Chapter 4

But Lawrence had no idea what kind of person he was dealing with.

"So what if I get rough?" Lawrence sneered, his face twisted with menace. "You're just a lowlife thug. You've got no business sticking your nose in the Corleone family's affairs! This little bastard is leaving with us tonight!"

With that, he bent down and reached for Anna again.

"You're asking for it."

A cold flash lit up Brian's eyes, and he moved like lightning.

Nobody saw exactly how it happened. There was a sharp crack, and Brian's iron-grip hand had already locked around Lawrence's wrist.

"AAAGH—!"

Lawrence let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered.

Then Brian whipped his hand back and slapped Lawrence hard across the face.

The force was brutal. With a sharp crack, Lawrence's bloated six-foot frame — nearly 400 pounds of him — spun half a turn through the air like a ragdoll and crashed face-first onto the marble floor.

His nose shattered on impact. His body twitched twice, then went still.

"Hssss—!"

The entire room sucked in a sharp breath.

The dozen or so security guards who had been moving in all froze where they stood.

It was too fast. Too savage. In the blink of an eye, the young master of the Corleone family had been put down.

Elena, who had always been timid by nature, went pale with shock at the sudden burst of violence. She instinctively covered her mouth with her hand.

Her beautiful eyes were filled with confusion. She didn't know this man in the camouflage jacket, and she couldn't understand why a complete stranger would get this angry over Anna.

"Lawrence!"

At the head table, Terry watched his son crumple to the floor, blood covering his face, and snapped.

He slammed his hand on the table and screamed at Brian, "Security! Are you all useless? Take this bastard down! Break every bone in his body!"

Roger, seated beside him, looked like a storm cloud about to burst. In all of New York City, no one had ever dared to cause a scene like this at a Corleone family birthday banquet.

Roger rose slowly from his seat, drove his cane into the floor, and said in a low, hard voice, "Don't hold back. Whatever happens, I'll handle it."

The guests nearby felt a chill run through them.

That tone meant Roger was genuinely furious. He had no intention of letting this young man in camouflage walk out of the hall tonight.

"Move!"

With Roger's word behind them, the dozen trained security guards snapped back to attention.

The head guard's eyes went cold. He raised his high-voltage rubber baton and swung it straight at Brian's head with a sharp whistle of air.

Facing more than a dozen men closing in on him, Brian didn't move. He didn't even blink.

When the baton was just inches from his skull, he moved.

As a Blood Eagle instructor, every punch and kick he threw carried the kind of combat techniques built to destroy.

Thud. Crack. Crash.

The sounds of heavy bodies hitting the floor and bones snapping filled the banquet hall in rapid succession.

Brian threw five punches and six kicks.

All anyone could see was a blur of camouflage flickering through the crowd. One by one, the guards flew off their feet like balls hit by a truck, crashing and tumbling in every direction.

Each one sailed ten feet or more before slamming into tables loaded with food and drinks. Plates shattered, glasses flew, and soup splattered everywhere.

Every single guard went down in one hit — bones broken, tendons snapped — lying on the floor moaning, not one of them able to get back up.

Brian slowly lowered his fists and stood in the middle of the wreckage. His face wasn't even flushed. He hadn't broken a sweat.

The room went dead silent.

Everyone stared at this seemingly ordinary man like they were looking at something inhuman.

Brian turned slowly, his cold eyes locking onto Roger at the head table. "Old man," he said flatly. "You wanted me dead. That right?"

The moment Roger met that emotionless gaze, he felt his body sway.

He had lived seventy years and read countless people. Now, for the first time, he understood that this young man was no ordinary street thug.

But with all of New York's elite watching, he had no choice but to hold himself up with whatever dignity he had left — though his trembling fingers gave away the fear underneath.

"Who... who exactly are you?"

Roger's face was ashen. He forced down his panic and demanded loudly, "You injured my grandson, wrecked my birthday banquet, and now you're here disrupting the Corleone and Ward families' union. What do you want?"

"Union?"

Brian looked like he'd just heard the funniest joke of his life. A cold smirk crossed his face. "You rip apart a mother and daughter, then force your granddaughter to marry a stranger, and you call that a union? You keep saying it's for the Corleone family, but you're willing to sell out your own flesh and blood. Old man, what gives you the right to call yourself a family elder?"

"How dare you! The Corleone family's business is none of your concern!" Terry propped up his unconscious son and glared at Brian with burning eyes.

But as he looked more closely at Brian's face, and the word "rapist" surfaced in his mind, something buried deep in his memory began to stir.

Terry's pupils went wide. His finger shot out at Brian, shaking violently.

"You... it's you. I remember now. You're the rapist!"

Terry looked like he'd just uncovered some earth-shattering secret. He shouted across the room, "Don't let him fool you! This man is a rapist with no limits! Eight years ago, I spent two days in a holding cell over some minor business matter. This bastard was in the same cell! I remember it clearly — I'm absolutely certain it's him!"

Eight years ago, Terry had been detained for sexually harassing a female employee at his company. By chance, he'd been held in the same cell as Brian, who had just been locked up.

At the time, Brian had been consumed by despair and hadn't given someone like Terry a second glance. He never imagined the man would recognize him here, years later.

"A rapist?"

"He's actually a rapist? No wonder he's so vicious. He's absolute scum!"

The guests' expressions shifted instantly — from fear to deep contempt and disgust. They whispered among themselves and backed away.

Of everyone in the room, the one who reacted most violently to those words was Elena, standing in the corner.

Her whole body jolted. Whatever small flicker of gratitude she'd felt toward Brian vanished in an instant.

In its place came a bone-deep revulsion and hatred. Rapist. That word had haunted her nightmares for eight years.

The man standing in front of her had destroyed her life eight years ago.

"Anna! Come here, now!"

Elena found strength she didn't know she had. She tore herself free from her mother Brenda's arms and rushed forward like a woman possessed.