"What? Forty men plus SWAT… and they still couldn't stop just one guy?!"
Inside the luxury hotel suite, Jesse's furious roar thundered against the walls. His chest burned with a cocktail of shock, rage, and disbelief. Never in his life had he faced someone so damn difficult to kill.
"A bunch of useless trash! What the hell do I pay you for?!" Jesse's voice cracked with anger, his veins bulging as if he were seconds away from an aneurysm.
His assistant stood frozen, head bowed, hands trembling, sweat dripping. He didn't dare look up, afraid the young master's wrath might suddenly turn on him.
"Master Jesse," he stammered, carefully picking his words, "that kid… he's not normal. According to survivors, a sudden strange wind came out of nowhere, sand and dust swirling everywhere. Then… they heard a piercing sound. It shattered the glass around them. Doctors are still on the way. We're not sure if it's true—"
Tonight's ambush had been carefully staged. Connections were burned, resources drained—all for Leon's life, and for that terrifying machine he drove. Yet what should have been a clean job had spiraled into a disaster, costing them not just money, but face.
Jesse's face twisted into something monstrous. He felt like he'd been raising pigs instead of men.
"Mystical wind? What a load of crap! Just excuses!" His chest heaved as rage consumed him. They couldn't kill Leon, but they sure could spin fairy tales.
Every time Leon's smug face flashed in his mind, Jesse's hatred grew darker. As a self-proclaimed superior white elitist, he couldn't accept it—an Asian humiliating him in his own territory? Unthinkable.
"Call the shooters and the drivers in San Francisco. I don't care what it takes—kill him!" Jesse's eyes gleamed with bloodlust.
"Yes, sir." The assistant bowed, not daring to ask more. Serving Jesse meant knowing less and obeying more. Questions bred suspicion, and suspicion was often fatal.
As he left, the sound of shattering glass and flipped furniture exploded behind the door. Jesse had lost all control.
Meanwhile, Leon had just flipped ten cars in his wake. The Silver Marauder roared forward like a predator, slicing through chaos with untouchable grace. Survivors stared wide-eyed, frozen in disbelief.
Just minutes ago, they had mocked him, sneering that he was trash. Now, they were the ones lying in wreckage. Who was trash now?
Leon caught their faces in the rearview mirror and burst into manic laughter.
"Too damn good!"
He slammed the brakes.
SCREEEECH!
Tires screamed. The Silver Marauder spun violently, a gleaming blur under the night sky. Like a top, it twirled four perfect circles before halting—its nose now aimed directly at the battlefield.
Flawless control. A maneuver only Leon could pull off with such nonchalant mastery.
The survivors held their breath. Leon lowered his window slowly, every eye fixed on him. What was he about to do?
He stuck out his hand—
—and flipped them the boldest middle finger they had ever seen.
"HAHAHAHA!!" Leon's laughter thundered, wild and unrestrained.
The wounded choked on their own rage. One of them, too injured to bear the humiliation, fainted on the spot—knocked unconscious by sheer shame.
The story would spread. Taken down not by bullets, not by fists… but by a middle finger.
"Hahaha, what a bunch of losers!" Leon sneered. Every pore in his body buzzed with euphoria. This was the high he lived for.
Whoever thought van drivers were weak had clearly never seen the Silver Marauder in action.
With a smirk, Leon rolled up the window and slammed the accelerator.
The Silver Marauder roared like an awakening beast, headlights blazing like a predator's eyes. Its presence made the fallen men quiver. If Leon had chosen to run them down, they would already be stains on the asphalt.
Instead, he scoffed. "Cowards."
With a sharp jerk of the wheel, the Marauder spun again, spraying gravel and sand across their faces in a final insult. Then, with a snap of the handbrake, it launched forward, tearing open the darkness like a silver comet.
The survivors were left numb, staring blankly into the night.
Out on the empty plains, the Silver Marauder thundered into the wilderness. Out here, no city lights, no lamps—only suffocating blackness. Even with night vision and high beams, the path was perilously narrow.
"Search for the quickest route back to the highway," Leon commanded.
"Searching… fastest route located," the Marauder's AI replied, calm and mechanical.
On the HUD, a holographic map projected onto the windshield. The system displayed a detour—he'd have to loop around a mountain before rejoining the main road. The fastest option, but still a detour…
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