“Fire? Where’s the fire?” A wave of panicked voices and footsteps echoed through the building.
Moments later, a loud voice called out, “It’s nothing, just a malfunction! The fire suppression system is old and broke down. No fire, everyone stay calm and carry on.”
By this time, Echo had already used the chaos to make her way to the top floor of the Pensax building.
Standing on the sixth floor, she glanced at the two men who had fallen at her feet.
Pathetic. She’d taken them down with just a couple of quick hits.
What kind of criminals were these? Completely useless.
Muttering to herself, Echo sat down in their place, which was the building’s surveillance room.
If she wanted to accomplish what she had come for, she had to take control of this first.
Luckily for her, breaking and entering was her specialty. It was child’s play, and she had the whole system under her control in no time. Too easy, really-she knew these setups like the back of her hand.
As she scanned the dozens of monitors showing every corner of the building, Echo couldn’t help but smile. This was much faster than searching each room one by one.
The images on the screens kept flipping between different camera feeds, and what she saw made her blush. In one of the dimly lit rooms, tangled bodies were glistening with sweat, and the sounds of a woman’s seductive moans and a man’s heavy breathing filled the air.
Embarrassed, Echo quickly looked away.
On the next screen, the scene from earlier at the body feast appeared. The beautiful woman who had been laid out on the table was now drenched in sweat. The food that had been placed on her had long been eaten, and the bald man enjoying the meal was now fully indulged in his “pleasures.”
Echo couldn’t help but feel embarrassed, turning her head back and forth.
Everywhere she looked, it was either people having sex or acts of depravity. Some were two or three men on one woman, while others had women serving a single man. A few faces even looked familiar-these were the same bosses who had been downstairs earlier.
The whole scene made Echo’s face flush with embarrassment, and she cursed under her breath. Damn, this place is nothing but a den of debauchery. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have come. But it wasn’t like she had a choice.
As the screens flipped between views, Echo finally spotted what she was looking for.
The women Ryan had thrown out earlier were now in a room full of torture devices. Surrounded by men with twisted, sadistic expressions, these women were being abused in turns.
Echo frowned as she watched.
Focusing more closely, she noticed that the women didn’t have any looks of fear or anger on their faces, and their cries didn’t carry any notes of terror either.
Echo’s expression turned cold. If she had known it would end up like this, she wouldn’t have taken the risk to come here to save them.
People need to respect themselves if they want others to do the same.
Just as she was about to get up and leave, her eyes caught something in the corner. The woman whose arm Ryan had broken earlier was screaming in pain, covered in blood. Several men, holding red-hot branding irons, were slowly approaching her. The woman had clearly already been whipped; her oddly twisted arm was still in the same broken state, and now her other arm had been similarly mangled. Echo gritted her teeth and cursed under her breath.
When Dean mentioned earlier that he would “make sure you’re fully satisfied with how this is handled” with Ryan, Echo had a bad feeling.
These women might be in this line of work, and they didn’t exactly deserve sympathy, but they didn’t deserve to die either. Still, with Ryan’s status and presence, offending him came with severe consequences. Dean’s idea of “handled things right” was bound to be brutal.
Echo wasn’t exactly a saint herself, and she wasn’t overflowing with compassion, but life was precious. Losing it over something so small wasn’t worth it. That’s why she snuck in here in the first place.
Seeing the situation, Echo sighed softly. She glanced at the computer in front of her and shook her head before quickly hacking into the system.
She got lucky-the two men had left the system wide open, so it was child’s play for her to take control. She found the power switch for the torture room’s circuits, and with a quick press of a button, the torture room went black. She had cut the lights in the torture room.
After tweaking a few of the surveillance system’s settings, Echo stood up, ready to go down and help the woman.
But before she could leave, she noticed something strange on the screen. Despite the darkness, red lines were still visible in the torture room feed.
Echo raised an eyebrow-she knew exactly what that was.
Infrared sensors.
That was high-level security.
Why would a torture room need infrared surveillance?
Frowning, Echo’s mind raced.
Wait, why haven’t she seen Ryan’s surveillance feed? There’s no way his room wouldn’t be monitored. As soon as the thought hit her, she started searching carefully.
Finally, at the very bottom of the screen-where it was both easy to spot and easy to overlook-Echo found the feed showing Ryan.
His face was cold and expressionless, while Dean didn’t look much better. The tension in the room was palpable, and Echo could tell something unpleasant must have happened while she was gone. One glance at the stern faces of Cobra and the others confirmed it.
Echo understood that Ryan planned to take over the Archer family’s territory today, and he was just looking for a legitimate excuse.
She raised an eyebrow at this realization, noticing Ryan’s unshakable expression. Shaking her head, she glanced at Dean.
Ryan had clearly been eyeing this territory for a while but hadn’t made his move yet. And now Dean had the nerve to invite him here? It was like a chicken inviting a weasel-serves him right.
She sighed, ready to leave, but then her eyes caught something on Ryan’s screen. It showed a group of fully armed men, holding sharp weapons and the latest gear, all focused on the ground.
Echo frowned, wondering why they were aiming at the floor.
Beneath Ryan’s location, another group of armed men stood, their weapons trained on the ceiling.
She glanced around, realizing it was a full panoramic view of Ryan’s surroundings. Armed men were stationed above, below, and all around his room, waiting for any sign of trouble.
Echo wiped the sweat from her forehead-wow, she had been in that very room earlier. If Ryan had made one wrong move, they’d all have been shot and turned into Swiss cheese.
Without thinking, she hit the record button.
If Ryan saw this footage, not one of those men would make it out alive.
Dean wasn’t stupid after all; he knew he had to be cautious around Ryan. But even with all these precautions, it was likely Ryan would use this as an excuse to take Dean’s territory, and the Street family wouldn’t even be able to make a sound in protest-they might even get framed by Ryan in the end.
Echo plopped down in the chair, deciding not to move for the time being.
The darkened torture room remained quiet, meaning someone in there was aware that once the lights were off, the infrared surveillance kicked in, and triggering it would be deadly.
So, for now, there was no need to worry about the woman. Instead, she had to figure out whether or not she should go back to Ryan.
As she stared at the screen, trying to come up with a plan, the image suddenly shook.
Her senses sharpened-someone skilled had hacked into the system. If she weren’t so experienced, she might not have noticed that the screen had been frozen and was now looping.
Wow, things were getting interesting.
Echo quickly started moving her fingers, engaging in a battle of hacking and counter-hacking.
In a contest between experts, victory could come down to mere milliseconds.
In no time, one of the screens in front of her flickered back to life.
Echo grinned-hacking was her specialty, but so was counter-hacking. Restoring just one screen wouldn’t tip off her opponent.
Once the system came back online, she couldn’t help but smirk. Ryan was no pushover. His men had infiltrated both the inner and outer areas of the building, sneaking into the least expected corners.
As the building filled with Ryan’s men, quietly wiping out Dean’s forces, Echo had to admit that witnessing this live turf war wasn’t as thrilling as TV made it look.
As she continued watching the action unfold, Echo found herself critiquing the lack of style in their movements, completely forgetting whether or not she should make her escape.
The screen switched to Ryan’s room, which was completely empty.
Echo froze for a second-where had he gone?