112: Chapter 112 A Funeral Invitation from the South

The rain in Manhattan continued to fall, endless and relentless.

Ava Rockefeller threw a thick document folder onto the marble coffee table.

The folder slid across the smooth stone surface, knocking over a half-finished glass of whiskey.

Amber liquid spilled out, soaking a corner of the folder, where the red "Top Secret" stamp looked like a spreading bruise.

"They want me dead."

Ava kicked off her high heels and paced back and forth barefoot on the wool rug.

She held a slender lady's cigarette in her hand, the ash having accumulated to a long, precarious length.

Chen Mo sat in the sofa, clutching the remote control, and muted the television news.

On the screen, a massive protest in Texas was playing; environmentalists holding signs were brawling with oil workers wearing hard hats, with rolling pumpjacks and dust-filled skies in the background.

"This doesn't look like a promotion order." Chen Mo didn't look at Ava, his gaze fixed on the soaked document. "It looks more like a death warrant."

"It's worse than a death warrant. It's exile." Ava took a sharp drag of her cigarette and stubbed it out viciously into the ashtray.

"My dear uncle praised my 'outstanding contributions' to the Atlas Medical project in front of everyone at the family board meeting today. Then, he dumped this mess on me."

Chen Mo reached out and picked up the document folder, avoiding the wine-soaked area, and pulled out the materials inside.

The first page was a photograph.

A middle-aged man in work clothes was hanging from the iron frame of a drilling rig, his tongue protruding long, with a desolate Gobi desert in the background.

"Who is this?"

"Jim Hawkins, the local oil union leader." Ava sneered.

"He died last Tuesday. The police report claims it was 'suicide due to depression,' but his body had at least three fractures caused before he died.

He had been organizing worker strikes, protesting the Rockefeller Family's shale oil project in the Permian Basin."

Chen Mo turned to the next page.

It was a financial statement. A series of shocking deficits, with "security expenses" and "equipment wear and tear" frequently appearing in the notes column.

"That project is a bottomless pit. The extraction cost per barrel is thirty percent higher than the market price, and drilling equipment is 'accidentally' damaged every month."

Ava walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the gray, gloomy New York.

"Uncle said that since I'm so good at handling complex assets, he's sending me to Texas to serve as the special executive for the project.

If I can fix the trouble there, I can officially enter the family's core decision-making layer."

"And if you can't?"

"Then I'll end up like that union leader, dying in some 'accident,' or I'll be kicked out of the family, shouldering the blame for the massive losses."

Ava turned around, her voice trembling slightly.

"That's Texas, Chen. There's no law there, only oil, guns, and those damn rednecks.

I even suspect the project itself is a money-laundering black hole, and they sent me there just to find a scapegoat to balance the books."

Chen Mo didn't speak.

He stared at the man hanging in the photo.

The drilling rig's number was "LS-09."

LS. Lone Star.

He reached into his inner jacket pocket and touched the cold USB drive.

It was taken from the Siberian Wolf, and it recorded the transport route of a nerve agent, with its final destination in Texas.

If it was a trap, the bait was too tempting.

Just then, Chen Mo's phone on the coffee table vibrated.

There was no ringtone, just the screen lighting up, displaying a line of green code.

It was Jack Martin's dedicated frequency.

Chen Mo swiped the screen, tapped to answer, and hit speakerphone.

"Boss, I've got a lead on the thing you asked me to check." Jack's voice came through, accompanied by the clatter of keyboard typing, sounding like he was chewing on some kind of crunchy bone.

"Backend data from Legacy Bank shows that over the past three months, a total of forty million dollars in funds has flowed through seventeen shell companies and finally into an account located in Midland, Texas."

"Who is the recipient?" Chen Mo asked.

"On the surface, it's a private military contractor called Southern United Security." Jack paused.

"But I hacked into their tax system and discovered that the actual controller of this company is the same person as the security consultant for the Rockefeller Family's local shale oil project."

"And there's something even more interesting." Jack's voice rose a notch.

"The registered address of this security company and the logistics transfer station for Lone Star Energy overlap one hundred percent on the map."

Chen Mo hung up the phone.

The room was so quiet that only the sound of raindrops hitting the glass could be heard.

All the clues had come full circle.

The Rockefeller Family's infighting, the inexplicable, massive security fees, the hanged union leader, the Siberian Wolf's gas canisters.

This wasn't just a business trap; it was a massive meat grinder, waiting there for new sacrifices.

"Look." Chen Mo tossed the phone back onto the sofa, stood up, and walked over to Ava.

He was a head taller than her, and his shadow loomed over, blocking the light from outside the window.

"This isn't all bad." Chen Mo reached out to tidy her slightly disheveled collar.

"At least we know that your uncle and the people who want to kill me are in cahoots."

"Should we refuse?" Ava looked up, her eyes full of fear. "I could fake an illness, or—"

"Refuse?"

Chen Mo smiled. The smile was faint and lacked warmth, yet it gave Ava an inexplicable sense of peace, as if she were seeing a beast standing before her.

"Why refuse? That's an invitation they sent us."

Chen Mo turned and walked to the liquor cabinet, took another glass, and poured a little whiskey.

He swirled the glass, the ice cubes hitting the glass with a crisp sound.

"Since they've so enthusiastically invited us to a funeral, wouldn't it be too impolite if we didn't go?"

He tilted his head back and downed the drink, the spicy liquid burning down his throat, igniting a long-suppressed intent to kill.

"Pack your bags, Ava. Tell that old man you accept the appointment."

Chen Mo slammed the empty glass onto the table.

"We're going to Texas."