Lorde's brows furrowed, and his palm, which had been resting on his metal chest, dropped.
"You've already won, why continue the pretense?"
"A month ago, someone contacted me, offering me an opportunity to gain greater recognition and support from the family, to change the course of my fate... The voice was mechanically synthesized."
"You received that call too?"
Wittes was taken aback.
The agent from the 'Amiel Family' began to frantically put the pieces together in his mind.
Almost the next moment, his gaze shifted to Donna.
Without her head, Donna's body lay there.
Lorde looked at Donna as well.
The next moment, their eyes met.
"Donna must have received a similar call, which explains why our cooperation was so seamless as soon as Send 9 met with trouble!"
"So someone was pulling the strings... Damn it! Curses! Bastard!"
Lorde first expressed dismay, then swore profusely.
A stream of unceasing curses.
But his face turned extremely ugly.
He, Lorde, and Donna had all fallen into the opponent's trap.
And now, Donna was dead.
His situation was grim.
If he didn't receive treatment, he would be dead too.
But could he still receive treatment?
Wittes looked up at Lorde, who was holding the gun and, even amid his swearing, had not moved the barrel away.
"I think we can talk..."
Lorde pulled the trigger.
Wittes, shot in the center of the forehead, fell to the ground. Then, Lorde aimed at both sides of Wittes's chest and fired two more shots before finally putting the gun away.
"If we had realized earlier, we could have spoken."
Lorde shook his head.
He knew very well that the moment he fired at the other man, everything had become irretrievable.
He couldn't come to terms with someone who had shot at him, aiming to take his life.
Others might be magnanimous enough to let go.
Because he was just like Wittes.
Not only Wittes, Donna was the same.
It was precisely for this reason they all fell into that bastard's trap.
What was more despicable was that until now, he still didn't know who that bastard was.
Then, he began to think about how to get out of the current predicament.
With that bastard in the picture, the previous idea of framing Wittes definitely wouldn't work. If he went ahead with it, he'd just be handing the 'knife' over to that bastard.
That bastard would definitely be delighted to stab him at the crucial moment.
But without Wittes to take the fall, how could he explain the current scene?
Without a reasonable explanation, the representative families of Zone F would surely investigate deeply.
Once they dug up the death of 'Send 9', everything would be over.
Lorde was well aware of the ways of the 'Send Family', one of the Hundred Major Families.
And as a possible 'criminal', the 'Gibson Family' wouldn't stand up for him.
Just as Lorde was wrestling with his thoughts, his private phone rang.
There was no caller ID, only a string of garbled codes.
Upon this realization, the angry Lorde suddenly calmed down.
Because at that moment, he suddenly understood that the current situation was also what the other party wanted.
The other party needed him!
They needed one of the three agents.
Who it was didn't matter.
It just had to be the one who survived.
The other party needed to cooperate with the survivor.
To handle some matters.
Lorde's gaze shifted towards the big screen in the conference hall.
The 'Brutalizer' was reveling.
Amid the drifting blood, there were bodies everywhere.
But there was one place that was rather quiet — the apartment belonging to the 'Brutalizer', Jason. There, he saw Losa 11, Pers, and the unexpected appearance of Billder and an unknown person.
A bold guess surfaced in Lorde's mind.
He took a moment to adjust his breathing, ensuring that his emotions were completely under control, before answering the call.
"You've deceived me!"
He made as much effort as possible to imbue his voice with anger and resentment, embodying the feeling of gnashing his teeth.
"Didn't you get what I promised you?"
The synthetic electronic voice sounded puzzled, retorting with a question.
"But you didn't tell me you were also working with Wittes and Donna!"
"But you never asked me."
The electronic voice was full of innocence.
"And what about all of this? Is it because I never asked?"
Anger surfaced in Lorde's voice.
This wasn't feigned; he was genuinely furious.
He felt as though the other party was treating him like a child, deceiving him at will.
"You didn't ask, so I didn't say."
The electronic voice casually admitted as if it was indeed because Lorde had not asked that he hadn't been told.
And this infuriated Lorde.
"You think you've won?"
"Even if you fooled me before."
"But now, I will not be deceived again!"
"The 'Gibson Family' won't let you get away, the 'Hera Family' won't let you get away, the 'Amiel Family' won't let you get away, the 'Send Family' won't let you get away, and the 'Losa Family' won't let you get away either."