This particular weapon wasn't one of the standard pieces she used for her livestreams; its tip was lined with jagged barbs designed to tear through flesh upon extraction.

The sound of tearing muscle accompanied another agonizing shriek: "Ah—"

The intense pain caused Ethan to gasp violently for air, dragging his bleeding leg backward as he stammered frantically, trying to escape her as if she were a venomous viper.

"He came to kill me! To protect myself, I gathered my men and ambushed him..."

He backed away desperately, gasping out the words.

"He refused to utter a single syllable regarding who had commissioned the hit, no matter what. So I simply buried him inside the planting pit."

"Buried him..." Scarlett's heart suffered a violent tremor. "You buried him alive?"

"I only wanted to teach him a lesson! Who would have known he would be so fragile? His death has absolutely nothing to do with me!" Ethan screamed at the top of his lungs.

Listening to his frantic justifications, her heart dropped into a freezing void.

"Nothing to do with you? What a brilliant excuse..." Scarlett paused her hand, the tip of her blade glinting sharply beneath the cold moonlight.

Ethan had managed to drag himself several yards away from her, shouting frantically, "I didn't intend to kill him! He brought it upon himself—"

The moment the words left his mouth, his back slammed into a solid barrier.

Glancing back in terror, he found himself staring at Sebastian’s bodyguards.

They stood with their hands crossed behind their backs, forming a silent, impenetrable wall that completely severed his final avenue of escape.

Scarlett's eyes flashed with a lethal light, her arm striking forward as she buried the barbed blade directly into his left hand.

"Ah—" Ethan shrieked in agonizing torment.

"You buried him alive!" Her gaze turned completely freezing, the raw collision of hatred and grief making her want to tear Ethan into a thousand jagged pieces.

Her fingers flashed as she prepared to loose another blade, but a firm grip suddenly clamped around her wrist.

It was Sebastian, who had remained standing silently by her side the entire time.

"Let go!" Her rational mind had been entirely consumed by fury, and she violently tried to fling his hand off.

Yet those fingers remained clamped around her wrist like an iron vise, not shifting a single fraction of an inch.

"Don't let his filth taint your hands," Sebastian said with absolute composure.

"What?" Scarlett's brows knitted in confusion as a sudden flash of white light pierced the dark, followed by the wail of sirens.

"Leave the rest to the professionals."

The moment Sebastian's words faded, several uniformed officers stepped forward and pinned Ethan firmly against the ground:

"Ethan, you are a primary suspect in an active homicide investigation. You are under arrest."

Chapter 18

The bodyguards immediately stepped back, ensuring they extracted the barbed blade from Ethan's hand before doing so.

Staring at the unfolding scene, Scarlett understood everything in an instant.

"You arranged this?" She accepted the weapon handed back by the bodyguard, turning her eyes to look at Sebastian.

Sebastian's eyes glinted with an unreadable light: "He committed a heinous crime; he deserves to face retribution."

He offered no direct confirmation, but Scarlett caught sight of a short-haired female officer stepping down from a police vehicle, exchanging a brief look with him.

The contact lasted only a fraction of a second before she averted her gaze.

That alone was more than enough evidence.

The dynasty family possessed an absolute authority that reached everywhere, to the point of maintaining assets even within the police departments.

Scarlett felt a wave of astonishment laced with a creeping aftertaste of dread...

Thank goodness she had agreed to collaborate with him back then.

Sebastian seemed to misinterpret her silence, adding in a level tone: "With financial fraud and homicide prosecuted concurrently, he will never step foot outside of a prison cell again."

Scarlett's eyes flashed as she tracked Sebastian's expression.

He spoke with absolute certainty, indicating he had already mapped out every detail of the outcome.

She didn't need to doubt for a second how grueling Ethan's impending sentence inside a maximum-security prison would be.

Ethan was still screaming out desperate denials, but Sebastian had already handed down an absolute death sentence.

"I will have my men escort you back to the residence," Sebastian spoke quietly.

"What about you?" she questioned.

"I have urgent corporate matters to handle."

Staring up at the bright moon suspended in the night sky, she didn't believe a word of it.

It was already this late; what business could possibly require his presence right now?

Sebastian offered no further explanations, pulling the car door open for her and securing her inside the vehicle.

He indeed had business to handle.

Sebastian tracked Scarlett's departing vehicle with his eyes before pulling out a cigarette, lighting it without taking a puff, simply watching the smoke drift into the night air.

"Tang Li."

"Here!" The short-haired officer answered immediately, stepping closer to him. "Boss, how do you want this piece of trash processed?"

Sebastian cast a detached glance toward Ethan, who was currently being pinned inside the police cruiser, his tone entirely freezing: "Follow the standard legal protocol."

Tang Li nodded in compliance: "Understood."

She hesitated for a brief second, unable to curb her curiosity before adding, "Boss, she originally accepted a contract to assassinate you, yet you've gone to such immense lengths to assist her. Is this truly..."

Sebastian's brow furrowed slightly as he snuffed out the cigarette, casting a sharp glare over her.

Tang Li immediately dropped her head, silencing herself: "I overstepped my bounds."

"What is the status on the investigation into the Syndicate?" Sebastian demanded.

"We've verified that your mother's murder twenty-five years ago was indeed executed by the Syndicate. The person who accepted that specific contract happens to be the organization's current leader, the Shadow Master."

Sebastian's lashes lowered, a dark fury bleeding into his eyes.

"Should I mobilize the Crescent to eradicate the Syndicate entirely?" Tang Li asked, trying to read the nuances of Sebastian's expression.

Sebastian shook his head slightly, asking, "Where is the Syndicate's primary command post?"

"The Half-Awake Lounge."

…

Scarlett pushed the door open and stepped out, her brows tightly knit as she bit into her lower lip until it bled, her face completely drained of color.

At five-thirty in the morning, the city streets were desolate and entirely devoid of life.

The remnants of last night's rain had pooled inside the fractured asphalt, the still water casting a crisp reflection of the flashing neon sign behind her:

The Half-Awake Lounge.

Staring at that familiar, massive sign, an icy chill gripped her heart.

She had just emerged from within its depths, and the agonizing torment radiating across her back had been inflicted entirely by the man presiding inside.

"I granted you permission to retire, but I never gave you permission to compromise the organization's active contracts," the Shadow Master's voice had been freezing.

Barely ten days had passed, and Ethan's conviction had already been finalized.

With a sentence of life imprisonment locked away inside a maximum-security facility, the assassin Ethan had previously hired would naturally never receive the promised bounty.

"These thirty lashes serve as your retribution." He had raised the whip, striking it down across Scarlett's back without a shred of mercy.

She had gritted her teeth, refusing to utter a single sound.

According to the Syndicate's code, compromising an active mission demanded physical retribution.

And should an assassin call out in pain, every sob would add an additional lash to the sentence.

By the time the thirty lashes concluded, not a single square inch of her back remained unmarred.

Her flesh was entirely torn and bloody, reduced to a mangled mess.

"Thank you, Master," Scarlett had rasped out through a wall of absolute numbness, her body rigid and her voice completely hollow.

The Shadow Master had left her with a final warning before turning to depart: "Sever all ties with Sebastian, and do not offer him another shred of assistance."

It was an absolute ultimatum.

Should she choose to disregard it, she would face an unrelenting hunt executed by every active member of the organization.

Scarlett had silently tended to her wounds in the dark, executing a crude wrapping before slipping out of the basement vault.

Upstairs in the primary lounge, the atmosphere remained swallowed by dim lights, an enticing haze, and thundering music that drove the crowd into a mindless frenzy.

The Syndicate operating beneath the shadows—half drowned in intoxication, half stark awake.

The description was entirely accurate.

Feeling the sharp torment on her back flare against the heavy night air, her brow furrowed tightly.

Scarlett raised her hand to hail a passing vehicle, heading straight back to her apartment.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she collapsed onto the mattress and fell into a deep sleep.

An indefinite amount of time passed before the persistent ringing of her phone dragged her back to consciousness.