Chapter 39: Are You Threatening Me

　An order for a high-top table?

　　Russell froze for a moment, then burst out laughing.

　　"Hahahaha ... the order of the high table, Winston you really have the guts to say it, huh?"

　　Listening to Russell's laughter, Winston knew things were starting to go in a bad direction.

　　"Winston, I'm asking you a very serious question now, and you'd better think it over before you answer, too."

　　"Are you, like, threatening me?"

　　Russell's tone became extremely cold.

　　"No, that's not what I meant!"

　　"I mean, clients may go straight to the high table in order to get you out."

　　"Since you're not interested in a commission, I'll recommend someone else to the client."

　　Without any hesitation, Winston answered immediately.

　　"It would certainly be best if you would."

　　"I've been quite happy with the two years we've worked together, and I'd like to keep working together as initially agreed, don't you think?"

　　Russell's tone was no longer cold and slow.

　　"That's for sure!"

　　"You just got back, so I'll leave you to rest."

　　With that, Winston hung up.

　　Russell frowned and put down his cell phone, all the good feelings he'd just gotten home in gone.

　　He was now beginning to think about throwing away the identity of the Continental Hotel Direct Killer.

　　In the past, the identity of the Continental Hotel Direct Killer did bring him a lot of convenience.

　　But right now, that identity is causing more trouble than good.

　　The reason why he chose to join the Continental Hotel two years ago when he had just made some name for himself in the assassin world.

　　Apart from the fact that the Continental Hotel could offer him quite a lot of help, there was another very important reason, and that was the promise given by Winston.

　　It was rumored that he was recognized by the Continental Hotel because of his outstanding strength, thus becoming the Continental Hotel's direct hitman.

　　But the truth is that Winston's commitment was the main reason he joined the Continental Hotel.

　　Winston promised him that if he would join the hotel, he would not only be able to maximize the use of the hotel's power, but he would also be able to maintain a maximum degree of freedom.

　　As long as he doesn't violate the hotel's rules in plain sight, he's entitled to all the rights of the hotel's straight killer.

　　If he's willing to perform a little in-house hotel commissioning at his convenience, all the better.

　　The reason why Winston would make such an offer to entice him to join.

　　The willingness is simple!

　　Because he possesses superhuman abilities!

　　There are a lot of killers in New York and a lot of people with extraordinary abilities.

　　But there aren't many killers with extraordinary abilities.

　　The likes of Cross and Mr. X in the Brotherhood are barely considered assassins with superhuman abilities.

　　But the two abilities, gun flinging and adrenaline autonomy control, are a bit tame compared to Russell's simple, brutal, transcendent physique.

　　Winston ropes Russell into joining the Continental, ostensibly to boost the hotel.

　　But Russell knew that Winston had made those offers to pull him in mainly for his own sake.

　　Winston is now the manager of the Continental Hotel in New York, a position of great power in the Slayer world.

　　But people are ambitious.

　　The district's position as manager of the Continental Hotel in New York could not satisfy Winston's ambitions.

　　He wants a seat at the high table.

　　If conventional means are used, Winston won't get a seat at the high table even if he makes it to retirement.

　　Therefore, Winston could only consider using some unconventional means.

　　Russell, it's that unconventional tactic he chose.

　　Exactly how he would operate, Russell wasn't sure.

　　But unsurprisingly, Winston is sure to make an issue of his strength and status.

　　Although he knew Winston was playing some small game, Russell didn't say anything about it.

　　Just like what he said earlier, he was quite satisfied with the cooperation in the past two years.

　　As long as Winston didn't go too far, he wouldn't mind if Winston used an internal commission and entrusted him to take out certain people.

　　Other straight-up assassins might have been honest about carrying out the hotel's in-house commissions and high-top table orders, but Russell was having none of that.

　　In-house commissions in hotels or not, high-top table orders.

　　He's interested. He's the one who does the work.

　　If he wasn't interested, he wouldn't have taken it even if the Inquisitor of the high table had come in person.

　　Big deal, no big deal!

　　The High Table and the Continental Hotel may seem powerful, but they're not that difficult to deal with if you really want to.

　　Not to mention him, even his dog-loving ex-colleague who has gone home to get married has a way of making high-top tables and Continental hotels look like chicken feathers when he plays hard to get.

　　His dog-loving ex-colleague who was just a normal human could do it, and he certainly had no problem with it.

　　After some serious thinking, he still decided to keep the identity of Hotel Direct Killer for the time being.

　　Although he now had his own private channels and network of relationships, it was still quite a bit worse compared to the hotel.

　　Since Winston hadn't explicitly flipped out yet, it wasn't impossible to continue working together.

　　After making his decision, he searched the internet for the latest reports on Nightcrawler.

　　He was now a little curious as to what Nightcrawler had done to cause Jin not to commission him to kill Nightcrawler.

　　Compared to Tony's news, Nightcrawler's news is significantly less.

　　It's not like people from anywhere other than New Yorkers are going to be interested in Nightcrawler, basically.

　　Popularity, which determines the amount and timeliness of news coverage.

　　As a superhero who basically only appears at night and is active in Hell's Kitchen, the latest reports on Nightcrawler are a week old news.

　　Much like the old news, Nightcrawler's latest news is that he cracked down on some gang and rescued a bunch of trafficked women.

　　The news is short.

　　There is nothing particularly noteworthy about the whole case.

　　Russell went ahead and flipped through the rest of Nightcrawler's coverage, and still found nothing wrong with it; it was the usual superhero-fighting-vice coverage.

　　That's not true!

　　It's not like Nightcrawler has been fighting evil in Hell's Kitchen for a day or two.

　　It wasn't just once or twice that Jin and tried to get Nightcrawler killed.

　　There have been a number of commissions to kill Nightcrawler before.

　　But those commissions don't pay much, basically just a couple hundred thousand dollars or a couple million dollars.

　　If Nightcrawler hadn't completely pissed off Jin Jin and would never have offered the hefty $50 million dollar payoff.

　　With the online news not looking like a problem, Russell logged back into the underground forums of the dark web and searched for intel on the Nightmare.

　　After searching the underground forums of the Dark Web for information about Nightcrawler, Russell finally realized why Jin and had to commission him to take out Nightcrawler.

　　Nightcrawler breaks into Jinjin's office at the Fisk Tower, takes out all the bodyguards around him, and seriously injures Jinjin.