New York. Inside a nondescript, ten-story office building.
The atmosphere in the executive conference room was suffocating.
Out of a large board of directors, only three men remained. They sat widely spaced apart at the massive mahogany table.
They exchanged glances, and in each other's eyes, they saw the exact same reflection: absolute terror mixed with impotent rage.
"What the hell is going on, Burret?"
The question came from a white-haired elderly man, his face pinched into a deep frown. The hand gripping his silver-topped cane was trembling visibly, betraying his shattered nerves.
His name was Steven Lencourt. He was one of the largest shareholders of Hicks Consulting and a major casino operator in Las Vegas.
Privately, the Lencourt family had deep ties to the illegal arms trade and held minor board seats in several major US defense contractors, like Raytheon. While their public footprint wasn't massive, their hidden influence was formidable.
Lencourt glared at the refined, middle-aged white man sitting at the head of the table. He then shifted his glare to the muscular, middle-aged Black man sitting opposite him, letting out a sharp scoff.
Let the professionals handle professional matters.
That had always been Steven Lencourt's golden rule, the philosophy that had kept him on top of the cutthroat Vegas casino hierarchy for decades.
Years ago, he invested heavily in Hicks Consulting because the founder had previously run the security firm that protected Lencourt's casinos.
Initially, Hicks Consulting was just a high-end private military company (PMC). They recruited ex-military and Special Forces operators, providing VIP protection and corporate security. But profits were stagnant.
After bringing in new investors like Lencourt, Hicks Consulting realized the real money wasn't in protecting people—it was in eliminating them.
Slowly, the PMC evolved into a shadow corporation, effectively operating as a high-tier, heavily armed assassin guild that specialized in brute-force tactical strikes.
And it was incredibly lucrative.
That was why Lencourt, despite his initial misgivings about transitioning from legal security to illegal wetwork, never pulled his funding. As a Vegas casino magnate, he constantly needed competitors, whistleblowers, and troublemakers quietly removed. Hicks Consulting had solved many problems for him over the years.
The man Lencourt was currently glaring at—Burret—was the current CEO of Hicks Consulting. He was the architect of the firm's transition into the assassination business.
Facing the wrath of his primary shareholder, Burret felt a surge of defensive frustration.
Suppressing his temper, he answered, "Mr. Lencourt, the three of us are the only high-level executives left alive."
"We're all smart men here. There's no need to play dumb."
"I don't believe for a second that you don't understand why this disaster has befallen the company."
Burret leaned forward, his voice tight. "The Department of Defense forced our hand. They used us as a proxy to test the strength of the Continental Hotel and its new asset."
"Think about it. This 'Hunter Sun' is just one man."
"Even if he is a god-tier marksman capable of hitting targets at two thousand meters, how could he possibly wipe out every single tactical team we threw at him?"
"Last night, our board member, Wright, volunteered to act as bait. We staged him at one of our front locations—a nightclub. We had over forty heavily armed operatives lying in wait to ambush Hunter."
"And the result? They were annihilated."
"During the firefight, Hunter Sun used flashbangs, stun grenades, frag grenades, and a fully loaded M249 light machine gun!"
"Yes, the Asian assassin is highly skilled. But you tell me, Mr. Lencourt: how does a single assassin smuggle an LMG and high-yield explosives into our perimeter without triggering a single one of our surveillance nets?"
"He had help. The Continental Hotel provided the logistics, the intel, and the weaponry. The DoD pissed off the High Table, and we are the ones paying the blood price for it."
In the US, while civilian gun laws were relatively loose, the government kept a very tight leash on registered PMCs and security firms. Naturally, the government itself was usually their biggest client.
Although Hicks Consulting had become an assassin firm, they still maintained lucrative, off-the-books contracts with the DoD and the CIA.
Two months ago, the DoD needed to extract an arms dealer from Mexico. Knowing rival cartels or assassins might target him, the DoD hired Hicks Consulting, specifically requesting their absolute best "brute-force" operative: John Smith.
During that escort mission, Hicks Consulting lost their star agent, John Smith. They failed to protect the arms dealer. And worse, a US military helicopter was shot out of the sky.
The current nightmare destroying Hicks Consulting began with that single, catastrophic failure.
Steven Lencourt was momentarily silenced by Burret's outburst.
His hand tightened around his cane. "So what does the DoD have to say about this? This was their proxy war to begin with."
Before Burret could answer, the muscular Black man spoke up. His voice was deep and grave.
"They won't say anything. The DoD will not intervene."
"When we dispatched the initial kill squad to Hunter Sun's safehouse, we officially registered the hit under the pretense of 'avenging our operative, John Smith.'"
"Because we claimed it was a personal vendetta, the DoD has plausible deniability. We are entirely alone facing the wrath of the Continental."
The conference room descended into a suffocating silence once more.
After a long while, CEO Burret finally broke it.
"In the past, the Continental Hotel made overtures to absorb our firm into their network."
"Back then, we thought we were untouchable because we had the DoD backing us and the occasional CIA black-ops contract. We ignored the High Table's invitations."
"Looking at the sheer brutality of their retaliation... the Continental is not going to stop."
"The DoD won't save us. If we don't surrender to the Continental and agree to become their subordinate organization, we are all dead men."
Nearly twenty board members and senior executives had been systematically slaughtered in less than two weeks.
Under the immediate threat of death, the remaining three men quickly reached a consensus.
Lencourt, who valued his life above all else, nodded grimly. "I have no objections."
The Black man nodded silently.
"Good," Burret said, though a bitter light lingered in his eyes. "I will contact the Continental immediately."
"However," Burret's voice dropped to a hateful whisper, "just because we have to submit to the Hotel doesn't mean we have to let that bastard Hunter Sun walk away clean."
Lencourt, who rarely concerned himself with the tactical side of the business, frowned. "But you just said the man is a monster. He wiped out forty men single-handedly."
The Black man, who served as the firm's Director of Training and was a former Delta Force Major, sighed heavily.
"He is a monster," the former Major admitted. "I've reviewed the security footage from the hits. His long-range capabilities are something you might see once in a generation, even in the military."
"And his close-quarters combat is flawless. In every recording, I haven't seen him miss a single shot. It's unnatural."
"I have no idea how the Continental managed to cultivate a freak like him."
Burret sneered. "We don't have to fight him ourselves."
"According to our intel, John Smith's wife, Jane, is also a highly lethal professional assassin."
"She works for a rival firm—I-Temp Technology—whose operational capabilities are equal to, if not greater than, ours. They specialize in high-tech surgical strikes."
Burret's eyes gleamed with malice. "Contact John Smith's handler. Have him quietly leak the true identity of John's killer to Jane."
"Let the grieving widow tear Hunter Sun apart."
The room went silent as the other two considered the plan. It was elegant. It cost them nothing, and it kept their hands clean.
A grim consensus was reached. The final three executives set their final trap into motion.
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