2026-09-06 23:57:59
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 149
By the thirteenth day, nobody in the neighborhood said Marco's name out loud anymore."They're calling him the demon king now." Sophie whispered through the partition, her eyes darting toward the dark corridor behind her as if the words themselves might summon him faster than his actual name would. "Some people call him the warlord of the garage. Nobody wants to say Ferretti anymore. It's bad luck.""Bad luck." Marco slid a container of rice through the gap, his mouth curling at the corner. "I'm not a ghost story, Sophie. I'm just a guy who doesn't like getting robbed.""Tell that to the seven corpses still stacked in the corridor." Sophie shivered, and it was not entirely from the cold. "Nobody comes near this building unless they're invited or completely out of options."Six floors above, Valentina paced the blood streaked apartment where her family had died, her arms crossed tight against her chest, her jaw clenched so hard it ached."Ashford is dead." Kevin delivered the news care
CHAPTER 148
But Ashford was already gone, swallowed by the darkness, running on pure survival instinct with no thought spared for the woman or the child he left behind.Marco watched the thermal display on his wrist device flicker to life, tracking a single heat signature moving fast through the black expanse of the garage.He raised his arm and fired a controlled volley of system stored ammunition into the darkness, each round guided precisely by the heat signature that Ashford could not hide from no matter how fast he ran or how dark the garage became.The first round caught Ashford in the leg. He stumbled but kept running, adrenaline overriding pain. The second and third rounds found his back within the same second, punching through his coat and dropping him instantly.He hit the concrete face first and slid nearly two feet on the frozen surface before coming to a stop, motionless, his outstretched hand inches from a puddle of frozen rainwater.Silence fell over the garage.Marco lowered his a
CHAPTER 147
The first man's body hit the concrete with a wet, heavy thud. His eyes were still open, bulging, fixed on nothing.A second man dropped his bowl and clutched his stomach, doubling over before violently vomiting across his own knees.A third staggered backward into the wall, his throat working uselessly as foam gathered at the corner of his mouth.Within thirty seconds, seven men lay dead or dying on the concrete floor, their bodies twisted at unnatural angles, the steaming hot pot still bubbling peacefully beside them like nothing at all had happened."WHAT DID YOU DO!" Ashford's scream tore through the corridor, raw and unhinged. He stared at the corpses of his own former followers, men who had knelt for him, sworn loyalty to him, and eaten his enemy's food not ten minutes ago. "What was in that pot!"Marco wiped his mouth with a napkin and set his chopsticks down neatly beside his own untouched bowl of sauce."Cyanide." He said it the way another man might announce the weather. "Not
CHAPTER 146
The men shifted, glancing at each other, glancing at the pot, glancing at Ashford, glancing at the sprinkler nozzles overhead.Twenty. Nineteen.One man near the back, thin as a broomstick with hollow cheeks and cracked lips, could not hold out any longer. He muttered something under his breath, an apology aimed at no one, then dropped to his knees."I'm sorry, Mr. Ashford." His voice shook as his forehead touched the cold concrete. "You worthless fool!"He scrambled forward on his hands and knees and sat down beside the pot before anyone could stop him. Reasoning that he was safe from the sprinklers as long as he stayed close to Marco, he grabbed the chopsticks with trembling fingers and shoved a piece of beef into his mouth.Tears rolled down his face immediately. Not from pain. From the warmth. From the flavor. From the simple, devastating relief of tasting something real after two weeks of eating cardboard flavored survival.That was all it took.The dam broke. One after another,
CHAPTER 145
The reinforced door slid open with a soft hydraulic hiss exactly one hour after it had sealed shut.Rachel stepped out first, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, followed by Marco, who carried a folded portable gas stove under one arm as casually as a man heading out for a picnic.Every head in the corridor turned. Ashford's remaining men, still nursing their exhaustion and their wounded pride, stared in stunned silence as Marco set the stove down in the middle of the passageway, struck the ignition, and placed a large steel pot on top of it."MY BABY!" Ashford's voice cracked as he shoved past two of his own men, snatching Rachel's wrist and yanking her back toward him. "You come here right now. Never leave my side again."Rachel did not resist. She simply walked, her face blank, her eyes glassy with something that had shattered somewhere inside the safe house and had not been put back together.Marco ignored the entire exchange. He pulled sliced beef from a cooler bag, dropped
CHAPTER 144
He turned to face his followers, adjusting his expression mid rotation from raw fury to calm leadership, like a man changing masks between one step and the next."You see?" Ashford spread his hands wide, addressing the group. "I delivered on my end. I made the sacrifice. He took the woman and now he's trying to cheat us. This is the kind of man he is. A thief. A liar. A coward who sprays poison from a toy and hides behind steel walls.""You didn't sacrifice anything." Marco's voice cut through the slot, clear and sharp. "You traded a woman like she was a used couch you didn't want anymore. You handed over the mother of your own child without blinking. That's not sacrifice, Ashford. That's what a stray dog does when it pushes its weakest puppy out of the litter so there's more milk for itself."Several men in the group exchanged uncomfortable glances."Shut your mouth, Ferretti!" Ashford's neck veins bulged. "You don't know anything about sacrifice!""I know you're standing out there h
You may also like
The Ultimate Devourer
Daoist Of Lies16.4K viewsBeyond The Immortal
Shin Novel 38.8K viewsThe Pervert Mage: First Peek
Kurt Dp.19.4K viewsLife as A Servant
TheCrow387.0K viewsThe CEO's Disgraced Husband Is the Sea God's Commander
AL-Ghainyy428 viewsThe Mongrel Who Defied the World
Lighting210 viewsThe Veiled Prophet Rise of the God Slayer
Parsis48 viewsThe Divine Hand: Isekai Blacksmith
Catnip62 views