You're a US police officer, what are you thinking about going back to the East for?

"Why are you, a beautiful policewoman, always thinking about going back to the East?" is sparking a reading frenzy. Haven't you read it yet?

The backyard of a safe house on the outskirts of Tacoma.

Trey lay in a dead corner on the steps outside the back door.

His forehead was torn open, and blood covered most of his face, flowing down his neck and into his collar.

This happened a few tens of minutes ago when he gritted his teeth, picked up a sharp-edged garden landscape stone, and smashed it against his head twice.

The scalp is rich in capillaries, and even a small cut can cause profuse bleeding, which looks very frightening, but in reality, the skull is not damaged.

To make it look realistic, he even pulled out a switchblade he always carried, aimed it at a non-lethal muscle in his left shoulder, and stabbed it in without hesitation. He then cruelly twisted it half a turn to fake a stab wound from a fight.

Now, with his eyes closed and his breathing slowed, he perfectly portrayed a severely wounded soldier who had lost too much blood and passed out.

"squeak--!!!"

The silence of the night was broken by the screeching of tires.

Three black, full-size SUVs drove straight onto the front lawn, their headlights blazing.

A dozen or so Blood Gang thugs, armed with automatic rifles and shotguns, kicked open the car door and rushed out.

The leader was a burly Black man with a long scar on his left cheek, named Darrell.

Darrell is Marcus's most loyal street commander.

In his early years, he was implicated in two deaths due to gang warfare. Marcus spent a lot of money to hire top lawyers to help him get off the charges, and even paid for his mother's uremia treatment.

From that moment on, Darrell's life belonged to Marcus.

To avoid making the safe house too conspicuous, Darrell left his men in a warehouse two blocks away on standby, while Marcus only had his two strongest bodyguards, "Pliers" and "Bones," by his side.

Marcus's phone has a special security software that requires him to enter a password every half hour, otherwise it will automatically send an alert to Darrell.

Now, half an hour has passed.

Not only did no safety signal or distress signal arrive, but Marcus and his two bodyguards could not be reached by phone either.

Darrell's forehead was covered in cold sweat. He made a gesture, and the dozen or so henchmen behind him immediately scattered, pointing their guns at all the windows of the house.

"Go in. Keep your eyes peeled, and shoot any living ones you encounter."

Darrell swallowed hard, then took the lead, pressed himself against the wall, and kicked open the half-closed front door.

The room was deathly silent, with only the strong smell of blood and excrement filling the air.

Darrell gripped the gun with both hands, the muzzle sweeping rapidly across the dark living room, his nerves taut to the limit.

If that crazy cop who killed Darlis and blew up the unfinished building were still here, these dozen or so men could be shot in the head at any moment.

"The first floor is safe!"

"There's no one alive on the second floor!"

A few minutes later, reports from his underlings, suppressed with fear, came from all corners.

Darrell walked into the center of the living room.

By the light of his flashlight, he saw Marcus lying on the back of the sofa.

The boss's chest cavity had completely collapsed, and his face was disfigured from being hit by a blunt object; his death was extremely gruesome.

The two heavily armed bodyguards, who were usually able to tear people in half with their bare hands, had one's head blown off and the other's head half gone, with the safety on their rifles still on.

"Damn...they're all dead."

Darrell watched this scene, his eyes twitching violently.

Just then, shouts from the search team came from the back door:

"Boss! Trey's here! He's down too!"

Darrell walked over quickly.

Outside the kicked-down back door, Trey lay covered in blood in a pile of rubble. Blood from his forehead had stained his upper body clothes red, and there was a horrifying knife wound on his shoulder. He was twitching slightly from blood loss.

"It's Trey!"

Darrell crouched down and reached out to check Trey's carotid artery.

"Damn, it's still breathing!"

Darrell jumped to his feet, the image instantly filling in his mind, and gritted his teeth:

"This kid's tough. He probably risked his life to protect the boss from that assassin, and he actually survived."

"Lift him up! Press on the wound!"

"Boss, he's bleeding a lot. Should we call an ambulance to take him to the hospital?" the henchman shouted anxiously.

"Send your mother to the hospital! Are you out of your mind? First day on the streets?!"

Darrell slapped the henchman across the left cheek and yelled, "Are you trying to get him to die faster by sending him to the hospital?"

In the United States, if any legitimate hospital's emergency room receives a patient with gunshot wounds, severe stab wounds, or serious injuries that clearly involve gang violence, the hospital is legally required to immediately notify the police.

For these gangsters with criminal records, undocumented immigrants, or gunmen who have just been through a shootout, going to a regular hospital is tantamount to sending themselves directly to the police station's interrogation room.

This is why there is never a shortage of illegal clinics that specialize in accepting cash within the spheres of influence of gangs across the United States.

"Put him in the car. Go to the South District to find Dr. Henderson."

Darrell quickly issued the order.

Henderson was a former Marine Corps field medic. After retiring, he worked as an attending physician in a regular hospital. However, his medical license was revoked because he stole fentanyl from the hospital to sell.

He's now set up a sterile operating room in the basement of an abandoned pet hospital in the South District. As long as you stuff him with enough uncounted, non-serialized US dollars, he won't even ask your name. His skills in removing bullets and suturing wounds are better than those of the head of the emergency department at a regular hospital.

Several of his men hurriedly lifted Trey up and carried him to the SUV outside.

"Then... what should the boss and the others do? Call the police?"

The henchman who had just been slapped looked at Marcus's corpse on the ground, somewhat at a loss.

Upon hearing this, Darrell slapped the henchman across the right cheek, causing both cheeks to swell up symmetrically.

"Why bother calling the police! Are we just letting those uniformed pigs laugh at us?"

Darrell spat angrily on the ground, looking at his subordinate as if he were an idiot:

"Why don't you just put a 'GG' in the newspaper and tell the whole world that our Blood Gang's West Division leader got slaughtered like a pig in his own safe house?!"

A gang fight killed their boss, and then they went to the police to ask for justice—that's the biggest joke in the world.

Once this news is released as a police report, it will be tantamount to announcing to the entire Seattle area that the Bloods' West Side branch is now leaderless and vulnerable.

In this cutthroat world, if they show such weakness, other gangs will definitely cross the street tonight to take their territory.

"Find a few quick-handed guys to put the boss and their bodies into sleeping bags and carry them out. Wash the blood off the floor with bleach."

Darrell looked around the living room with a grim expression, his tone harsh:

"This matter tonight must be handled internally. Anyone who dares to leak even the slightest hint that the boss is dead will be skinned alive by me."

……

The next morning.

Seattle welcomed its first snowfall of the year in November.

Fine snowflakes fell on the panoramic floor-to-ceiling windows of the luxury apartment, quickly turning into water droplets.

The air conditioning in the house was running at full blast, but with old Bill and Arthur gone, the spacious penthouse was suddenly left with only Lyon, and for a moment it felt somewhat empty and deserted.

Lyon sat on the sofa, scrolling through local news on his phone.

The headline is still Mayor Reynolds boasting about the counter-terrorism operation of the previous two days.

As for what happened in the suburbs of Tacoma last night, it didn't even make a ripple in the media.

This is very much in line with the logic of gangsters. When their boss dies, the Blood Gang not only dares not make a fuss, but also has to desperately cover it up. They can only swallow their anger even if their teeth are broken, for fear that other neighborhoods will smell the blood and come to take over their territory.

Lyon closed the news webpage and switched to an encrypted interface.

The screen displayed a string of numbers. Converted, it amounted to approximately $120,000 in Monero.

The killer who died in the ruins wasn't lying; the money was indeed in there.

Having accepted the money and fulfilled someone's dying wish, Leon decided to visit that St. Mary's Sanatorium today to see what the situation was like.

He walked to the entrance hall, took out an ordinary blue medical surgical mask from the shoe cabinet drawer, and casually stuffed it into his pocket.

In places like hospitals and nursing homes, wearing a mask not only protects against germs but also doesn't look out of place, conveniently concealing his now conspicuous Seattle celebrity face.

The temperature dropped in Seattle, and Lyon took off his thin casual suit and put on a thicker, windproof black turtleneck jacket before going downstairs.

Lyon got into the Dodge Challenger in the underground garage, started the engine, and drove onto the snow-covered street.

Throughout the journey, his gaze habitually shifted between the three rearview mirrors, keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding traffic.

It was a clean day, with no tails dangling at any distance, and no signs of danger being triggered. It seemed that Thor Corporation's attention hadn't yet focused on him, an ordinary street patrolman.

Just as Lyon was passing a traffic light intersection, he looked away and his gaze fell on a car a dozen meters ahead.

It was a black refrigerated van without any paint.

There were two obvious scratches below the tailgate. Lyon knew this car all too well; it was the work vehicle Alex usually used to transport corpses.

Lyon glanced at the car's infotainment screen.

It's the weekend, 8:30 in the morning.

This fat guy is quite diligent; he doesn't even sleep in on the weekend and is out doing business so early.

After driving for about two or three kilometers, Lyon's brows slowly furrowed.

The refrigerated truck ahead turned right onto a slightly secluded side road with its turn signal on.

Lyon followed him inside.

After passing two more traffic lights, the refrigerated truck was still driving directly in front of Lyon, even its lane-changing trajectory was exactly the same.

Why is this thing always going the same way as me?

Lyon watched the distance on the navigation software shrink. At the end of this road was his destination: St. Mary's Sanatorium.

Is this guy going to the nursing home to collect a corpse?

Lyon quickly reviewed the basic facts about the American healthcare system in his mind and felt relieved.

In the United States, these so-called nursing homes or long-term care centers are not the kind of places depicted in movies that are only for wealthy people to vacation and retire, or places that only house the mentally ill.

In the United States, the cost of beds in regular hospitals, emergency rooms, and ICUs is extremely high, often costing thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars a day.

For patients with cystic fibrosis, uremia, or other serious chronic diseases who require long-term intubation and bed rest, the insurance company and hospital billing systems will immediately change their minds once they are out of the acute life-threatening period.

They will absolutely not allow such long-term chronic patients to continue to occupy expensive critical care medical resources.

The hospital will follow a standard procedure to quickly transfer these patients who need to rely on machines and drugs to prolong their lives to nursing homes with lower medical standards and relatively lower fees.

To put it bluntly, this place is an expensive hospice.

Aside from the elderly, most of the patients lying inside are seriously ill patients who have lost their ability to take care of themselves and can only rely on machines to get through their days.

In such places, countless patients die every day from organ failure or from being unable to afford expensive medications.

It's perfectly normal for Alex to drive a hearse to pick up jobs in places like this; it's exactly what he's good at.

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