The souls you wanted have arrived

"Understood, Boss."

Sabatino nodded obediently and continued.

"To be honest, my men and I don't know much about that wraith. After all, when he appeared, we were in the middle of a fierce conflict with the Dimitrov family.

"It's the Gotham police who have more information on him. That Deputy Commissioner Gordon at the precinct is the one who personally captured the wraith.

"However, I'm not sure if the orders you gave me allow for Commissioner Savage to know about this. If they do, you can certainly continue asking him."

Having said that, Sabatino drained the whiskey in his glass and began pouring another, waiting for Falcone to make a decision.

Falcone did not keep Sabatino waiting long; in the blink of an eye, he waved a hand at Victor Zsasz.

"Bring Commissioner Savage and the girls he's helping over here."

As the words fell, Victor headed straight for the door.

Once he had left, Falcone took a sip of his drink and nodded at Sabatino.

"You've done well, Johnny. Have a few more drinks with me in a moment.

"It's truly an eventful autumn. Not only has a descendant of Wayne returned to his kingdom, but even a wraith from the stories has come knocking at our door."

As he spoke, Falcone felt a wave of exhaustion.

In recent years, as he grew older, the fatigue had intensified day by day, pressing down on him until he could barely breathe.

Perhaps sensing his decline, both Maroni and Fish had become increasingly arrogant.

Maroni, in particular, had more than once drunkenly shouted in his restaurant stronghold that he would be the King of Gotham, not even bothering to pretend otherwise.

It was precisely to keep Maroni and Fish in check that Falcone had used the ambitious Oswald to stir up trouble for them.

But even if new conflicts had slowed their pace in challenging him, that day would eventually come, for his own aging was irreversible.

Yet, just when he thought these were his only troubles, the shadow of the Court of Owls had emerged once again!

This time was different from fifteen years ago; they hadn't even contacted him, instead intervening directly in his war with other families!

Although Falcone still disdained their methods and viewed them as hyenas trailing behind a decaying lion king, the crux of the matter was that Falcone knew he was indeed decaying...

Just as Falcone was lost in thought, Savage and Victor walked in, accompanied by six or seven young women.

Seeing the faces of those girls, Falcone's expression darkened slightly. He pointed at the sexy woman carrying drinks and cigars behind Savage and asked, "Why are you here?"

"I grew up here, Mr. Falcone!"

The woman pointed out by Falcone curtsied slightly. As she placed the drinks on the bar, she gave Falcone a particularly cunning and alluring smile.

Seeing that smile, Falcone took a deep breath and waved a hand at Victor.

Victor nodded gently and then stood silently behind the young woman.

Seeing Victor approach, the young girl chuckled softly and raised her hand to offer the whiskey to him.

Meanwhile, Savage asked Falcone with a hint of curiosity, "It's my first time seeing such a beautiful girl. She really is connected to you, the boss. I knew you wouldn't miss out on such a delicate flower. It's a pity—if she weren't your woman, I would certainly..."

"That is my daughter!"

Before Savage could finish his sentence, Falcone looked at him with the cold, predatory gaze of a tiger.

Facing Falcone's dangerous eyes, Savage stiffened abruptly and quickly set down his glass.

"I... I'm sorry, I deserve to die. I'm a fool for drinking too fast! I apologize, I sincerely apologize. I... what can I do to make amends?"

In a brief moment, Commissioner Savage was drenched in sweat.

Across from him, Falcone watched him silently for a long time before finally speaking.

"We should remain humble, and learn to restrain our curiosity, my friend!"

"Yes, yes, it's my fault. I will be humble, I won't be curious, I..."

"Enough. You don't need to apologize anymore. Who would blame someone who knows nothing? I have other things to ask you. I heard that Gordon at your precinct caught an unusual prisoner today? Tell me about that."

Falcone interrupted Commissioner Savage, who felt an immediate sense of relief.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief, he hurried to say, "Your sources are indeed well-informed. Actually, I only just heard the news myself. Gordon is claiming he caught someone who vanished into thin air—an Asian man who doesn't appear in any American immigration or census records. How is that possible? Unless the guys from across the ocean have invaded!"

"Right, he also said that Asian guy died a few times, then came back to life!"

"I suspect he was high, or else he's completely lost his mind!"

"Come to think of it, someone like Gordon is bound to go crazy in Gotham sooner or later; it just happened to be today, that's all!"

"I..."

Savage stopped abruptly, then looked up in astonishment toward the door of the private room.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

BOOM!

Crackling!

Thud, thud!

The renewed sound of gunfire and explosions silenced the entire room.

After a moment of silence, Falcone slammed his hand heavily onto the table.

"Victor, I want to know who dares to interrupt my mood again and again! Find out who is behind this attack and bring him to me. He will kneel before me and die as if serving Caesar!"

"As you command, Boss!"

Receiving the order, Victor Zsasz didn't say another word. He left the room immediately, holding a knife in his left hand and a gun in his right.

Navigating through the confusing corridors and pushing open the secret door of the Minus Forty-Four Degrees club, Victor walked into the Iceberg Lounge, which had already descended into chaos.

After moving against the flow of panicked people for a while, Victor caught sight of the center of the gunfire and explosions, a cruel smile spreading across his face.

But the next moment, when he clearly saw the person causing the chaos, Victor couldn't smile anymore.

What was it that Sabatino had just said?

An Asian man over one meter eighty tall?

An undead soul that couldn't be killed?

A corpse that would spontaneously combust after death and then vanish into thin air?

Looking at the Asian man in the distance, who was leaning behind an overturned gambling table, laughing wildly even as his body was riddled with bullet holes, tossing a grenade before being turned into a sieve by even more gunfire!

Then, watching that same Asian man's corpse rapidly ignite and vanish into nothingness!

Victor hurried back the way he came; he had to inform Boss Falcone of this news as quickly as possible!

On the other hand, a short while ago.

After bidding farewell to the old man at the gun shop, Downton didn't get into the car he had previously borrowed. Instead, he walked a few hundred paces in the direction the old man had pointed out and hailed a taxi.

As soon as he got into the car, Downton immediately pulled a large stack of cash from his travel bag and said grandly to the taxi driver.

"Buddy, take me to the Iceberg Lounge. I've got a huge pile of cash on me, and I'm going to have a blast today, haha!"

Amidst his loud laughter, Downton tossed the handful of money next to the driver.

Watching the bills—at least several thousand dollars—flying around, the driver swallowed the words he had been about to say.

As a taxi driver making a living in Little Italy, he certainly knew what kind of place the Iceberg Lounge was, and he knew even better that it wasn't a place for ordinary people.

However, looking at this incredibly foolish and showy rich kid, he did seem like the kind of customer the Iceberg Lounge would welcome.

Isn't this exactly the kind of person the gangsters make their money from? If he dropped this guy off, it shouldn't cause any trouble, right?

"Sit tight, I'll take you there right away, boss!"

The taxi driver quickly convinced himself and sped off with Downton.

As for Downton, he maintained his foolish, playboy grin while using the banknotes to firmly cover the grenades inside his bag.