"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Glock appeared in Lake's hand in an instant. He immediately flicked it toward the woman standing at the doorway.
The woman at the doorway drew her gun just as quickly, her silver pistol spitting flames.
But...
Lake's bullet was not aimed at the woman at the doorway. Instead, it traced a perfect arc, circled around her, and then, with a bang, pierced the head of the man sneakily crouching on the other side of the wall.
Anna's bullet did the same.
With a bang.
The bullet tore through the air and instantly struck the small woods across the road. A muffled sound rang out, followed by the noise of someone collapsing.
Karen and Betty were stunned.
Lake narrowed his eyes, turned his head, and shouted, snapping Karen and Betty back to their senses and sending them running toward the house. He himself turned around and fired two guns with both hands.
His adrenaline surged instantly.
Buzz!
In that instant.
Everything in Lake's world slowed to an extreme crawl.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Both guns opened fire at once, blowing the heads off the three assassins who had just emerged from the small woods.
"Watch this place."
"..."
Lake turned toward the long-legged woman standing at the doorway in a wig and spoke. With a click, he replaced the magazine of his Glock 17, then walked expressionlessly toward the woods across the road.
Defense had never been his strong suit.
There was only one thing he excelled at: offense. Offense was the best defense!
As for why he trusted the woman?
Instinct, perhaps.
After all, this woman had come out of the room. If she had wanted to harm Karen, she would have done so long ago. So there was only one possibility.
This female assassin was not acting as an assassin right now, but as a bodyguard.
But...
Ross had never mentioned Karen running into any trouble recently.
That was what Lake was thinking as he slowly walked toward the woods across the road. The two Glokks in his hands kept barking, knocking bullet after bullet out of the air.
You want to have a shootout with me?
Heh.
You're still three thousand years too early.
"Bang!"
"Fall back!"
"Too late."
Hearing a voice from within the woods, Lake let out a cold laugh. The infinite-ammo Glock in his right hand roared.
Bang!
The bullet tore through the air with a whoosh, blasting toward the person who had spoken in the shape of a crescent moon. But it was not aimed at his head—it was aimed at his knee.
A scream rang out.
Accompanied by the sound of someone falling, the assassin whose knee had been shattered screamed in agony as he crashed to the ground.
Lake walked in expressionlessly.
In the distance.
An engine roared as a black SUV sped away into the distance.
On the ground.
The assassin in an unfamiliar suit rolled over and glanced at Lake. Then he bit down hard.
A muffled sound followed, and the assassin's eyes flew open.
The next second.
With a wet smack, the assassin collapsed to the ground, his pupils still wide and all signs of life gone. Blood seeped from the corners of his mouth and his nostrils.
"An agent?"
"From the CIA?"
Lake raised an eyebrow and immediately reached his conclusion.
There was no other reason.
Whether they were Meituan assassins, assassins working for their own affiliates, or crowdsourced assassins, they became assassins for only one purpose: money.
Who would become an assassin without getting paid?
So...
No matter what kind of assassins they were, as long as there was any hope of survival—even a 0.1 percent chance—they would fight to live rather than commit suicide to protect their secrets.
You couldn't expect an assassin who cared only about money to have much loyalty. That was unrealistic.
But agents were different.
Agents trained like assassins were even more different. Only people like them would choose suicide after a failed mission to prevent their secrets from being extracted during interrogation.
It wasn't that they didn't value their lives. They had simply been brainwashed.
So...
Lake was certain these people were not from the CIA, but from some foreign intelligence agency similar to the CIA.
Of course.
Lake might have been wrong. After all, the world of assassins was huge, and most of the assassins he had encountered were from New York. An assassin's skin color could not reveal which country he was from.
Still, there were very few assassin organizations whose members would kill themselves outright after a failed mission. All in all, there were only a handful in the entire world.
After leaving the small woods.
The Arlington County police had already arrived. When the county sheriff saw Lake, he quickly signaled for his men to lower their guns.
"Lake."
"Sheriff Porter."
Lake shook hands with Sheriff Porter, who had worked as a sheriff here since Lake was a child and had now settled here permanently. "Five people escaped in a black car. The others are all in the woods. I'll go back and check on Karen, then head to the station and give you my statement."
Sheriff Porter said okay, then waved to his men. Several of them cautiously advanced toward the small woods.
All police departments belonged to the same family.
The FBI might have had a poor relationship with the police because they were not one family, but police departments got along quite well with one another. After all, they operated on a regional basis and had no conflicts of interest.
Sheriff Porter naturally knew where Lake worked now. Since Lake had also said he would come by later to give his statement, Sheriff Porter did not make an issue of it.
Lake walked toward the house.
He entered.
"Click."
"Why don't you put the gun down first?"
Lake glanced at the silver-haired woman who emerged from the side with her gun aimed at him. "Continental, Organization, or freelancer?"
Seeing that the gunfire outside had stopped, Karen came out of the safe room and said, "Anna, lower the gun. He's my son."
Anna glanced at Lake and put away her silver pistol.
Anna?
Lake repeated the name to himself, frowning as he opened his memory database and searched for information on the woman named Anna.
She was an assassin.
And a female assassin at that.
After a while.
Lake raised an eyebrow and looked at Anna. "Anna, the one who toyed with the KGB and CIA six months ago?"
Anna whipped her head toward Lake.
Lake couldn't help laughing.
This Ms. Anna was a legendary figure. At the very least, six months ago, she had held the top spot on the real-time popularity rankings in the assassin world for quite some time.
After all...
It wasn't as if no one had ever toyed with the KGB or the CIA over the years.
Decades ago, Black Widow Natasha Romanov had toyed with the KGB, and she might even have been the first person to do so.
There had also been people who toyed with the CIA, but... they were dead.
But...
From the founding of the two organizations until now, there had only ever been one person who toyed with both the KGB and the CIA—and that person was Anna, standing before him.
Black Widow might have been able to remain youthful and break past the limits of ordinary human physical ability.
But apart from those two points.
This legendary female assassin, Anna, completely outclassed Black Widow.
P.S.: Anna—from Anna, the top female assassin who toyed with both the KGB and CIA. If the KGB and CIA were princes, then Anna was the one who ultimately ascended the throne and became emperor.
Lao Mi is back at work, so here's an extra chapter, lest you say I'm padding things out. Eek, eek. Please give me a recommendation vote! I made it into the strong recommendation slot and desperately need your support!!!
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