The Black Swan Behind (Beauty of Fire)

270 Last offers

In the third plan, it had been decided from the start that half of the Black Swan members had to take all the captives to a safe location because they had to use cars and motorbikes to carry the captives and guard them at the same time.

But as usual, in a plan, there must be an unexpected obstacle. The remaining members of the Black Swan instead had to face the Dragger men who were heading to the main warehouse.

With that, Emma was forced to make a small change in a previously well-made plan. She asked only Cecil to lead all the small groups that brought the captives to safety. Meanwhile, Linda, Ava, and Britney remained in the main warehouse.

Each of the team leaders was also asked to quickly sort out the strongest members to stay in the main warehouse, because, they would have to face a group whose strength was unknown, and possibly much stronger than the members of the Beast Empire. Therefore, the next battle would not be easy.

“It was Juan. He must have called for help here,” Rachel said as she walked briskly towards the room that was suspected to be Derric’s.

Emma nodded. “Dragger is a strong group. I think this is their last resort against us. If we can defeat Dragger’s men, it can be said that the Beast Empire has no reason to stand,”

“Looks like Calvin’s help is on the way, Emma. I’ll call him,” Rachel said.

**

“I see,” Calvin said, holding the earphone plugged into his ear.

.....

“They need our help. Prepare yourselves. This time, Dragger will be our opponent,” Calvin said to all the members under his leadership

Then, they began to move in front of the gates of the Beast Empire’s main warehouse.

There, the captives were in the process of being transported by Black members.

Calvin ordered his men to enter the gate and position themselves at several points, especially the entrance to the inner building. He approached two masked men who were propping up the gate wheel with some bricks.

“Are there still many captives?” Calvin asked.

Britney looked up when she heard the voice of the man she thought was a Dragger member. Then she stood up from her squatting position while holding her chest. “You startled me.” Then she shook her head, “This is the last wave,”

“What are you doing? Where is your leader?” Calvin asked.

“We stuck the gate so it can’t be closed again. Our leader is in the building. He has a duty to find the documents of all the captives. But it is said that Juan Hubbert has disappeared,” Britney explained.

“What I know is Juan isn’t the type of man who would run away leaving a mess. If he disappeared, there must be a secret room in this building.” Calvin said.

“Then you must inform our leader about that,” Britney replied. “He doesn’t want to leave without destroying the documents,”

**

“Secret room?” Emma repeated.

“I’m sure Juan is hiding in there. They might as well keep all the documents there. It’s the same as the Panic Room,” Calvin explained.

Emma sighed. “All right. Thanks for the information.”

Then Emma let go of the papers in her hand to the workbench of the room she was searching.

“So, it’s not here either?” asked Rachel who had been searching along the wall for a hidden door that might lead them to the safe.

The two girls were in Derric Hubbert’s room. But in reality, the room was just an ordinary office that had many luxurious interiors. There were no valuable documents that Emma and Rachel were looking for.

Then Emma called Kathy to ask her to find the location of the secret room that Calvin mentioned earlier.

But the problem was; Kathy had been looking for all the doors that were connected to the Smart Home system. Apparently, the room wasn’t connected to any system. In other words, it was a room that could only be moved manually.

Although lost track, Kathy still had information about the latest-seen position of Juan Xavier. It was a cell door at the end of one of the corridors of the building.

Together with Rachel, Emma entered one of the cells at the very end of all the empty cells. They both stepped inside and found only an empty cell room.

But based on their experiences, a room that looked empty didn’t mean that it was actually empty. Emma and Rachel started tapping lightly on the walls of the room. But strangely, all parts of the wall emitted the same sound.

“This is weird,” Rachel said.

“Gosh... It’s tiring,” Emma complained while holding the back of her neck and massaging her throbbing head. Then, when her face turned up, she accidentally saw something, which was what they were looking for.

Emma smiled broadly as she continued to look up. “That is the damn door.” she pointed up.

Rachel immediately looked up. So, it turned out that the door they were looking for was on the ceiling of the cell. On the white ceiling, there was seen a separate line in the shape of a rectangle.

“How does he get up there? How do we go up?” Emma said to herself.

“Usually, there is a rope to pull the ladder down. But apparently, he raised the rope inward so that no one could enter from the outside,” Rachel replied.

“Even if we climb up, we won’t be able to open the door if he locks it from the inside.” Emma sighed wearily.

“We have to wait for him to come down. There’s no other way.” Rachel shrugged.

“They’re here, guys.” Suddenly, Linda came into the communication line.

“All right. We’ll be out soon,” Emma answered right away.

**

Derric’s hands couldn’t stay still. He continued to rub his full-of-rings hands as an outlet for his panic. He didn’t know what had happened to his three human warehouses.

Until the end, Juan was still able to communicate with him. But Juan admitted that he was hiding in a secret room. Derric himself was not angry at the behaviour of the loser Juan because, if he were in that man’s shoes, he would probably do the same.

The problem was that Juan admitted that he no longer had access to contact the people in charge of the transit warehouses. They did not know whether the two warehouses would be burned for real by Jita Kyoei or not. But for sure, none of the relief members who were sent there came back.

Derric continued to stare at his phone screen. He was watching CCTV footage from the Smart Home system. But unfortunately, all CCTV movements were frozen. He didn’t understand if the system had crashed or what.

However, when RB tried to contact the Smart Home installation service, they said that the Smart Home access used in the warehouse had been taken over by another party. And what made him even more annoyed was that the Smart House’s company seemed to ignore their complaints.

“Damn it! You f*cking company! No wonder the price is cheap! They have no responsibility!” Derric exclaimed in the car.

Beside him, RB was sitting with a pale face. Just like his leaders, he was also not good at fighting. And also, the latest news from Juan said that Zac and Elbert had been defeated.

Those two men were extremely strong in RD’s eyes. But they were even defeated in less than half an hour by Black’s group. Then, how about his faith?

“I’ve risked everything on this. If we lose in this, we’ll lose everything,” Derric muttered as he grabbed his hair with both hands in frustration.

–

Previously,

Derric faced Pablo with a mourning face. His eyes glazed over as if he was about to cry. He was completely helpless, not even thinking about saving his pride in front of all the subordinates around them.

“I beg you, Pablo! This is a very serious situation! Please help us!” Derric pleaded again.

Pablo looked at the man condescendingly. Then he let out a tired sigh. “Didn’t I just tell you? Dragger can’t provide any more support. That includes power support,”

“Our place is under attack, Pablo. All of my men have fallen. It was Black and Jita Kyoei working together. How could we possibly beat them?” Derric said again.

“That’s precisely what’s been a problem for me, Derric. By helping you now, what’s in it for me? I’ll only have another loss; the same as before. By raising you guys, I haven’t even gotten my capital back yet.” Pablo shook his head slowly.

“Just this once, Pablo! I beg you! This business is our life.” Derric insisted.

But Pablo’s decision would not change just out of mercy. That high school boy was a cold-blooded being. He was a robot businessman. All that was in his brain was a calculation to consider which one was beneficial and which one was detrimental. And his whole soul would follow the calculation results.

“Fine then,” Derric nodded once. “I understand you’re thinking about profit. In that case, this is my last offer. If we lose, then all assets belonging to the Beast Empire will be handed over to Dragger. And if we manage to win this war, we will provide free workers for Dragger for life. You don’t have to pay anything – Make Beast Empire your cash cow. I’ll find another way to keep the business running. Yes, there is another way. I’m sure of it.”

Secretly, a small smile was curved at the corner of Pablo’s lips. “Interesting offer. However, are you sure you can do that? What if in the end, you still can’t keep the business running because the income is not balanced with expenses? That’s your problem from the start, isn’t it?”