Chapter 3

That card, which read "perfect skeletal proportions, looking forward to our dissection," acted like a death warrant from hell. In an instant, it utterly shattered the psychological defenses Julian had just built upon the "billion-dollar merger" and "top-tier security."

Thud—

One second he was standing; the next, Julian's legs gave out, and he fell heavily to his knees, begging frantically for his life.

"Madam! Save me! He's here... that madman is actually here!" Julian threw his arms around the gold-plated armrest of my mother-in-law's chair, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "Those gates outside couldn't even stop a truck, the security is completely useless! I need to leave this place! Get me a helicopter right now!"

The complexions of the relatives in the banquet hall also changed drastically.

The tale of Richard was a strict taboo in this family. No one wanted to risk having their fingers chopped off by Uncle Richard over some inexplicable nonsense.

No amount of money could compensate for that.

"Shut up! Stop panicking!" My mother-in-law kicked Julian's hand away. Though her face was ashen, she still tried to maintain the majesty of an old-money matriarch. "Butler, raise the estate's security to the highest level immediately. All bodyguards are to be equipped with live ammunition! I refuse to believe one man can overturn the entire Beman family..."

"Madam..." The old butler swallowed hard, a despairing sob caught in his throat. "The guardhouse just sent an urgent message. There was no one inside that license-less truck that smashed the gate... the gas pedal was weighed down with a brick. Mr. Richard, I'm afraid... I'm afraid he infiltrated the estate long ago and is watching us from the shadows right now."

Those words were like freezing water, instantly extinguishing the last spark of hope in the room.

Behind every suit of antique armor and heavy velvet curtain in the corners of the hall, it felt as though a blood-stained scalpel could thrust out at any moment.

Standing by the control console, I watched this scene coldly, finding the whole thing incredibly absurd.

So this was the old-money family that monopolized New York's resources for a century?

Normally, they acted high and mighty, cannibalizing others with their so-called decency and capital. But when faced with pure physical violence and a psychopath, they were as fragile as meat on a chopping block.

In the midst of this extreme terror, Julian's unfocused eyes suddenly locked onto me.

When a person faces the desperate brink of death, they can erupt with the most unimaginable malice just to survive.

Julian violently lunged up from the floor, pointing a finger at me like a dying rabid dog: "It's him! It's Arthur!"

Swish—

Following his trembling finger, every pair of eyes in the room snapped toward me.

"Madam! Arthur orchestrated all of this! Think about it carefully—how could an elite Wall Street professional like me be so blind as to mistake Bellis for the heir?!" Julian's eyes were bloodshot. Desperate to pass the buck, he began weaving frantic lies. "He was jealous that I secured the billion-dollar deal! Not only did he hack the group chat and send fake photos, but he was also the one who slipped hallucinogens into my champagne last night! He intentionally sprayed Eleanor's perfume on Bellis and lured her into my room to frame me!"

I raised an eyebrow, unable to stop myself from mentally applauding this utterly brain-dead script.

"Yes! Exactly!"

In the corner, Aunt Bellis, who had been shivering in fear, suddenly found her eyes lighting up.

She knew her husband's psychotic methods all too well. When he said he was going to dissect her along with Julian, he absolutely meant it—unless she wasn't a willing participant.

Grasping at this lifeline, Bellis immediately rushed forward in her high heels, pointing her finger at my nose and screeching in agreement. "It was Arthur, this freeloading loser-in-law! At the banquet last night, he was the one who handed me that glass of water! I got dizzy right after drinking it and didn't know anything! If Richard wants revenge... he should look for the culprit who drugged us!"

This lie was so full of holes it wouldn't even fool a three-year-old; it was a sheer insult to human intelligence.

How could an unarmed, live-in son-in-law—who was constantly trampled on by the entire family—manage to drug both the special assistant and a core family member under heavy guard, strip them naked, and neatly arrange them in the same bed?

But I didn't utter a word in defense. I merely looked quietly at my mother-in-law at the head of the long table.

A flash of absolute disdain for their fabricated story visibly crossed my mother-in-law's shrewd, cold eyes.

She wasn't stupid. She saw instantly that Julian and Bellis were just trying to shift the blame, throwing me out as a human shield to save their own skins.

But in this hall, the truth was worthless.

My mother-in-law's gaze darted rapidly between the panicked Julian, the card discarded on the floor, and the One-Billion-Dollar M&A Financial Report on the table, weighing her options at lightspeed.

That one billion was the Beman family's only hope to stave off bankruptcy. Julian, their "cash cow," absolutely could not die at this critical juncture.

And Richard was an unreasonable mad dog.

When a mad dog wants to bite, you have to throw it a piece of bloody meat to shut its mouth.

After a suffocating, dead silence, my mother-in-law slowly raised her chin. The way she looked at me was like looking at a piece of garbage about to be tossed into an incinerator.

"Arthur, I truly never thought that you would commit such a deranged and heinous act just to keep leeching off this family."

Her voice was frigid and authoritative, entirely devoid of moral guilt, pinning the label of "sinner" squarely onto me.

"Mother?!"

Eleanor, who had been sitting silently across from me, abruptly stood up. Her stunningly beautiful, traditionally ice-cold face was now filled with sheer disbelief at her family's lack of a bottom line.

"Eleanor, it is not your place to speak here!" My mother-in-law cut her off sharply, mercilessly handing down the verdict. "From this moment on, you are suspended from all family duties. Security, keep an eye on her!"

Then, she turned her ruthless gaze toward the armed bodyguards who were already closing in on me.

"Put Arthur under house arrest! Escort him to the underground wine cellar!"

"If Mr. Richard appears later, tell him we have already identified and detained the culprit who drugged and raped his wife. The Beman family has no intention of making an enemy out of him. He is free to dissect and dispose of that man however he pleases!"

For one billion dollars, she was feeding her son-in-law's life directly to the blade of a psychopath.

The relatives in the hall indifferently turned their heads away; some even let out a long sigh of relief.

As long as they weren't the ones dying, and as long as the billion dollars remained, the life of a "kept man" was indeed worth less than a slice of pudding at their banquet.

"Hear that, Arthur?"

Seeing the mother-in-law issue the sacrificial order, Julian exhaled a long breath, reveling in his survival.

He straightened his wrinkled tie and once again revealed that venomous, arrogant, cold smile.

Walking up to me, he spoke through gritted teeth in a voice only the two of us could hear: "Trash is always trash. So what if you spotted the scar on her back? One billion dollars is my get-out-of-jail-free card. And you, you're about to be forced to watch your own flesh get sliced off inch by inch in a basement. Are you despairing?"

Two burly bodyguards had already flanked me, clamping down hard on my shoulders left and right.

I turned around obediently. I didn't struggle, nor did I weep and beg for mercy as they expected.

I simply looked right past Julian's nauseating face, casting my gaze to Eleanor across the long table, who was also being watched by two security guards.

Under the dim amber light of the crystal chandelier, there was not a single trace of panic in Eleanor's amber eyes.

Looking at me, the corners of her mouth curled up ever so slightly into an icy smile that chilled to the bone.

This was a tacit understanding entirely unique to us husband and wife—it was the pity and mockery of a hunter watching a self-proclaimed clever prey willingly step into an abyssal meat grinder.

"Julian, have you ever considered a question?"

In that split second before the bodyguards hauled me away—just as Julian flashed his smug grin—I suddenly let out a light chuckle. The sound was starkly jarring in the dead-silent hall.

"What nonsense are you spewing at death's door?!" Julian frowned.

"You've been treating this 'one-billion-dollar merger' as your amulet, your get-out-of-jail-free card." Even with my shoulders pressed down, my posture remained straight and tall. I looked at him like he was already a dead man. "But what if the amulet in your hands... is actually a Grim Reaper's calling card?"

Julian froze for a moment, then burst into presumptuous laughter. "Are you out of your mind? You're the one who's about to be dissected!"

Just as his words fell.

With agonizing slowness, completely ignoring the pressure of the bodyguards, I reached into the inner pocket of my suit jacket and pulled out my phone.

The screen was already lit. It displayed a highly complex, black backend coding interface.

Right in the dead center of the screen was a glaring red virtual button: [Execute].

Meanwhile, across the long table, the newly "stripped of power" Eleanor also reached into her evening clutch and pulled out her phone in this seemingly most desperate moment.

Suspended in the air, the two of us locked eyes—a culmination of a three-year-long gaze.

"Say goodbye to your amulet."

Staring into Julian's eyes, where an ominous premonition was just beginning to rise, my thumb pressed down on the red [Execute] button without a shred of hesitation.

The crowd looked at each other in confusion.

My mother-in-law frowned and demanded, "Arthur, what are you doing—"

Before she could finish her question, her phone rang.

She answered it with a scowl. The next second, a miserable, throat-tearing scream erupted from the speaker, backed by blaring alarms and the chaotic sound of keyboards being smashed into pieces:

"Madam!! It's over!! We've been completely stripped of server access!!!"

"Just a second ago, some top-tier hacker from God knows where took all two sets of ledgers Julian has made over the past three years—every cross-border money laundering record, the forged contracts for the short-selling projects, even the itemized detains of every single kickback he funneled into his offshore accounts..."

"They sent it all over the network!! Zero encryption! It's been posted straight to the public square on Twitter, emailed to the Wall Street Journal, and dumped into the SEC's whistleblower backend!!!"

The Director of Security's despairing wail echoed above the banquet hall:

"Julian's fraudulent bookkeeping has been exposed! The commercial tsunami is already here, Madam!!!"