Fox slowly walked out from the shadows.
She had been following as a supervisor, and at this moment, she looked at the corpse on the ground, a very complex emotion flashing in her eyes.
Among them was a sigh for the fall of a legend.
Cross, the man who once taught her, had died like this under his own son's gun.
"I killed the traitor." Wesley turned around, looking at Fox with some excitement, like a child who had scored full marks and was waiting for parental praise. "What will Sloan say?"
"Sloan will say you are a perfect tool." Fox's voice suddenly became very cold.
She slowly raised the modified pistol in her hand, the dark muzzle pointing straight at Wesley's glabella.
Wesley's smile froze on his face: "Fox, what are you doing?"
"This is the rule of The Fraternity, Wesley."
Fox's eyes became vacant and devout, as if reciting an ancient scripture.
"The name given by the loom must be erased, no matter who he is."
"On that fabric, there is not only Cross's name." Fox's finger rested on the trigger. "Following closely behind is your name, Wesley."
Wesley's pupils contracted violently: "What, how is that possible? I am a member of The Fraternity?"
"Kill one, save a thousand, this is our creed. I'm sorry, Wesley."
Fox's voice carried an apology, but more of it was determination.
"Farewell."
Bang!
The gunshot exploded.
But it was not Wesley who fell.
Or rather, no one fell.
At the critical moment when Fox pulled the trigger, a bullet flew in from an extremely tricky angle, accurately hitting the slide of Fox's pistol.
The huge impact force directly knocked the weapon out of her hand, also cracking the web of her thumb.
Startled, Fox didn't care about the sharp pain in her hand, instinctively wanting to draw the backup pistol from her waist.
But a black shadow was faster than her.
Alice, who had been lurking motionless, was like a cheetah pouncing out of a rainstorm, instantly closing in.
One of her hands clamped onto Fox's throat like an iron pincer, and the Glock pistol in her other hand pressed coldly against Fox's temple.
"Move an inch, and I'll paint this carriage with your pretty brains." Alice's voice carried a cat-and-mouse playfulness.
Wesley was a bit stunned.
There were too many reversals in this minute.
First, Fox wanted to kill him, then a blonde girl ran out, subdued Fox, and saved him.
"Who are you?" Wesley subconsciously pointed his gun at Alice.
"I'm the one here to save an idiot like you." Alice rolled her eyes at him, then took a syringe out of her pocket and flicked it back at the corpse on the ground.
"Stop playing dead, old man. If you don't get up and explain, your son is going to shoot again."
The syringe precisely stuck into Cross's thigh.
The corpse, which had been completely silent, suddenly twitched violently.
"Cough, cough, cough—"
A round of heart-wrenching coughing sounded.
Under Wesley's terrified gaze, Cross, who had clearly been shot in the heart, actually sat up like a zombie.
He ripped off the charred and deformed metal disc on his chest, gasping for air.
"That really hurts!"
Cross rubbed his chest, his face covered in cold sweat.
Wesley backed away in fear, his muzzle swaying back and forth between Cross and Alice.
"I am your dad, you brat!"
Cross stood up, supporting himself on the carriage seat; although his steps were a bit unsteady, that mountain-like steady aura had not diminished at all.
"Sloan lied to you. He made you kill me, not because I'm a traitor, but because I am your father, and I am the only person in this World who doesn't want you to become a killing machine."
"Impossible, he's lying. Fox, tell me he's lying!" Wesley shook his head desperately, his eyes chaotic.
Everyone's gaze focused on Fox, who was being held by Alice.
Alice's gun pressed slightly harder against Fox's temple: "Tell him the truth, Miss Fox. You know who Cross is, and you also know what kind of dirty business Sloan has been doing."
Fox bit her lip, saying nothing.
Refusing to yield even in death.
But the gun in Wesley's hand drooped.
It was just that subconsciously, he wanted to resist this cruel truth.
Because if it were true, it would mean he had almost killed his own father with his own hands just now.
"Want evidence?"
Cross took a deep breath, took a bunch of keys out of his pocket, and threw them at Wesley's feet.
"That's my safe house. Go take a look, see what I've actually been doing for the past twenty-plus years."
...
The rain stopped.
The three walked into the dilapidated apartment diagonally opposite Wesley's rental.
This didn't look like a killer's residence at all.
On the walls, photos were plastered densely.
Thousands of photos.
Wesley walked forward, trembling.
The people in those photos were all him.
Him just born.
Him learning to walk in the park.
Him in elementary school.
Him graduating high school.
There were even photos of him being scolded by his female boss in the office last month.
"I left you to protect you."
Cross stood at the doorway, looking at the wall full of photos, his voice low and gentle.
"As long as I was by your side, Sloan would find you and turn you into a monster like me. I thought that as long as I stayed far away and let you be an ordinary person, you could live a safe life."
Cross walked to a table, picked up a file, and threw it to Wesley.
"This is the truth about the assassination list Sloan has had in recent years. Those people were not sinners destroying the balance of the World at all; they were just good people who blocked Sloan's path to wealth, or innocent people who discovered the secrets of The Fraternity."
"I also tried to resist, tried to erase the names from the loom, until Sloan set his sights on you."
Wesley flipped through the files, his hands trembling more and more violently.
Everything matched up.
Wesley turned around, looking at the father who had been silently guarding him in the shadows for twenty years.
"Sloan has been playing me for a fool all along." Wesley's voice carried anger suppressed to the extreme, as well as a sense of relief from finally finding a place to belong.
Wesley finally lowered his hand, and the gun that had once pointed at his father slipped powerlessly to the ground.
He looked at Cross, his eyes slightly red, his lips moving, seemingly wanting to call out "Dad," but the years of estrangement made him unable to speak for a moment.
"Alright, the sentimental part is over." Alice, who had been sitting on the sofa watching the show, clapped her hands, breaking the heavy atmosphere.
She stood up, walked to the middle of the three, and scanned everyone's faces.
"The truth is out. Now, the situation before us is very clear."
"Sloan thinks Cross is dead, Wesley is dead, and everything will return to his control."
------------------------
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