"Kid, have you lost your damn mind?" Seeing Ethan point a gun at his own head, the group of gangsters froze in confusion.
If you want to be the boss, shouldn't you be pointing the gun at us and threatening us? What's with aiming at yourself?
"What, if we don't agree, you're gonna shoot yourself?" one of them said, and the others burst into laughter.
"Yeah, yeah, little brat! What, can your bullets curve or something?" another chimed in.
The air filled with raucous laughter, a cheerful chaos erupting around them.
"You're one pathetic boss. You die like this, and not a single person's even sad?" Ethan glanced at Bronte's lifeless body sprawled nearby, then turned his gaze to the cackling crowd.
He raised his hand and pulled the trigger!
The revolver had six rounds.
In the alley, that guy Nigel had used up three shots. Ethan had taken out Bronte and Calander with two more.
This was the last bullet!
Bang!
The gunpowder ignited, and the bullet rocketed out of the barrel!
An orange-yellow slug, hurtling at 300 meters per second, sped straight toward Ethan's temple!
At that moment, Ethan lifted his left hand, darting it toward his right temple—and with a swift snap, caught it!
There, between his index and middle fingers, was the orange-yellow bullet!
The laughter in the room slammed to a halt, as if someone had hit pause. Silence fell instantly.
Ethan released his grip, and the bullet clinked onto the gray-black marble floor, the sound echoing in everyone's stunned minds.
Every single bodyguard stared at the bullet on the ground, faces brimming with disbelief and hesitation.
That was a bullet! Even if it was just from a revolver, how could anyone catch it?
"In martial arts, speed is king!" Ethan said coolly, scanning the crowd. "From now on, the Gray Rat Gang answers to me. Who's with me? Who's against me?"
The bodyguards exchanged uneasy glances, but no one dared to speak.
"I'm with you!" Ryan jumped in, raising his hand eagerly. "The Gray Rat Gang's been overdue for a sharper boss!"
"Yeah, yeah, exactly!" one of the bodyguards quickly lowered his gun. "From now on, you're our boss!"
"Right, right…" The others nodded hurriedly, slipping their weapons back into their suits.
Catching a bullet with his bare hands? Who the hell had seen that before?
Sure, it could be a trick—some special effects nonsense—but no one was willing to bet on it. What if it wasn't?
They were bodyguards, not kamikaze soldiers.
"Good!" Ethan nodded. "Clean up the bodies, call the key leaders for a meeting, and fill me in on everything—what's the Gray Rat Gang's situation, what's our main business, all of it!"
"Yes, sir!" The bodyguards nodded and scattered. Two of them cautiously dragged away the Quinn brothers' corpses.
Ethan sank back onto the sofa, brushing off some dust and mites, then flipped on the TV.
SpongeBob had just ended. Now it was some paternity test show, with the host shouting, "This kid isn't yours!" The woman bolted offstage, clutching her face, while the guy stayed behind, cheering like he'd won the lottery.
"Boss, here's the Gray Rat Gang's files!" A curvaceous figure suddenly loomed in front of Ethan, a deep cleavage framed by pale, rounded skin. He looked up to see a blonde, blue-eyed girl—about 5'7", with a killer figure—standing there.
"Dani Roberts!" she said, setting down a stack of documents and extending her hand. "Gray Rat Gang secretary!"
"Oh, uh…" Ethan gave her hand a quick shake. "You can go now."
"Uh…" Dani's face darkened. I wore this sexy outfit on purpose, spritzed perfume to cover any scent, dabbed on powder to hide my pores—and you're blind to my charm? But she kept it to herself. Bronte's body had only just been hauled away, after all.
"Tch!" Ethan rolled his eyes. Western women's skin was worse than his—how could he possibly be into that?
Wouldn't an Asian girl be better? His wife was Yui Aragaki, for crying out loud!
He glanced down at the files, but after flipping through two pages, he sensed someone else approaching.
Ryan had dragged over a dark-skinned guy with deep-set eyes, a sharp nose, and a messy beard. Despite the unkempt look, he had an air of charisma, complete with gold-rimmed glasses—an Indian dude.
"Boss, this is our accountant, Arba Khan!" Ryan said.
"Hey, boss!" Arba's English was flawless, barely a hint of a curry accent. "I'm Arba Khan, Princeton University, Math Department grad. Thirty-eight years old!"
"Huh? Princeton's Math Department—isn't that, like, the best in the world? How'd you end up here?" Ethan was floored.
Princeton was the holy grail for academic flexing, especially its math program. It was top-tier, no question—one of those places Ethan, a second-rate college grad in his past life, couldn't even dream of touching. People from there either became math geniuses or got scooped up by Wall Street for big bucks. So why was this guy an accountant for a gang?
Arba gave an awkward smile.
"He used to work on Wall Street," Ryan cut in, "but he slept with his boss's daughter…"
"That's not a big deal!" Ethan said. "You could've just married her!"
A Princeton math grad as a son-in-law? That's hardly a downgrade!
"That boss had four daughters," Ryan gestured wildly. "The youngest was only fourteen!"
"Uh…" Ethan faltered. "You didn't… all of them, right?"
"Being handsome's a curse!" Arba sighed. "Boss, you're good-looking too—you must get this kind of trouble all the time, right?"
"Uh, yeah, sure!" Ethan nodded awkwardly. "Totally. Women just cling to me, can't shake 'em off. I'm trying to work, and they're barging into my office…"
If it weren't for that 300K dowry and a 1.5M house he couldn't afford, he'd probably be married by now.
So, the story was simple: Arba didn't just sleep with the exec's four daughters—he was a total player. Wall Street blacklisted him, and the exec even put a bounty on his head.
Not that anyone bothered trying to collect it.
Good thing Hell's Kitchen didn't care. The place was crawling with working girls—most of them Broadway dreamers, and the quality was unreal. You might bump into a streetwalker who'd belt out "Nessun Dorma" on the spot.
"Fine, whatever, it's not important!" Ethan waved it off. "Just tell me—how much money does the Gray Rat Gang have?"
"The Quinn brothers had about two million bucks stored through me," Arba answered honestly. "I don't know if they had private accounts elsewhere."
"What? That's it? Did you pocket some?" Ethan gaped.
"No way!" Arba shook his head. "I'm a professional accountant—I'd never dip into an employer's funds."
"But hasn't the Gray Rat Gang been around for five or six years? How's that all you've got?" Ethan turned to Ryan. He'd just skimmed something about that in the files.
"Six years—we started in 2002," Ryan confirmed.
"But 80% of our profits go to Kingpin," Arba explained. "We're left with 20%, and with all these mouths to feed, the money never adds up!"
"Hold up," Ethan blinked. "Who'd you just say?"
"Kingpin, the underground king of New York!" Arba replied. "But don't worry, boss. Just report to him, keep paying the usual cut, and he won't mess with us!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Ethan rubbed his temples. "Do you know Tony Stark?"
"That playboy? I'd love to meet him, but he doesn't know me!" Arba said.
Ethan fell silent for a long moment, then asked, "Osborn?"
"Osborn Group? Fourth biggest military contractor in the country?" Arba countered.
Ethan went quiet again, then blurted, "Shit!"
I thought I was the only one with powers, and now you're telling me this is freaking Marvel?
I was ready to buy a lithography machine and bounce!