Chapter 3
Ryan stomped down hard on the phone and ground his heel against it.
The screen cracked in every direction beneath his shoe.
“Do you know how important that phone is?” I asked through clenched teeth.
My entire body was burning with pain, but I had only one goal now: getting my phone back.
The core research stored inside it was critically important.
I reached out, trying to grab it.
When Ryan saw my hand extending toward the phone, his eyes filled with viciousness.
“You think you’re worthy of using my wife as your wallpaper?”
He stomped down again, this time crushing my hand beneath his shoe.
The pain was so intense that my eyes turned red.
The data inside that phone contained some of the nation’s most important technological breakthroughs.
If it were lost, the consequences would be disastrous.
Ryan’s lackeys dragged me farther away.
“How dare you disrespect our sister-in-law like that?”
“You really don’t know when to quit!”
Ryan calmly brushed off his hands and motioned for the hotel staff to bring him something better for destroying the phone.
The device was unexpectedly difficult to damage.
A few staff members quickly returned with a sharp metal awl. It was perfect for piercing through the phone.
At Ryan’s gesture, one of them handed it over.
Ryan gripped the awl and aimed it at my cracked phone.
My eyes were already bloodshot.
“Ryan, do you understand what that phone represents?”
“If you destroy it, you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison!”
I struggled desperately against the men holding me down, trying to get my phone back.
Ryan looked at me with amusement.
“What’s wrong? You can’t bear to see a phone with my wife’s picture destroyed?”
“It’s just a few-thousand-dollar phone. I’ll give you one of those fancy tri-fold models later.”
The lackeys around us immediately looked envious.
“Damn, a tri-fold? You’re so lucky!”
“I wish Ryan would destroy my phone so I could get one too.”
My fists were clenched tight.
If those men hadn’t been holding me down, I would have punched Ryan in the face.
What good was a tri-fold phone?
A thousand of them—or ten thousand—wouldn’t equal even a fraction of this phone’s value.
“Give me my phone!”
“Do you even understand what you’re doing? There’s classified national information inside!”
Ryan burst out laughing.
“Do you know why we wanted you to come here?”
“Because you’re hilarious like this. I wanted to see you make a fool of yourself.”
“And now you’re bringing the nation into it? Do you even know what ‘the nation’ means?”
“Go on. Keep shouting!”
“You always had to act special back in school, didn’t you?”
As he spoke, Ryan stomped on my head.
His lackeys joined in.
“Ryan is about to become a researcher at Apex Technologies. That’s what being part of the nation’s true core looks like.”
“Do you even know what Apex Technologies is?”
My driver, still being held down and beaten, shouted desperately.
“Let Mr. Carter go!”
The moment he finished speaking, more fists as large as hammers rained down on him.
The pain forced him to scream.
“Still calling him ‘Mr. Carter’? Ethan, the actor you hired is really dedicated!” Ryan mocked.
Ryan slowly walked over to me.
Right in front of my eyes, he drove the awl deep into my phone.
Bang!
I could only watch as the phone in Ryan’s hand was completely destroyed.
Sparks burst from the device.
It was ruined beyond repair.
The circuit board had been shattered. No one could recover the data now.
My eyes grew even redder.
A powerful force suddenly surged through my body.
I broke free from the men restraining me and punched toward Ryan.
Just before my fist reached him, several of his lackeys grabbed me and forced me back down.
“Ethan, you’re asking to die!”