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Ch. 39 Are You Threatening Me?
🕑 Added 2023-09-23 16:00:06 +0000 UTCAn order from High Table?
Russell paused for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"Hahaha... An order from High Table? Winston, you're really daring to say that, aren't you?"
Hearing Russell's laughter, Winston knew that things were taking a turn for the worse.
"Winston, I'm going to ask you seriously now. You better think carefully before you answer."
"Are you threatening me?"
Russell's tone turned extremely cold.
"No, that's not what I mean!"
"What I mean is, in order to get you to act, the client might directly involve High Table."
"If you're not interested in the commission, I'll recommend someone else to the client."
Winston didn't hesitate at all and answered immediately.
"If you do that, then of course, it's for the best."
"In these two years of cooperation, I've been quite satisfied. I hope we can continue according to the original agreement. What do you think?"
Russell's tone was no longer icy; he spoke slowly.
"Of course!"
"I won't bother you with rest as soon as you've returned."
After saying that, Winston hung up the phone.
Frowning, Russell put down his phone, his good mood from just returning home completely vanished.
He was now starting to consider whether he should discard his identity as a Continental Hotel affiliated assassin.
In the past, this identity had indeed brought him a lot of conveniences.
However, now the troubles it brought outweighed the benefits.
Two years ago, when he had just gained some fame in the assassin world, he had chosen to join the Continental Hotel for a reason beyond the hotel's assistance—it was Winston's promise.
Outwardly, he was recognized by Continental Hotel due to his exceptional skills, which led to him becoming a direct-affiliate assassin.
But the truth was that Winston's promise was the main reason he had joined Continental Hotel.
Winston promised him that as long as he was willing to join the hotel, he could utilize the hotel's power to the fullest extent and maintain a great degree of freedom.
As long as he didn't openly violate the hotel's rules, he could enjoy all the privileges of being a direct-affiliate assassin.
It would be even better if he agreed to carry out internal commissions from the hotel when convenient.
The reason Winston made such an offer to lure him in was simple!
Because he possessed extraordinary abilities!
There were plenty of killers in New York, and many of them had special talents.
However, there were very few assassins with extraordinary abilities.
Members like Cross in the Brotherhood and individuals like Mr. X could barely be considered as possessing extraordinary abilities among assassins.
But compared to Russell's straightforward and brute superhuman abilities, their marksmanship and autonomous adrenaline control seemed rather ordinary.
Winston's attempt to recruit Russell into Continental Hotel on the surface was to enhance the hotel's strength.
But Russell knew that the reason Winston made those offers to him was mainly for himself.
Winston was currently the manager of Continental Hotel in New York, a high-ranking and influential position in the assassin world.
But people are ambitious creatures.
The position of a mere manager at Continental Hotel in New York couldn't satisfy Winston's ambitions.
He wanted a seat at High Table.
If he used conventional means, even if Winston retired, he wouldn't be able to secure a position at the high table.
Hence, Winston had to consider using unconventional methods.
Russell was the unconventional method he chose.
How exactly Winston would operate, Russell wasn't sure.
But if things went as expected, Winston would undoubtedly leverage his power and status.
Although Russell knew that Winston had some ulterior motives, he didn't say anything about it.
As he had mentioned earlier, he had been quite satisfied with their two years of cooperation.
As long as Winston didn't go too far, he didn't mind taking on internal commissions from the hotel or executing orders from the high table.
Other direct-affiliate assassins might obediently follow the hotel's internal commissions and High Table's orders, but Russell had no such intentions.
Whether it was an internal commission from the hotel or an order from the high table, he would only do it if he was interested.
If he wasn't interested, even if High Table's adjudicator personally came to him, he wouldn't take it.
High Table and Continental Hotel might seem powerful, but dealing with them wouldn't be that difficult when push came to shove.
Let alone him, even his former colleague and old love who had retired and married could turn High Table and Continental Hotel into a chaotic mess when it came to playing with lives.
If an ordinary human like his old love could do it, he certainly wouldn't have any issues.
After giving it some serious thought, he decided to temporarily retain his identity as a Continental Hotel affiliated assassin.
Though he now had his own private channels and network of connections, it still fell short compared to the resources of the hotel.
Since Winston hadn't overtly turned hostile yet, continuing the cooperation wasn't out of the question.
Having made up his mind, he searched online for the latest news about Daredevil.
He was curious about what Daredevil had done to prompt Kingpin to commission his assassination.
Compared to Tony's news, there was significantly less news about Daredevil.
Apart from the residents of New York, people from other places had little interest in Daredevil.
Popularity determined the number and timeliness of news reports.
As a superhero who mainly appeared at night and operated in Hell's Kitchen, Daredevil's latest news was from a week ago.
Similar to past news, Daredevil's recent news was about him taking down a gang and rescuing a group of abducted women.
The news was short.
The whole case didn't have any particularly noteworthy details.
Russell scrolled through more of Daredevil's reports, but still didn't find anything unusual. They were all the usual reports of a superhero fighting crime.
Wait a minute!
Daredevil had been fighting crime in Hell's Kitchen for quite a while.
Kingpin had been trying to kill Daredevil for a long time too.
There had been many assassination requests to kill Daredevil before.
But the rewards for those commissions were never high; they were usually in the range of several hundred thousand to a couple of million dollars.
If Daredevil hadn't completely provoked Kingpin, there was no way Kingpin would offer such a hefty reward of fifty million dollars.
The online news didn't reveal any issues. Russell logged onto the dark web's underground forums to search for intelligence on Daredevil.
After searching for information about Daredevil on the dark web's underground forums, Russell finally understood why Kingpin wanted him to kill Daredevil.
Daredevil had stormed Kingpin's office in Fisk Tower, taken out all of his bodyguards, and seriously injured Kingpin.
