36 Revenge I

After David had "died", Roberto had taken over his spot as the leader of the crew. Although he didn't like what'd happened to David, he had grown to live with it. After all, this was the criminal underworld, where any day could be one's last.

He would have wished for things to end differently; after all, his life had once been saved by David, so he owed him big time. But that night when Nico laid out the plan to kill David, he had no choice but to agree. If he disagreed, he would have been the one to die.

But that was it. Apart from feeling a little bad about David's passing, he didn't feel anything at all. In this cutthroat world, everyone's main priority would always be to preserve their own life. There were no friends in the mafia, nor were there enemies.

Only benefits.

And the choice he'd made had proven to be the right one. He had been promoted and was now Nico's right-hand man. However, after what had happened to David, he'd become very cautious of Nico.

Although Nico had told him that David was a Buccanti spy and had to be killed, Roberto had a feeling that that was far from the truth. He figured that David's death was the result of Nico's jealousy and pettiness.

But he didn't bother about it anymore. As long as he maintained his caution against Nico, he believed he would be fine. Currently, he was going through the accounts of the past week's revenue. He had taken over David's post so abruptly that he was still trying to get used to everything.

Just as he was reading the books, there was a sudden commotion inside the Mulligan and he heard one of his boys shout, "Oi, who the fuck're you?"

Roberto raised his head and saw a black-haired youth shutting the door to the bar and then proceeding to draw the window blinds. His eyebrows suddenly furrowed as he found the person to be familiar. His heart rate increased for some reason, and a terrible foreboding feeling washed over him.

By the time David had shut all the window shades, everyone in the bar had surrounded him—everyone except Roberto, that is. David calmly turned around and looked at the five men who used to work for him. "Hello, boys."

It took a few moments, but everyone in the bar eventually recognized him. One of the younger men looked at him in shock and stuttered, "B-B-Boss!!"

Roberto was the most shocked of them all and immediately rose to his feet in sheer horror. "Y-You're alive!?"

David cast a cold gaze at the new boss, whom he had thought was his friend, and replied, "What? Did you miss me?" The next moment, his palms turned hard, his fingers elongated, and his fingernails turned black and pointy. His palms had turned into claws!

Without waiting a moment longer, he pounced at the person standing closest to him. He grabbed their head in one hand and, with the other, viciously stabbed him in the neck, effectively decapitating him.

Blood gushed out of the guy's neck like a fountain, splashing over the people standing nearby. It wasn't until then that they realized what had just happened. Seeing such a gory scene, everybody made distance from the headless man.

Roberto, in his panic, hurriedly instructed, "Everybody, quick! Shoot him down!"

David swiftly rushed to the next person before they could even pull out their gun. He grabbed the man's head and viciously twisted it, then held him right in front of him as a shield. Right when he had killed the person, the rest of the people had already taken aim and pulled their triggers.

BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!

Standing behind the corpse as bullets continued raining down on him, David was calm and his face was cold. Although his physical stats had been boosted, he didn't want to find out just how resilient his body was against a hail of bullets so he just patiently waited for the bastards to run out of ammo.

And within a few moments, they indeed ran out of bullets. David picked up the mangled corpse he was holding and threw it toward them. Following that, he disappeared on the spot!

The three men hurriedly knocked the corpse out of their way and aimed their guns forward. However, David was nowhere to be seen and they could only look around in terror. "W-Where the fuck is he!?"

"Look up!" Roberto, who was standing at the other end of the bar, had a wider field of view. He'd seen how David had disappeared from the ground and reappeared on the ceiling, upside down, his claws lodged into the ceiling, preventing him from falling.

Roberto gulped when he saw that; it felt like he was up against a creature of the wild and not a human.

But before the rest of the men even had a chance to look up, David let out a guttural growl and pounced at the man below him. He pinned the man to the ground and his teeth turned sharp and pointy. Following that, he viciously dug his teeth into the man's throat and bit out a large chunk of it.

He got off the man, who was now struggling to breathe and drowning in his own blood. David spat the flesh from his mouth and then dashed toward the next closest person to him.

Other than Roberto, only two men remained and they were frozen stiff after seeing the way David had just killed the last person.

David then ripped the arms off the goombah closest to him, then stabbed him in the chest with his bare hand. His claw penetrated the man's entire body and came out of his back, a still-beating heart clasped within. The last person snapped to his senses and hurriedly aimed his gun at David and fired as the teenager casually crushed the heart in his claw.

BANG!

With inhuman speed, David had already slapped the man's gun away, changing the trajectory of the shot as it was fired. He then rushed closer to the man and once again stabbed his claw inside the man's chest and crushed his heart.

The man coughed up a mouthful of blood as he stared at his former boss in horror. David stared back at him, eyes gleaming with the coldness and ruthlessness of a predator as he watched the life in his former subordinate's eyes slowly seeping away. Within moments, the man had died.

David dropped the corpse to the ground and turned to look at Roberto, who was trembling in fear and pointing a gun at him. His lips curled up into a cold smile. "What's the matter, Roberto?" He slowly walked toward his former friend, his clothes drenched in the blood of all the men he had just slain.

Roberto looked at him in sheer dread and stuttered, "D-Don't come near me!"

"Or what?" David continued slowly walking, his eyes flashing between black and red.

Roberto's teeth chattered and his eyes turned bloodshot. Overcome by fear and panic, he pulled the trigger. "DIE MOTHERFUCKER DIE!!"

David jumped to the wall next to him, leaving a trail of shadows in his wake. Right after that, he jumped to the ceiling as Roberto kept firing in his direction, but missed every time. David jumped from the ceiling to the other wall, then finally pounced on Roberto.

He grabbed Roberto's gun-wielding arm and ripped it clean off at the elbow.

"Aaarrggghhh!!" Roberto screamed in agony as he saw blood gushing out of his stump. The next moment, David grabbed his throat and pinned him to the ground. Roberto felt the air knocked out of him and struggled to breathe.

David brought his face closer to Roberto's and coldly muttered, "Give me one good reason why I should let you live."

Roberto gasped for air and muttered, "I… can… explain…."

David's eyes narrowed. He let go of Roberto and stood over him. "Speak."

Roberto took large mouthfuls of air and looked at David in fear, wondering just how he had survived that shootout and what exactly had happened to him to undergo such a transformation. Suppressing the pain of his missing arm, he pleaded, "D-David, I had no choice…. I was forced to do it."

David looked into Roberto's eyes and, in the end, he sighed, "You did have a choice." The next moment, his eyes flashed with a ruthless glint. He raised his foot and viciously stamped Roberto's head, turning it into a mixture of blood, flesh, and bones.

"And you chose to betray me."