"I'll pay you eight million," Lawrence Peter shouted through the reinforced vault door, his voice tight with fear. "Cash, Skull Coins, whatever you want. Just let walk away."
Drex Valen stood in silence, studying the door.
The thing was absurd.
Nearly four inches of reinforced alloy, layered over a hardened concrete bunker with dense internal steel supports. The construction costs alone had to be staggering. Lawrence had clearly built this place around one singular obsession:
Survival.
Drex almost respected it.
Almost.
"Nothing short of heavy explosives will get through this," Lawrence continued, forcing calm into his tone. "Even then, probably not."
He was wrong.
Drex reached for the door handle.
At first, there was only a faint tallic groan.
Lawrence frowned from inside.
Then ca another sound.
A violent, twisting shriek of stressed alloy.
Dust fell from the fra.
Concrete cracked.
"No..." Lawrence whispered.
Drex increased his grip.
The reinforced hinges began tearing apart under raw physical force.
His strength had grown substantially again, though the exact numbers remained unclear. Still, unless this door could withstand over one hundred tons of opposing force...
It was finished.
With one hand, Drex ripped the massive vault door free.
The slab of alloy tore loose and crashed into the rear wall like a missile.
Lawrence stared in frozen disbelief.
For perhaps the first ti in decades, the old gang lord truly understood helplessness.
Drex raised his pistol.
"Wait...!"
Bang.
Silence.
Afterward, Drex searched the bunker thoroughly.
He found over two million dollars in cash hidden inside.
Apparently, Lawrence liked keeping ergency liquidity close.
Drex appreciated the paranoia.
It was profitable.
Once he had stripped the estate of useful assets, Drex prepared his exit.
Grenades.
Explosives.
Accelerants.
He piled them into the underground complex and ignited the entire structure.
Monts later, a thunderous explosion ripped through the estate, followed by towering flas that consud evidence, bodies, and infrastructure alike.
By the ti ergency response would arrive...
There would be very little left to understand.
Drex walked calmly out of the villa community behind an inferno.
The Midnight Hotel's intelligence network was terrifyingly efficient.
By the ti Drex had fully left the property, they already knew.
After the fire was eventually extinguished, investigators combed through what remained.
Their findings were... extraordinary.
"Three hundred fifty-three confird kills," one senior operative noted, reviewing the report. "Every victim suffered catastrophic cranial trauma."
"Even the fifteen wearing ballistic helts," another added.
The implication was obvious.
Large-caliber modified handguns.
Near-perfect accuracy.
And sothing far more disturbing.
"Outside his first hundred rounds," one analyst said slowly, "every remaining kill was made using weapons acquired on-site."
The room went quiet.
That detail mattered.
It ant Drex had entered a fortified criminal compound alone, exhausted his own ammunition, then adapted in real ti by turning enemy weapons into extensions of himself... all without losing montum.
A heavily bearded senior official leaned back.
"Bullseye made his na eliminating seventeen Navy SEALs."
A second executive nodded grimly.
"This man killed three hundred fifty-three."
The conclusion was inevitable.
Midnight Hotel had a new legend.
And legends were profitable.
Drex chose not to return directly to Washington.
Instead, he registered his contract completion through the California Midnight Hotel branch.
A sharply dressed Black concierge greeted him with professional composure.
"Welco, sir."
Drex nodded.
"I'm here to collect."
The concierge explained the payout structure clearly.
Cash payout in major currencies, fully laundered and legally sanitized, at a twenty percent commission.
Or...
Skull Coins.
The standard exchange remained ten thousand dollars per coin.
For ordinary assassins, the Midnight Hotel typically claid forty-five percent.
For Drex?
Only twenty.
He had already beco too valuable.
"I'll take half in cash," Drex said, "and half in Skull Coins."
"Of course, sir."
He received two hundred Skull Coins, each intricately engraved and surprisingly dense, with near-pure gold composition.
Functional wealth.
Portable leverage.
Drex approved.
Using just two coins, he secured rapid private air transport back to Texas through Midnight Hotel's covert aviation network.
The service was... enlightening.
Stealth routes.
Invisible flight paths.
Custom logistics.
This wasn't ordinary organized cri.
This level of infrastructure strongly implied institutional backing.
Drex's mind rapidly processed possibilities.
CIA?
Unlikely.
Major state intelligence coalitions?
Possible.
Hydra?
Much more probable.
Hydra's covert influence, global infiltration, and logistical sophistication fit far too well.
Drex ntally filed that away.
Useful information.
When he finally returned to Shelley's ranch, now carrying yet another fortune, Shelley once again looked like his nervous system was beginning to fail.
"Boss..."
Shelley had stopped asking normal questions.
That was probably healthier.
Drex unloaded over three million dollars in fresh earnings, separate from the ten million in already-laundered funds he'd secured previously.
"Relax," Drex said. "This batch is clean."
Shelley simply stared.
At this point, his employer was less mysterious drifter and more walking economic event.
Drex, anwhile, remained focused.
He had no desire to relocate to places like New York.
The ranch was ideal.
Remote.
Private.
Safe.
A perfect place to continue solar absorption, build wealth, and expand his future infrastructure.
anwhile, throughout the Midnight Hotel network, Drex's previous bounty was officially withdrawn.
No sane assassin would accept it now anyway.
His performance had already inspired a new title among killers worldwide.
At first:
The Devil
But eventually, due to his appearance...
The White Devil
Drex found it slightly dramatic.
But not inaccurate.
Texas itself lacked a Midnight Hotel branch, aning future operations would likely route through Los Angeles.
For now, though...
The White Devil had arrived.
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