Can Monopoly Get Away with Anything?

Boom!

A golden bullet was fired from the muzzle, and in the blink of an eye, it struck Carlos between the eyebrows.

Immediately after.

Carlos's entire body jerked backward.

Thud.

Carlos, who had grown up in The Assistance and clung to the belief that he killed for his faith, then watched that faith collapse before defecting from The Assistance, finally met his end at this moment.

As he departed.

Carlos's eyes were closed, a trace of peacefulness on his face. His right hand tightly clutched a photograph.

The photograph showed a woman holding a baby and smiling sweetly at the camera.

Lake walked over to Carlos, bent down, and picked up the photograph. Then he flung his gun out with his right hand, killed another absurdly young assassin, and stuffed the photograph into his pocket.

A man could not stand without keeping his word.

Since Lake had promised Carlos that Wesley would live an ordinary life, he would do exactly that and would not make things difficult for Wesley.

He had only captured Wesley as a suspect earlier as a precaution.

But now?

Carlos had kept his promise. Naturally, Lake would keep his as well. It was a promise between men. Lake was not the kind of person who acted one way to someone's face and another behind their back.

As for people like that.

Lake sneered at them and held them in utter contempt!

Turning around.

Lake looked at the young assassins entering through the factory doorway. He could not even be bothered to kill them anymore. He merely looked down at them expressionlessly and said, "Do you need me to see you off, or will you leave on your own?"

The assassins exchanged glances.

Soon.

The assassins turned and left. Carlos was already dead, and the bounty was over. Why stay behind? To wait for death?

Lake chuckled and took a phone from Carlos's arms.

He dialed.

Back when he had been the assassin Black King, he had never made a habit of carrying a phone. Disposable phones were cheap, but having to replace one after every use was still extravagant for Lake.

"New York Third Laundromat, hello. How may I help you?"

"My clothes are ready."

"Please provide the number."

"Black King!"

"Please wait!"

The operator on the other end fell silent for a while, seemingly checking the records. After a moment, her voice came through again. "Location."

"The wastewater treatment plant at Hell Gate Bridge."

"Received."

Lake hung up and dropped the phone at his feet. After crushing it beneath his shoe, he glanced at Carlos, who had died with his eyes open, shook his head, and turned to leave.

That settled it.

The Continental Hotel's cleanup team would naturally come later to deal with everything here. It was not that Lake did not want Carlos to be laid to rest; even if he had wanted to, the circumstances would not have allowed it.

The Continental Hotel would definitely have to verify his identity before completing the bounty and issuing the reward.

As for the other corpses besides Carlos?

They would probably end up being tossed into some Incineration Furnace and burned to ashes. Tens of thousands of people disappeared across New York every year on average. No one would pay attention to these missing people.

Except...

Their families.

But this was the path they had chosen themselves, so they could not blame anyone else. Being an assassin did bring money quickly, but sometimes death came just as fast—and most of the time, no one even knew they had died.

Starlight Tower.

When Lake returned home, the housekeeper had already arrived. After greeting the cleaner, who came by once a week, Lake headed upstairs to the study.

Inside the study.

Lake sat in his chair, undid the sling disguising his right arm, and rubbed his brow. While the computer booted up, he took the photograph from his arms and put it into the shredder beside him.

Whirr—

The shredder started automatically the moment the photograph entered. In less than three seconds, it had been shredded into fine strips.

The computer finished booting.

Lake took the Continental Hotel's USB drive from the drawer beside him and plugged it into the computer.

The webpage popped up automatically. As the USB program loaded, a login bar requiring a username and password appeared on the simple webpage.

To prevent the USB drive from containing some kind of tracking function, Lake's home network used the satellite network launched by Stark Commercial Satellite Company, which claimed to be one hundred percent secure.

Lake trusted Stark's products quite a bit.

Uh...

Before Jarvis had died, at this point in time, Stark's satellite security was obviously maintained by Jarvis. Anyone trying to locate Lake's address through the internet would first have to get past Jarvis.

For this, Lake paid Stark Commercial Satellite Company more than twenty thousand dollars a year for satellite network access.

It hurt.

But Lake felt it was a necessary expense and could not be cut.

After logging into the website.

Lake climbed over the firewall and went to the internet in the Eastern Country to watch free American dramas, refreshing his Continental Hotel account while waiting for the one-and-a-half million dollars to arrive.

This time.

I'm going for ten consecutive draws!

Around noon, when Lake figured the money might not arrive until the afternoon, he was just about to close Doctor Strange's player and go downstairs to find a restaurant for a quick meal.

Ding!

A private message arrived.

Lake's eyes lit up. He clicked it open and read.

"Your bounty mission has been completed. The bounty amounted to one and a half million dollars, of which one million has been issued in US dollars and five hundred thousand in gold coins. The gold coins have been automatically deposited into your Continental Hotel account, while one million dollars has been transferred to the designated overseas bank account. The Continental Hotel's money-laundering fee is twenty percent. Fast and reliable—we look forward to your experience."

"..."

Lake blinked.

What the hell does this mean?

How had one and a half million dollars shrunk into one million?

What was going on?

What am I supposed to do with your gold coins? I want dollars! If that's not possible, Zimbabwean dollars would work too! Damn cheat only accepts the world's currencies and completely refuses gold-coin top-ups.

Can Monopoly get away with anything?

If you push me too far, I'll blow up your headquarters!

Lake frowned and took out a sheet of white paper and a fountain pen.

His property taxes for this year had already been prepared, so he did not need to pay them again.

But by the end of the month, he had to pay off three credit cards, totaling nearly one hundred thousand dollars.

Then there was the twenty-thousand-dollar satellite network fee.

Those two expenses alone came to one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.

And...

Lake pondered. It seemed there was no hope of making big money from assassin missions. More and more new assassins were entering the business, and he was a freelancer taking miscellaneous jobs, making it difficult to get any high-quality orders.

There was not much hope of cutting expenses either. Lake had already kept his fixed expenses at a low standard of living—around one thousand dollars a month. If he cut them any further, the Internal Affairs Division would not suspect him of accepting bribes; they would start suspecting him of abusing some kind of prescription anesthetic.

So cutting expenses was out. He could only increase his income.

Lake wondered whether he should set aside some money and use the advantages of his profession to learn things like stock trading. After calculating, he figured he would need to prepare about two hundred thousand dollars.

Therefore.

Lake did the math.

He discovered.

The amount that did not need to be laundered before being deposited directly into the cheat was...