39: Chapter 39 The Price of the Viper: Ava's Legacy Dilemma

The rain in Brooklyn was still falling, drumming against the bulletproof glass with a dull thud.

Inside the safe house, George was tuning the server that had just been assembled; blue indicator lights flickered in the dim room like pairs of prying eyes.

Chen Mo sat on the leather sofa, toying with the anonymous satellite phone in his hand.

The screen displayed only a string of garbled numbers.

It was the emergency contact method Ava had given him, to be used only in life-or-death situations.

"Are you sure you want to call now?" George didn't turn his head, holding a soldering iron in his hand, the air filled with the acrid smell of solder.

"That girl is probably frantic right now. As the illegitimate daughter of the Rockefeller Family, with her father—who acted as a white glove—dead, and not having gotten her hands on the money yet, her status in that family is probably worse than a dog's."

"It's precisely because she's a drowning dog right now that she'll listen to reason."

Chen Mo pressed the dial button, turned on the speakerphone, and tossed the phone onto the coffee table.

The phone rang three times.

"Who is it?"

Ava's voice came through, with noisy music and the crisp clinking of cups and plates in the background; clearly, she was at some social event she had been forced to attend.

Her tone was taut, like a violin string about to snap.

"Your partner." Chen Mo poured himself a glass of whiskey, his tone as flat as if he were discussing the weather.

"The person who helped you fish a sum of money out of hell."

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the line, followed immediately by the sound of high heels clicking rapidly against the floor, then a dull thud of a door closing; the background noise vanished.

"Are you crazy?" Ava's voice was very low, carrying suppressed anger.

"I'm surrounded by the family's eyes and ears right now! The police station has been bombed into ruins, and now the entire New York underworld is looking for the bastard who caused the chaos; don't tell me this has anything to do with you."

Chen Mo took a sip of his drink. "That's not why I'm calling you, Ava. Your trouble hasn't ended; on the contrary, it has just begun."

"Are you threatening me?"

"No, I'm saving you." Chen Mo leaned forward and slowly spat out one word into the microphone: "Ouroboros."

A sharp intake of breath came from the other end of the line, followed immediately by a deathly silence.

After a full five seconds, Ava's voice sounded again, no longer angry, only trembling: "How do you know that name? Who told you?"

"That's not important." Chen Mo looked at the approving gaze George cast his way and continued to apply pressure.

"What's important is that they visited my office last night. An entire cleanup squad armed to the teeth—this level of force was much higher than what they used against you. I accidentally broke their toys, and by the way... saw some interesting things."

"Impossible..." Ava murmured to herself, "That's a forbidden entry in the family archives; even my father didn't dare mention it while he was alive..."

"Your father is dead because he knew too much, or perhaps too little." Chen Mo interrupted her.

"Now I'm in the game, too, and I want to know everything about Ouroboros. You're one of the Rockefeller Family, and even if you're on the fringe, you have more clearance than I do to access those moldy archives."

"You want me to investigate Ouroboros?" Ava's voice rose several notches. "Do you want me to die? That organization is used to purge traitors within the family!"

"Do you have a choice?"

Chen Mo's voice was cold, without a trace of warmth.

"The account key for those five million dollars is still in my head. If you die, or if you're cast out by the family to be used for a marriage alliance, that money will truly become a dead account. Ava, think about the cold shoulders you've received at family banquets, think about the way those legitimate heirs look at you—are you content with that?"

Only heavy breathing remained on the other end of the line.

Chen Mo knew the viper had been shaken.

Greed and fear are the best reins to control humans, and Ava possessed both.

"Three days." Ava said, gritting her teeth.

"I need three days. The family has an internal hearing this week, and I'll have a chance to access the archive terminals. But Chen Mo, listen to me: this isn't just an intelligence exchange."

"State your price."

"I don't just want those five million." Ava's voice regained a trace of calm and ruthlessness.

"That's dead money—once it's spent, it's gone. I want power. I want to establish a firm foothold in the family, and if you're really as omnipotent as you appear to be, you have to help me."

"For example?"

"Help me launder that money, turn it into a performance record, a business empire that will allow me to stand tall in front of those old fogies."

Chen Mo smiled.

This was exactly what he wanted.

He needed a puppet to stand at the front, a cover with a legitimate identity and noble bloodline.

"Deal."

Chen Mo hung up the phone and drained the last of his whiskey.

George put down the soldering iron and whistled. "Treating a member of the Rockefeller Family like a temp worker—your capitalist face is even purer than those people on Wall Street."

"She's not a temp worker." Chen Mo stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked at the pitch-black night outside.

"She is our admission ticket. George, get ready; once the intelligence arrives, it's time for us to work."

"Do what?"

"Build a new Rome in this rotting country."