Obadiah's Quickest Exit

As the night grew deeper, a slightly tipsy Rhodey and Yinsen were picked up and driven away.

Only Pepper, Tony, and Leon were left in the mansion.

Leon sat on the sofa, full and satisfied, looking out at the rising and falling sea surface in the distance with a distant, wandering mind.

Tony glanced between Pepper cleaning up tableware in the kitchen and Leon staring blankly, hesitating to speak with a rather transparent, unconvincing expression.

"Hey, Leon!" he finally couldn't help it and called out to Leon.

"Huh? What?" Leon pulled back his gaze, looking somewhat puzzled.

Tony glanced toward Pepper. "Didn't you say you were going to look for Obadiah tonight? When are we leaving? Also, for now don't let Pepper know, otherwise she'll start going on about how dangerous it is and quit the moment we go."

Usually, no matter how much Tony messed around, Pepper would at most wear a cold face and continue working.

Yet whenever it involved Tony's safety, Pepper's most commonly used threat to stop Tony was to resign.

--Even though every single one of her threats had virtually zero effect.

"Then we'll just wait until Pepper leaves." Leon glanced in the direction of Stark Industries and said offhandedly.

"Besides, Obadiah is still at the industrial park right now... Wait, he's currently... Damn it, Tony, we're going over right now!"

Leon grabbed Tony, shoving him toward the exit.

He didn't forget to shout toward the kitchen, "Pepper, Tony and I are going out for a walk, we'll be back in a bit!"

"Huh? Okay!" Pepper replied.

As they headed out, Tony lowered his voice and asked, "Wait, wait! What did you just see that made you in such a rush?"

"Obadiah is contacting his friends in Afghanistan!" Leon lowered his voice as well.

"What?" Tony froze, only to be yanked off his feet by the arm as Leon shot straight up into the sky.

The two of them quickly arrived at the Stark Industries Park.

At this hour, only a few scattered lights were illuminated across the office building.

Among them, the light in Obadiah's office was blazing bright, looking like a burning torch in the night.

Leon hovered with Tony outside the window of Obadiah's office.

The huge floor-to-ceiling glass allowed them to clearly see every corner inside.

Inside the room, Obadiah was currently sitting at his desk with his back to the window, speaking to a computer screen.

"Is he on a video call with people from a terrorist organization?" Tony's expression looked rather unpleasant. "Can you hear what they're talking about?"

"It's nothing nice, you can come and listen for yourself."

Leon placed his hand over the gap in the floor-to-ceiling window and gave it a gentle vibration. The glass warped at a corner, and he grabbed it and peeled it backward.

And so the entire pane of glass was silently and effortlessly removed.

Tony was once again shocked wide-eyed.

Yet the next second, the voices from inside the office left him with no spare attention for anything else.

"Our leader died because of your commission, so before the next cooperation, you have to compensate us!" said the person on the opposite side of the computer.

Obadiah angrily retorted, "You let Tony get away! And you actually have the nerve to ask me for compensation!"

"I told your leader to make absolutely sure 100 percent that Tony Stark didn't leave a single bone behind! How did he handle it, huh?"

"That has nothing to do with us. If you don't pay the compensation, we'll expose your actions to Tony Stark." The terrorists pulled out their habitual tactic.

Obadiah's gaze grew even colder, looking as though he wished he could tear the person opposite him apart and devour them raw.

"Aren't you afraid I'll stop providing you with military weaponry?!"

"Sorry, since Tony Stark has shut down the weapons division, you're probably not of much use anymore."

The terrorists were completely unfazed.

They threatened him once more: "Do you accept the compensation or not? If you don't, I believe Tony Stark would be equally willing to pay money for information on the true mastermind."

Obadiah's lips pressed tightly together, the corners of his mouth twitching as he concealed his fury.

A few seconds later, however, he suddenly burst into a hearty laugh, his expression as warm as a spring breeze. "Good! Of course! I accept your demand for compensation, but I have one condition!"

"Name it!" Hearing that he could get the compensation, the person on the other end immediately grew excited.

"I'll find a way to make Tony go abroad again. This time, you must kill him for me!"

Obadiah stated his plan, saying, "I'll give you a batch of Stark munitions for you to use to draw the media's attention."

"Tony just announced the closure of the weapons division; if weapons produced by Stark Industries show up in large quantities on the battlefield at a time like this, he certainly won't be able to sit still..."

The terrorist picked up the thread of the conversation: "I know, leave the rest to us. I guarantee that this time the Ten Rings will perfectly accomplish our friend's commission."

Obadiah closed the video call with a smile. "That would naturally be for the best."

With a beep, the video disconnected.

Obadiah sat silently in his chair, the smile on his face cooling bit by bit before gradually turning ferocious.

His fury began to erupt.

Even sitting motionless, he gave off the feeling that he might lurch out of his workstation at any second to tear someone to shreds.

"Idiots! A bunch of idiots!"

After the silence, Obadiah finally exploded.

He suddenly stood up, sweeping everything on the desk entirely onto the floor, and violently yanked the mouse cord, smashing it fiercely against the wall until it shattered into pieces.

"They couldn't even let a playboy escape, a bunch of good-for-nothings!" he roared, the booming voice making the windows tremble.

Outside the window, Leon glanced sideways at the wide-eyed, glaring Tony, knowing Obadiah's performance could come to an end.

He took a single step forward, bringing Tony into the room.

He spoke up with utmost politeness, "Well, how should I put this—sorry to interrupt."

The voice suddenly cropping up from behind caused Obadiah's roar to cut off abruptly.

"Who?! To—Tony?!"

Cold sweat instantly drenched his entire body. He spun around in a blur, and standing right opposite him were none other than Tony and Leon.

Among them, Leon wore an unkind expression.

As for Tony, he was glaring at him with reddened eyes.

Those ordinarily handsome eyes were filled at this moment with utter disbelief and the rage of suffering a betrayal by someone he deeply trusted.

"Everything you just said, both Tony and I heard it." Leon pointed at the computer. "Do you have anything else to say in your defense?"

Panic was visible to the naked eye on Obadiah's face, but with his deep cunning, he rapidly suppressed his emotions.

He raised both hands and twitched the corners of his mouth. "Oh, Leon, why are you guys still here this late? That... actually, what just happened is a misunderstanding."

"You guys listen to me explain, there's a reason for all of this."

Obadiah's brain was spinning at top speed in this moment.

He constrainedly lowered one hand and pulled open a drawer: "This is because there is a force I couldn't resist, using my life to threaten me and demanding that I..."

"Kill all of you!"

As Obadiah spoke, he suddenly pulled a handgun from the drawer, rapidly cocked it, and aimed it at the two of them.

"Hands up, both of you, back away!"

Obadiah, who had just been as gentle as an elder, transformed in the blink of an eye into a vicious and menacing villain.

"You'd better stop right there."

Tony pressed his lips tightly together, raised his hands first, and stepped backward while shielding Leon.

"Hmph, Tony, even now you still want to protect that little bastard? Such a touching display of family affection."

Obadiah's words fueled an even greater fury within Tony's heart.

He said in a cold voice, "Obie... Obadiah, I originally thought you were one of the people I trusted most."

"Is that so? I'm truly touched to hear you say that, Tony." Obadiah kept the gun trained on Tony. "I'd love to keep playing along with this lovely family game of yours."

"But since you've already found out, I don't need to hide it anymore!"

"Tony, the truth is you're nothing more than a goose that lays golden eggs for me!"

"Do you know? I helped your father build this company, and for the past thirty years I've been assisting you as well, but what did I get out of it? Nothing!"

"Even that outsider behind you can get half the company, but what about me?"

"Only by killing you, by killing both of you, can I obtain everything I've ever wanted!"

As Obadiah spoke on, he gestured wildly with a fist in anguish. "Everything was supposed to be this way! As long as you died in Afghanistan, Leon would have died out in outer space too! But why did you have to escape, and why did you have to see everything tonight?!"

His eyes bloodshot, he shoved the barrel of the gun against Tony to force him back step by step. "You forced me into this! You drove me to a dead end, so I'll destroy everything—no one can stop me!!"

From start to finish, Tony simply gazed at this uncle of his, his jaw clenched and his eyes holding an indescribable grief and sorrowful anger.

His head was pushed backward by the gun muzzle, and finally, he closed his eyes.

"Do it, Leon." He no longer held onto any expectations.

"You got it, Boss!"

Leon's voice had barely fallen.

Obadiah's neck was tightly gripped by a massive hand like a pair of iron pliers, lifting his entire body straight up off the ground.

"You! Gk! Caugh—!" Obadiah's face rapidly turned red from oxygen deprivation.

His eyes bulged as he stared fixedly at Leon, utterly unable to comprehend what had happened in that brief, fleeting instant.

Why was it that without even blinking his eyes, the Leon who had been standing behind Tony was suddenly right in front of him, having subdued him?

He labored to raise his arm, wanting to put up some final struggle.

However, Leon merely glanced at him and tossed him aside as casually as if he were worth nothing at all, flinging him right out the window.

Three seconds later, a heavy thud echoed from outside the window.

It sounded as though Obadiah had just been smashed into chunky peanut butter.

"Why bother?"

Leon sighed, walked over to the desk, first connected his phone to the data cable, and then plugged it into the computer.

High-level computers at Stark Industries were generally not connected to the internet, so hacking them required a manual connection.

An action like Obadiah's just now, directly connecting to the external network to make a video call, was already a serious violation.

"JARVIS, hack this computer, gather evidence of Obadiah's crimes, hand it over to the police, and note that he committed suicide out of fear of punishment by jumping from a building."

"Understood, Young Master Leon!"

After assigning the task to JARVIS, Leon turned around and saw that Tony was still standing in the same spot, only looking somewhat dejected.

He walked over and patted Tony's shoulder.

"It's all in the past, go back and get a good night's sleep. If that doesn't work, book a few more cover girls this week to blow off some steam."

Tony's grieving expression paused for a few seconds, and he smiled bitterly. "You brat..."