"Lila... look me in the eyes and say it again."
Reed's voice trembled, not from fear, but from the aftershocks of a pillar collapsing deep within his soul. He took a step forward, his leather shoes making a sickening, squelching sound on the dark red carpet.
Lila did not flinch. She lit a slender cigarette and, through the pale blue smoke, appraised him with the look one gives a cockroach: "Reed, stop pestering me like a weaned child. The truth is – you're just a piece of trash who only knows how to fight, and I deserve a better life. That money? Consider it your payment for buying out my acting for the past two years."
"Hey, soldier." The man in sunglasses beside her let out a harsh laugh. He slowly took out a silk handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the champagne stains from between his fingers, and said in a mocking and sharp tone, "Did you hear that? In this city, love is worthless. Your hard-earned money can't even buy one sleeve of this silk dress she's wearing. If you really want to help her, why don't you kneel down and beg me? Maybe I'll consider finding you a job in my private fighting ring, letting you perform biting and tearing like a wild dog for our distinguished guests, how about that?"
The man in sunglasses became more and more excited as he spoke. He tilted his head, his eyes hidden behind dark lenses filled with the pleasure of a cat playing with a mouse.
"Bang!"
This dull thud ended all mockery.
Reed's outburst came without warning. His body was like a tightly drawn bowstring suddenly released to its limit. He lunged forward half a step, his hips and waist aligned, and with a straight punch as heavy as a thousand pounds, he slammed it into the arrogant face of the man in sunglasses without any fancy moves.
A crisp bone-cracking sound echoed through the hall.
The man in sunglasses didn't even have time to scream before he was sent flying horizontally from the sofa like a broken sack, smashing into the marble coffee table behind him. His expensive sunglasses shattered into dust, his nose bridge completely collapsed, and blood gushed out like a fountain, splattering his face that had once prided itself on its nobility.
"You pig!" The man in sunglasses rolled on the ground, letting out a muffled roar, "Kill him! Kill him for me!"
Dense footsteps echoed from outside the door, like the drumming of death. Dozens of elite thugs in black suits, armed with batons and stun batons, rushed into the hall like a tide.
Reed showed no signs of retreat. He felt the rebound force from his knuckles, the only real thing he had felt in the past two years. Just as he was about to charge at the blood-covered man again, a fiery red figure suddenly blocked the way.
Lila, like a mother wolf protecting her cubs, spread her arms to shield the man in sunglasses. She screamed, her eyes filled with disgust and hatred for Reed: "Get away! You madman! You almost killed him! You bottom-feeder, you have no idea what kind of influential figure you're provoking!"
At that moment, Reed's raised fist stopped in mid-air.
His heart was completely dead. The feeling was not like shattering, but more like a fiery magma instantly cooling into gray, dead stone. He watched the woman he had once sworn to protect with his life now glare at him for a tyrant who trampled on his dignity.
"Good... very good." Reed gave a wretched laugh, his voice eerily calm.
"Go! Kill him!"
The first four thugs had already rushed forward. Reed's eyes sharpened, and the pent-up brutality of the past two years surged like a bursting dam.
He sidestepped a sweeping baton, and his right hand's brass knuckles smashed into the opponent's ribs in a blur of gray. With a sound of cracking bones, he seized the baton and struck the side of another man's neck with it.
He was like a precisely calculated killing machine, weaving, charging, and advancing through the crowd. A left hook shattered a jaw, a knee strike ruptured a spleen. In just one minute, six or seven wailing bodies were already piled at his feet.
But there were too many enemies.
As this was the city's top private club, the security level was far beyond imagination. More and more men in black poured in, no longer fighting alone but forming formations.
"Hah!"
Reed roared, and a heavy punch sent the man in front of him flying with broken teeth, but two stun batons from the flanks simultaneously jabbed into his back. The high-voltage current caused his muscles to spasm violently, leading to a fatal delay in his movements.
Immediately after, a heavy pipe wrench smashed down on the back of his head.
His vision began to blur, blood flowed from his forehead into his eyes, staining the world before him a. He knelt on the ground, gasping for breath, trying to support himself. Around him were over a dozen pairs of leather shoes, falling like raindrops, kicking his ribs, abdomen, and face.