The deal was done.
There was no reason for Evenson to stay any longer.
Horwyst personally escorted him to the exit and even stood outside for a while, watching him disappear into the flow of pedestrians before returning to his office.
Only after sitting down did he realize what had been bothering him ever since Evenson left.
The man had walked away.
Not climbed into a limousine.
Not been picked up by an armored convoy.
Not even hailed a taxi.
The mysterious executive of the seemingly all-powerful Umbrella Corporation had simply... left on foot.
Odd.
But the thought never once led Horwyst to suspect Umbrella was fictitious.
That possibility didn’t even cross his mind.
Evenson had played his role too well.
Everything about him had projected confidence, authority, and resources. Horwyst was already convinced Umbrella was a secretive biotech giant with technology decades beyond the rest of the world.
Once people accepted a conclusion, their minds became remarkably efficient at defending it.
Whenever reality produced an inconvenient detail, the brain quietly manufactured explanations until everything fit together again.
Horwyst’s imagination immediately went to work.
Walking for exercise?
Ridiculous.
Environmental awareness?
Even more absurd.
Unable to afford a car?
That explanation never even entered consideration.
Eventually he settled on what seemed the only logical answer.
Secrecy.
A man blending into a crowd attracted far less attention than a luxury limousine.
Ask ten people which direction a stretched Cadillac had driven.
Half of them would remember.
Ask them about an ordinary pedestrian.
You’d be lucky if two noticed him at all.
No wonder I’d never heard of Umbrella before, Horwyst thought with admiration.
They’re this disciplined.
"Sir..."
One of his subordinates entered the office.
"We lost him."
Horwyst wasn’t surprised.
He had expected Evenson to notice the surveillance.
The men he’d sent weren’t trying to discover Umbrella’s headquarters.
That would have been unrealistic.
The tail itself had merely been a test.
So instead of becoming angry, Horwyst actually looked interested.
"How?"
The subordinate swallowed nervously.
"Five minutes after leaving the building, he turned into an alley."
"I followed immediately."
"He was gone."
Horwyst leaned back.
"Where does the alley lead?"
"It’s a dead end, sir."
"He climbed the wall?"
The subordinate shook his head.
"The surrounding buildings are all skyscrapers. The shortest one is over fifty stories."
Nobody climbed a hundred-and-fifty-meter building in seconds.
At least...
Not anyone Horwyst had ever heard of.
Horwyst chuckled.
"So he escaped through the sewers?"
The subordinate looked even paler.
"The sewer entrance... is outside the alley."
His breathing had become noticeably uneven.
He understood how unbelievable his report sounded.
His employer had assigned him a simple tail.
Five minutes later, he’d somehow lost the target inside a dead-end alley.
If their positions had been reversed...
He wouldn’t have believed the story either.
Instead of exploding with rage, however, Horwyst merely nodded.
"It seems he has... unusual methods."
The subordinate blinked.
"I understand."
"You may leave."
Sometimes a failed surveillance operation was valuable precisely because it failed.
If Umbrella could be uncovered that easily, Horwyst would have heard of the company years ago.
Occasionally, following someone wasn’t about gathering intelligence.
It was about sending a message.
The subordinate exhaled in relief.
He turned toward the door.
He never took another step.
Without warning, he collapsed onto his back.
His body struck the floor with a heavy thud.
Motionless.
The nearby guards rushed over.
One checked for a pulse.
Then looked up.
"He’s dead."
The corpse changed almost immediately.
His skin darkened into a sickly gray-blue.
His hair lost its color, turning brittle and yellow.
The relieved smile he’d been wearing moments earlier remained frozen on his face, now twisted by death into something grotesque.
His eyes stayed open.
Empty.
Lifeless.
Watching nothing.
Horwyst stared at the corpse for several long seconds before letting out a quiet laugh.
"What a straightforward response."
The surveillance had been a probe.
Nothing more.
A way to measure Umbrella’s tolerance.
Now he had his answer.
Practically zero.
"Take him away."
The guards prepared to move the body.
Then Horwyst’s expression changed.
"Wait."
His eyes narrowed at the corpse’s unnatural coloration.
"No one touches him."
"Call the hazmat team."
Immediately."
The man had clearly died from poison.
But what kind?
Given everything Horwyst believed about Umbrella, only one possibility came to mind.
A company capable of engineering superhuman enhancement drugs would naturally be capable of engineering biological weapons.
And if biological weapons were involved...
Viruses.
His face lost all color.
He doubted Umbrella would launch a full-scale biological attack over something as trivial as a surveillance test.
But doubt wasn’t certainty.
If there was even the slightest chance...
He had no intention of becoming Patient Zero.
The hazmat team would disinfect the entire office and verify that none of them were about to transform into flesh-eating monsters.
Horwyst’s assumptions weren’t entirely wrong.
The dead subordinate was Evenson’s doing.
Even without Habus at his side, Evenson’s current abilities made spotting amateur surveillance effortless.
The death was a response.
A warning.
Don’t test my patience.
Ironically, the subordinate’s death would make Horwyst feel safer.
If their positions had been reversed, Evenson would have done exactly the same thing.
Had the spy returned unharmed, Horwyst might have concluded that Umbrella feared provoking Hydra.
Then he would have grown bolder.
He would have dug deeper.
That was the last thing Evenson wanted.
Of course...
Horwyst had guessed one detail completely wrong.
Umbrella possessed no engineered virus.
There were no biological agents.
No experimental pathogens.
The unfortunate spy had simply been struck by a Warlock’s curse.
Doom.
A slow, lethal affliction that patiently counted down to death before claiming its victim without mercy.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter