Jerome opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

He had known Adam since Adam woke up with amnesia three years ago. He knew how much Adam cared about that family—how he gave every cent he earned to Grace's mother every month, how he couldn't even bring himself to buy new clothes.

"Never mind." Jerome shook his head and patted Adam on the shoulder. "Since you've been kicked out, you don't have anywhere to stay, right? Come crash at my place for a while. It's small, but it's better than sleeping on the street."

Adam felt a warmth in his heart.

Even now, Jerome wasn't blaming him. He hadn't turned hostile because he wasn't getting his wages. Instead, he was offering to take him in.

This friend was worth keeping.

"Don't worry," Adam said, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly. "Within a few minutes, Tony will come back. He'll beg us to take the money."

Jerome curled his lip: "What makes you think you have any special skills that I don't know about? Come on, you've lost your job now. Just come home with me first."

"No rush." A confident smile appeared on Adam's face.

Meanwhile, Tony Moretti was walking back into the rickshaw stand, a look of disdain still on his face.

"Those two losers, cursing at me like that." He exhaled a puff of cigar smoke and said to the thugs beside him, "What gave them the nerve? I'll make sure they can't find work anywhere in the old district."

Just as he finished speaking, his phone rang.

Tony glanced at the caller ID, his expression changing slightly. He quickly answered the call, and even though the other person couldn't see him, a fawning smile appeared on his face.

"Brother-in-law? Why are you calling?" Tony's tone became respectful. "Don't worry, business at the rickshaw stand is going well. Those transport projects you introduced—I've arranged everything properly."

On the other end of the line, his brother-in-law's voice was cold as ice: "You're done."

"What?" Tony's expression changed.

"I said, those transport projects are no longer yours." His brother-in-law's voice carried suppressed anger. "The head office has already sent people to take over. On top of that, the audit department has found many irregularities in your past projects—inflated costs, tax evasion, withholding workers' wages. They've already coordinated with several partner companies to sue you."

Tony's face turned pale, cold sweat beading on his forehead: "Brother-in-law, there must be some misunderstanding—"

"Misunderstanding?" His brother-in-law let out a cold laugh. "Do you know a man named Adam Walker?"

Tony's heart skipped a beat. Adam Walker—that rickshaw puller who had just made a phone call?

"He worked for you." His brother-in-law's voice grew colder. "Tony, what exactly did you do to him? To make the head office directly order a full audit of all my projects? Do you know what this means? My career is over! Yours is too!"

"Brother-in-law, he's just a rickshaw puller, just a piece of trash—" Tony didn't get to finish before the line went dead.

Tony stood frozen, his phone nearly falling from his hand.

His mind was chaos. That quiet man in the worn-out T-shirt who had pulled a rickshaw for him for three years, who had haggled over eighty dollars—who the hell was he?

Outside the rickshaw stand, Jerome looked at Adam and said, "Don't just stand here like an idiot. Let's go."

"Ding—"

Just then, his phone buzzed.

Jerome pulled out his phone and saw a bank deposit notification. His eyes widened—there was money in his account. Six thousand dollars, a thousand more than what Tony had been withholding.

Then he heard hurried footsteps.

Not far away, a fat figure was running wildly toward them. His floral shirt flapped in the wind, his cigar long since lost—it was Tony Moretti.