Chapter 123: The Valentine Family

Chapter 123: The Valentine Family

Ethan narrowed his eyes and scanned the factory entrance, which was covered in blood and gore. A flash of reflected light caught his eye.

He stepped over the chunks of flesh on the ground and picked up the object.

It was a metal badge engraved with dark red patterns.

Ethan was certain there had been no one in black robes standing in that spot just moments ago.

Without a doubt, this was something the masked man had dropped when he slipped away.

He pulled out his phone, took a high-resolution photo of the badge, and sent it straight to Noah.

"Find out where this thing came from. And bring some people to the abandoned steel mill in District Seven. Clean up the mess."

After sending the message, Ethan shoved the badge into his pocket, turned around, and walked out of the factory toward where the helicopter was parked.

Hunter was standing outside the cabin. Inside, Mia and the others were lying quietly in their seats, still unconscious.

Ethan walked up and gave Hunter a firm slap on the shoulder.

"Good work, man."

Hunter grinned but said nothing, stepping respectfully to the side.

"Get on. We're leaving." Ethan gave the order.

The helicopter lifted off quickly and headed toward the city.

Twenty minutes later, it landed on the rooftop helipad of a high-security apartment building in the city center.

Noah had just arranged this as their new place.

The building was only two blocks from their company headquarters, and more importantly, Hunter's place was right next door.

That way, if anything came up, Hunter and the company's armed forces could get there in no time. Security was a lot tighter than the villa they'd been staying at before.

Ethan and Hunter worked together to get everyone settled into the bedrooms.

The moment Ethan stepped back out into the hallway, his phone buzzed.

It was Noah's reply.

"Boss, got it. That's the Valentine family's private badge. And based on the pattern's rank, only someone with serious power at the core of the family would be allowed to wear one like this."

Ethan leaned back on the living room couch, pulled the badge out of his pocket, and turned it over between his fingers.

He stared at the dark red patterns on the badge, his eyes slowly narrowing.

It was obvious the Valentine family had some deep connection to The Aeterna Causality.

Since they'd already gone after his family and friends, there was no way he was going to let it slide.

It looked like he needed to pay the Valentine Villa a personal visit.

Just as Ethan was about to send Noah orders to gather intel on the Valentine family, his phone suddenly rang.

Arthur's name lit up the screen.

Ethan answered right away.

"Boss!" Arthur's voice came through the second the call connected, so worked up he was almost stumbling over his words. "I... I found it!"

"You cracked the black box?" Ethan asked.

"No." Arthur quickly corrected himself. "That encryption system is absolutely insane. I'm still working on it. But Boss, I found something else. That thing you asked me to look into quietly!"

"Go on."

"Boss, that criminal case that got you locked up back then — it should've just been an ordinary case at most. But I found out who was pulling strings behind the scenes to get you thrown into that nightmare prison with the most dangerous criminals in the world."

"Send me your location," Ethan cut him off. "I'm coming now."

"Got it!"

Ethan hung up, turned around, and walked out of the apartment.

He boarded the helicopter still waiting on the rooftop and flew toward the military's classified weapons development base where Arthur was.

Ethan had always felt something was off about how things had played out.

Even if his ex Layla and that bastard had set him up, under normal circumstances he never should have ended up in a hellhole like that maximum security prison.

Someone had to have been pushing from behind the scenes.

He'd asked Arthur to dig into it using military clearance, and this weapons genius had actually turned something up.

The helicopter touched down smoothly on the base's landing pad.

Arthur was already waiting below with a few fully armed soldiers.

When he saw Ethan jump off the helicopter, Arthur rushed over immediately.

"Boss."

Ethan looked at him and got straight to the point. "Who is it?"

Arthur didn't answer right away.

He glanced cautiously at the patrol soldiers and security cameras nearby.

"Boss, this isn't the place to talk. Follow me."

Arthur moved quickly, leading Ethan through several checkpoints, past blast-proof doors with retinal and fingerprint scanners, until they reached a room deep inside the base.

It was a sealed room, completely cut off from all outside networks, with heavy soundproofing.

Arthur locked the thick metal door behind them, let out a breath, then walked to the table in the center of the room and slid a document stamped TOP SECRET across to Ethan.

"Boss, I broke into the lowest-level encrypted archive. The person who signed that special order back then — the one that forced you into that prison..."

Arthur paused, his voice carrying a clear edge of tension.

"It was General Mike."

Ethan looked at the classified document on the table. Mike's name was printed on it clearly.

He picked it up, flipped through a couple of pages, then tossed it back onto the metal table.

"General Mike." Ethan said. "A high-ranking military general, doing dirty work in the shadows for those rats hiding in the sewers — The Aeterna Causality."

Arthur ran a hand roughly through his hair. "Boss, I wanted to follow his communication records further and see if I could find out who gave him the order. But..."

Arthur stopped, his expression turning strange.

"You hit a wall?" Ethan looked at him.

"A weird one." Arthur sat down at the computer and typed quickly. A glaring red warning box popped up on the screen. "Boss, I tried to pull your core file from the military database. But the system says I don't have clearance."

Ethan raised an eyebrow.

"This is insane!" Arthur jabbed a finger at the screen. "I'm the military's highest-level weapons development expert! I have Level 8 clearance! I can pull up the blueprints for nuclear submarines whenever I want — but I don't have access to your personal file?"

"You can't dig up anything else?" Ethan asked.

"Nothing. The whole system has your file locked down completely. There can't be more than five people in the entire country who can access it." Arthur shook his head.

Ethan stared at the computer screen.

Whoever had put him in that prison was even more dangerous than he'd imagined.

But he wasn't going to waste time playing guessing games.

"Forget it. We'll deal with it later. I've got other things to handle."