Chapter 4
Outside the RV, the night wind carried a stifling heat.
Daniel stared intently at the half-open window, murderous intent boiling in his eyes.
"You want to kill me? Then I'll kill you first!"
His mind focused, summoning the system panel.
[Current Balance: 1000 points]
Getting a gun would make too much noise. He went straight to the explosives section. After deducting forty points, two cold Russian defensive fragmentation grenades instantly appeared in his palm.
These metal lumps didn't look like much, but they were packed with sixty grams of high-explosive compound. Once detonated inside the enclosed RV, the power would be absolutely devastating!
Daniel crouched low, like a stalking panther, silently approaching the RV's exterior wall.
"Click."
The safety pin was pulled cleanly. Daniel's eyes were ice-cold as he flicked his wrist, and the grenade sailed precisely through the half-open window gap.
"Clatter clatter—"
The metal lump hit the floor with a crisp sound.
Inside the vehicle, Hagis was mid-sentence when his voice cut off abruptly. Both men looked down, staring at the oval-shaped harbinger of death spinning at their feet.
Their pupils contracted sharply!
Mill Beld was indeed a desperado who lived on the edge. His muscles reacted faster than his brain—he immediately covered his head, curled into a ball, and dove under the bed, trying to minimize the damage.
But he underestimated the ruthlessness and decisiveness of the man outside.
"Clink!"
Another one flew in through the window!
Daniel never left survivors. To be absolutely certain, he threw two!
"BOOM—!!"
A muffled yet penetrating explosion tore through the night.
The RV shook violently. The windows shattered instantly, and blinding flames mixed with billowing smoke burst out wildly.
The nearby campground erupted into chaos.
The guys who came out here for fun were scared out of their wits by the blast. Tent flaps were thrown open, and a dozen naked johns came tumbling out, screaming and running in all directions.
But nobody mixing it up in Mexico was a fool. These experienced veterans recognized the sound of military explosives and didn't dare get curious enough to watch. They grabbed their pants and fled desperately toward the wasteland in the opposite direction.
In the chaos, Casare, who was getting dressed, froze.
He spun around, his gaze locked on the direction of the flames shooting into the sky. He remembered clearly—Daniel had made an excuse to take care of business and had gone in that exact direction!
...
Before the smoke cleared, Daniel was already approaching the RV.
He lifted his foot and kicked the broken door off with a "bang," striding into the wrecked interior.
Mill Beld lay in a corner, his neck sliced open by a sharp piece of shrapnel. His hands clutched desperately at his throat, blood gushing out. His eyes bulged, and he was already dead.
In the middle of the vehicle, Hagis was covered in shrapnel fragments, looking like a broken, bloody gourd, writhing and rolling on the floor in agony.
Hearing footsteps, Hagis struggled to lift his head, his blood-covered face extending a trembling hand.
"Help... help me!!"
Daniel looked down at him from above, a mocking sneer pulling at his lips. "Don't you know you need to say 'please' when asking for help, buddy?"
Hearing that familiar voice, Hagis's whole body jolted like he'd been electrocuted. He struggled to wipe the blood from his eyelids, and when he saw Daniel's face clearly, his throat made excited gurgling sounds.
Daniel didn't waste more words. His gaze swept the area, and he grabbed the red fire extinguisher mounted on the wall.
He lifted the heavy metal canister with one hand, aimed it at Hagis's head, and brought it down mercilessly!
"Bang!"
The dull sound of the skull cracking was teeth-gritting. Hagis's convulsions stopped instantly.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Daniel's face was expressionless, his arm rising and falling like a pile driver. After several consecutive heavy blows, the head burst open like an overripe watermelon, brain matter mixed with filthy blood splattered across the floor, completely unrecognizable.
After killing them, Daniel pulled out a cigarette, wanting to stick it in what remained of the mouth outline in that pile of mush.
He tried several times, but because the bones were completely crushed, the cigarette wouldn't stay in place and fell into the pool of blood.
Daniel frowned, and a nameless anger surged up.
He raised the fire extinguisher and delivered another vicious blow to the pile of mush, cursing, "Fuck you, can't even give you the dignity of a smoke, you dead bastard!"
Just then, chaotic footsteps came from the distance.
Someone was coming!
Daniel decisively dropped the extinguisher covered in red and white matter, jumped out of the RV, and quickly disappeared into the wilderness under cover of darkness.
The moment he left, a dozen armed men with automatic rifles and arms covered in tattoos surrounded the scene.
The leader was a bald man with a face full of scars. He shone his flashlight into the vehicle, and when the beam hit the face of the corpse clutching its neck, the bald man gasped sharply.
He recognized him.
Mill Beld! A tough guy from the Gulf Cartel, nicknamed "Family Stallion."
This mad dog had recently stormed into a costume ball thrown by the brother of Guzman, the number two man in the Sinaloa Cartel, and gunned down seventeen people! The bounty Sinaloa had put out was a full 150,000 pesos for his head!
The bald man's eyes spun wildly, greed instantly overcoming fear.
He kicked the corpse with the head smashed to pulp and asked his men, "Who's this pile of mush? Anyone recognize him?"
The underlings all shook their heads. With no face left, even his own mother couldn't identify him.
"Who cares, pack them both up!" The bald man slapped his thigh, making a snap decision.
The underlings looked at each other. Someone swallowed and said, "Boss, this is Gulf Cartel people. They died at our place. If the higher-ups blame us..."
"Are you pig-brained?!" The bald man slapped him across the face and hissed in a low voice, "Mill died at our place—you think those Gulf guys will be reasonable? Staying here is waiting to die, to be cannon fodder!"
He pointed at the corpses on the ground, his tone highly persuasive. "Surviving in Mexican gangs means hugging the big cartels' thighs tight! Take these two bodies and defect to Sinaloa. I'll split the 150,000 peso bounty with you guys. You in or not!"
Under the heavy reward, the underlings' breathing grew heavy, and they all gritted their teeth and nodded.
"We're in!"
The dozen or so guards worked quickly to wrap up the two bodies, threw them in a pickup truck bed, and disappeared without a trace. No one paid any more attention to the crime scene.
...
Meanwhile, Daniel was walking along the wilderness path back to the prison.
The night was pitch black, and he occasionally ran into a few cursing prison guard colleagues heading back.
As he neared the pontoon bridge, Daniel wasn't watching his step and tripped on a protruding rock.
The instant he steadied himself, a figure suddenly emerged from the darkness at the bridge head.
"Brother, you okay?"
Casare's voice drifted over eerily.
Daniel's heart tightened, but his face remained steady as a rock. He leaned against the bridge railing and complained with curses, "Damn it, what the hell. I was about to get down to business when I suddenly heard an explosion. I quickly found a hole to hide in."
He looked up at Casare and deliberately made a crude joke. "In the middle of the night, getting that kind of scare during the action, I'm really afraid I'll be impotent from now on. What about you, didn't get scared soft, did you?"
Casare didn't laugh.
He slowly took two steps closer, his gaze locked on Daniel's face in the darkness, his nose twitching ever so slightly.
The smell of blood.
An extremely strong smell of fresh blood, mixed with the acrid bitterness of gunpowder, was emanating continuously from the fibers of Daniel's clothes.
Casare's eyes instantly became extremely dangerous.
Daniel had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, his gaze meeting Casare's without flinching or avoiding.
The two men faced off silently on the pontoon bridge in the darkness.
In just one second, Daniel's instincts screamed a warning—this old fox definitely suspected him!
