Betrayer Wallace

Betrayer—Wallace

Almost the very next second, another gunshot rang out.

This time, a hole was blasted straight through the car window. The speeding bullet blew the driver's head into a bloody mess of flesh. With no one controlling it, the vehicle swerved off the road and skidded a long way.

"Two snipers, one o'clock direction, modified large-caliber weapons. Distance approximately three hundred meters. There are also three suspicious individuals approaching. Ratt, you three deal with them. Newt and I will escort the boss away." Wallace's voice came through the radio on the driver's corpse. The vehicle ahead immediately accelerated, speeding toward their one o'clock direction.

The vehicle behind pulled up on the right side of Luke Field's car. The modified business van, a full vehicle taller than theirs, perfectly blocked the snipers' line of sight. Its door slid open, and Wallace waved for Luke and the other person to switch cars.

Luke calmly opened the door, pressed a hand against Ina Sandra's somewhat panicked back, and bent over to push her and the small silver-white case in her arms toward Wallace's vehicle. Then he crouched and sprinted forward himself. With Wallace's assistance, he was pulled directly inside. The door swiftly shut, and the vehicle rapidly drove away from the scene.

"Oh my God, how could they dare? Why would something like this happen?"

Ina Sandra had clearly been frightened. She tightly gripped Luke's hand with both of hers and spoke in a flustered voice. When handling business matters, she could naturally be decisive and composed, because everything had been within her control. But she had never encountered a situation like this, one completely beyond her control, in all her life.

Luke had no choice but to spare some attention to comfort her. Though at that very moment, his own heart was pounding wildly in his chest. Ever since learning what kind of world this was, he had known that he would have to face something like this someday. He had made every preparation he could for it. But thinking about it was one thing, preparing for it was another. Facing it for the first time, he was inevitably nervous.

But that initial nervousness was all there was.

Once he was back in the car, Luke quickly calmed down. He could even comfort the panicked Ina Sandra with a relaxed expression. Seeing someone like her, who usually faced others with such confidence, cool-headedness, and composure, suddenly panic was rare. To those who knew her well, it was even a little adorable.

A few minutes passed before Ina Sandra finally calmed down and regained her usual composure. She first released Luke's hand, which she had been gripping tightly, then smoothed her hair. She glanced out the window and suddenly noticed something was wrong.

"This isn't the route back to Hebron. Where are we going?" Ina Sandra frowned.

"Where we need to go," Wallace answered from beside them, then pressed a muzzle against Luke's waist.

"Damn it! Newt, stop the car!" Ina Sandra shouted at Newt in the driver's seat. But Newt acted as though he were deaf and blind, ignoring both the voices from the back seat and what was happening there. He even reached up and flipped the rearview mirror away.

"Please stay quiet, Ms. Ina. News of your attack won't stay hidden for long, so my time is limited. I can't waste it on pointless conversation." Wallace smiled. "If you don't want your genius boy to be hurt or die right in front of you, please don't do anything unnecessary or say anything unnecessary, all right?"

"I trusted you so much!" Ina Sandra lowered her voice, as if afraid that if she spoke any louder, Wallace would punch Luke Field, whom he was holding hostage beside him.

"Trust?" Wallace curled his lip. "Trust itself is a luxury for people like me."

"Newt is one of your men?" Luke remained remarkably calm despite being held hostage with a gun pressed to his waist. He glanced at Newt, who was silently driving ahead, and asked.

"That's not an easy question to answer." Wallace shrugged.

"You planned this attack? The earlier sniping was only meant to lure Ratt and the other two away, making Ina and me voluntarily get into your car? You shouldn't be the mastermind. Who is behind you? Someone I offended? There aren't many people I've dealt with who could make someone like you work for them. Is it Justin Hammer? He has strong connections in the military and enough power and influence. He seems to be the only person I've had a conflict with." Luke Field speculated.

"Why can't it be something I wanted to do myself?" Wallace asked with a smile.

"I don't believe that, given Ina's rigorous style, she would select security personnel for me without conducting any background checks. Since you were chosen, aside from performing well enough, your past record and personality assessment must have convinced her that you were trustworthy." Luke Field sighed.

"I want something. I know you brought it with you today. That case in your hands. Tell me the password!" Wallace said. "Don't make me waste effort. You're both smart enough to know how tonight ends. Please don't make yourselves suffer before the end, all right?"

"Hebron Technology R&D Data!" Ina Sandra glared angrily at Wallace.

"That's it. Hand it over, and I'll give you a quick death." Wallace nodded and smiled politely at the furious Ina Sandra.

"Commercial Spy. I knew it! Since normal means couldn't get what he wanted, he decided to use unconventional methods?" Luke Field raised his brows. "He made multiple preparations from the beginning. Just what you'd expect from an old arms dealer. It seems the military's contact with Hebron Technology really struck a nerve.

"At the high end, there's Stark Industries, and he can't force his way in. All he can do is poach talent to create knockoff Stark Industries products, then inflate his company's value by propping up one genius after another to compete with and ride Tony Stark's coattails. But as I said, when there's a genuine product at a reasonable price, why would anyone buy a flawed imitation? Hammer Industries' recent performance hasn't been great, and now it has to face Hebron, a new rival stealing its business—and succeeding at it. Mr. Hammer must be at his wit's end. Did he really take my technology as his lifeline?"

Wallace fell silent.

"This has nothing to do with anyone else. Newt and I just wanted to make enough money to retire. A buyer on the Black Market placed an order for your technology. The reward is substantial."

"Watertight. I'm sure that if nothing unexpected happened, the people behind you would have arranged every loose end perfectly. Even if Hammer Military Industries eventually produced Hebron Technology's technology, any investigation tracing it back would only lead to the Black Market, or perhaps Hebron Technology after it was acquired following our disappearance. Once there were no other options and the profits were great enough, his connections would be enough to smooth over this storm of suspicion. A standard winner-takes-all mindset.

"But, Lieutenant Wallace, all of that depends on nothing unexpected happening." Luke Field said.

Wallace instinctively sensed that something was wrong. But before he could react, his limbs, as well as Newt's in the driver's seat, suddenly seemed to be bound by invisible ropes. Their hands were forcibly pinned against the sides of their thighs. Their bodies convulsed as they lay stiffly in their seats. Having lost control, the car weaved wildly across the road before finally coming to a stop under Luke's control.

"Using my own creations to hold me hostage? That's pretty amusing."

After climbing back from the driver's seat into the rear, Luke Field looked at the Hebron Technology Gloves and Mechanical Boots still on Wallace's hands and feet, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

The repeated shocks and sudden escape from death had overloaded Ina Sandra's mind somewhat. But after the car stopped, she finally snapped back to her senses. Under Luke's dumbfounded gaze, she lifted her long legs in high heels and viciously kicked Wallace twice in the most important area of his male anatomy.

"I messed things up." After kicking him, Ina Sandra looked at Luke with some shame. Two moles had actually been hiding in the security team she had personally selected and assembled! One of them was even the Captain of the Security Squad! It was simply absurd!

"Who could have seen that coming? If you ask me, machines are more reliable than people." Luke Field had already decided that once his talent leveled up again, he would expand his own Mechanical Team. As his creations, those Mechanical Creations were powerful and loyal!

Ina Sandra could not refute that. After all, their reversal had relied on products Luke had made. What she did not know was that even without those products, Wallace and the others could not have hurt either Luke or her. After five years of Card Flip Draws since his talent awakened, Luke had accumulated quite a collection of good things.

"I'll leave them to you. Help me cause some trouble for Mr. Justin Hammer. I don't care whether he's truly the mastermind this time—he's the biggest suspect! Picking on the weak while fearing the strong isn't a good quality! He doesn't dare provoke Stark, yet he dares cause trouble for me. That won't do." Luke Field had no plans to do anything to Justin Hammer for now. After all, barring surprises, the master imitator of Stark products did not have much longer to keep jumping around anyway.

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