Free Web NovelChapter 35: Chapter 35: Massacring the Board
Chapter 35: Massacring the Board
After Homelander left, Benjamin quickly familiarized himself with his new capabilities and dialed Edgar.
The phone rang exactly once before it was answered.
"Hello, Benjamin." Stan Edgar’s voice came through the receiver, his tone entirely indistinguishable from usual, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred tonight.
Leaning back in his office chair with his feet propped up on the edge of the desk, Benjamin spun an M1911 he’d dug up from the armory, its barrel gleaming with a cold blue light under the desk lamp. "Edgar, I think I’m really going to rip your head off, along with your family’s, chop them into mincemeat, and feed them to the goddamn dogs."
The other end of the line fell silent for half a second.
"It was an accident, Benjamin." Edgar’s tone retained that infuriatingly steady composure. "This was entirely Madelyn’s doing. And Madelyn is dead—she got exactly what she deserved. As for the online narrative, Vought International will handle it."
"Like anyone’s going to buy that bullshit. I’d sooner believe you and your family are getting passed around by ten homeless guys tonight." Benjamin didn’t do internal dilemmas; he set the gun down on the desk. "Since you people decided to make a move on my son and me, it’s only fair that I strike back, wouldn’t you say?"
"Calm down, Benjamin... it’s all just a misunderstanding."
Benjamin hung up. He snatched the M1911, grabbed the shield off the back of his chair, hooked it onto his left arm, and walked out of the office.
---<>---
The late-night streets of New York were nearly deserted. Benjamin didn’t call for any transport. He thought it over—since his speed was only at Lv1 and wasn’t fast enough yet, he might as well just take a rideshare bike.
He scanned a rideshare bike right outside Vought Tower. When he pulled up the QR code, the app flashed a "New User Discount" pop-up. He impatiently tapped out of it, straddled the seat, and pedaled off toward Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
Benjamin had long since memorized the addresses of every single board member. Their home addresses, daily routines, and security details—he had mapped out everything within his first three days on the job.
His first stop was a townhouse on the Upper East Side. The board member living there was named Howard Kramer, sixty-three years old, who had served on Vought’s board for twenty-two years—one of the very men who had voted to sell Soldier Boy out to the Russians all those decades ago.
Benjamin parked his bike around the corner, jumped the perimeter wall, and popped the back door lock with the edge of his shield, casually knocking out the two second-tier Supes stationed there as guards.
Howard was reviewing financial reports in his study when he heard a noise and looked up. Spotting the figure in the deep green suit standing at the threshold, the glass of whiskey slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor.
"Soldier Boy... y-you... how did you get in here—"
"Walked." Benjamin stepped forward and crushed his windpipe with a single punch.
Without another word, Howard slumped over the desk, his glasses tumbling onto the carpet, the lenses splattered with his own blood.
The second stop was Park Avenue. The third was Central Park West. The fourth, Tribeca. freewёbnoνel.com
Benjamin navigated through the Manhattan night on his rideshare bike. At every location, he parked around the corner, hopped the fence, did the deed, hopped back out, and kept pedaling. The tracking map on his bike app traced a series of jagged lines across the layout of Manhattan.
By four in the morning, every single name on the board of directors had been crossed out, save for Stan Edgar. The final corpse lay slumped by the edge of his own swimming pool, his skull completely caved in by Benjamin.
Benjamin knelt down, wiped the blood from his hands onto the dead man’s suit, then straightened up, watching the moon dancing on the surface of the pool.
Why spare Edgar? Not because he was giving him a pass, but because Benjamin wanted to save the old bastard for last. He wanted him to watch Vought get torn down piece by piece by him and Homelander, leaving him to sweat it out in his office every goddamn day, never knowing exactly when that eagle-head shield would come crashing through his door. The only punishment worse than death is waiting for it. Besides, Benjamin needed Edgar around to take the fall for Vought’s eventual collapse anyway, so keeping him alive served a purpose.
He pedaled the bike back to the base of Vought Tower and locked it. The app immediately threw up two notifications:
[Notification: Total trip: 47 kilometers. Calories burned: 830 kcal. Congratulations on breaking your personal record for longest ride!]
[Notification: Amount due: $20.00]
"Fuck you. Twenty goddamn dollars? Why doesn’t this piece of shit app just rob a bank?" Benjamin stared blankly at the prompt, processed the payment, and jammed the phone back into his pocket.
Payday still hadn’t arrived, goddamn Edgar. He’d have to make the old bastard give him a salary advance next time, or he’d just go rob his family.
---<>---
Early the next morning. The Seven’s conference room, Vought Tower.
The Deep stood outside the threshold, taking a deep breath. He had changed back into his blue-and-green suit today.
Except his head was completely bald. He still had his hair when he got sacked, but driven by pure depression, grief, and fury, The Deep had made a drastic move. He shaved his head and every other hair on his body, sparing only his beard. Still, a bald head had its perks—after pulling over a hundred people out of the water yesterday, he didn’t even have to wash his hair...
Right now, his smooth scalp cast a ridiculous glare under the cold white fluorescent lights of the room.
Starlight sat on the left side of the long conference table. Spotting The Deep walking in, her brow furrowed, her fingers tapping a tight rhythm against the tabletop. She didn’t have a single ounce of goodwill toward this man; he had tried to corner her in this very room just days ago.
But recalling the image of him riding a dolphin to shore under the setting sun over the Atlantic yesterday, she took a deep breath and suppressed the rising disgust. Forget it—the guy had saved lives yesterday. Besides, since Soldier Boy had intervened, The Deep hadn’t actually succeeded, or Starlight would have been far more livid.
Unlike the original timeline, Starlight hadn’t been victimized by The Deep, hadn’t crossed paths with Hughie, and hadn’t witnessed Homelander’s unhinged brutality. With Soldier Boy backing her up, she actually still had faith in The Seven at this point.
Maeve sat right next to Starlight, clutching a cup of black coffee. She cast a sideways glance at The Deep’s bald head, the corner of her mouth twitching slightly, though she kept herself from laughing out loud.
A-Train was missing from the line-up, still confined to a hospital bed. Benjamin’s punch had knocked loose several of his teeth, but it was his heart that kept him completely sidelined. The doctors reported that the residual concentration of the concentrated Compound V in his system had spiked to a critical threshold, requiring at least a month of inpatient observation.
Homelander sat to the right of the head seat—which belonged to Benjamin. Scanning the faces around the room, Homelander noted that not a single soul mentioned Madelyn. Good.
The door swung open. Benjamin strode in, his shield strapped to his left arm, holding a cup of iced coffee. Trailing right behind him was Ashley—the low-level manager from PR. Clutching a thick stack of files and wobbling in a pair of ill-fitting high heels, she was sweating profusely from pure anxiety.
"Sit," Benjamin said, pointing toward a chair along the table. The exact seat that used to belong to Madelyn. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Ashley froze. "Sir, that’s Ms. Stillwell’s—"
"Madelyn moved on last night. Along with a few members of the board. They’ve gone to a better place." Benjamin settled into the head seat, resting his shield against the armrest. "Starting today, you’re running her department. Got a problem with that?"
Ashley nearly dropped her files onto the carpet. Frantically fumbling to arrange them on the table, she pulled out the chair and sank into it, her facial expression oscillating violently between sheer ecstasy and blind terror.
"N-No, absolutely no problem, sir! Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down, sir!"
Seated near the door, The Deep stroked his smooth scalp, his eyes full of confusion. Madelyn left? And a bunch of board members left at the exact same time? That’s a hell of a coincidence. Moved on to a better place?
He gave his head another rub, not that he particularly cared. He didn’t have any affection for Madelyn anyway, and even less for the board. The only thing that mattered was that he was back in. He was a member of The Seven again!
Looking down at the glass of water in front of him, the surface reflecting his bald head like a sea urchin hauled out of the ocean, his curiosity finally got the better of him. He looked up and asked, "Did they all move to Orlando?"
Benjamin and Homelander turned in unison, fixing The Deep with a dead, piercing stare.
---<>---
A/N: Next goal: 400 Power Stones = 1 bonus Chapter!
And if you want to read ahead and find out what happens next right away, you can get up to 20 Chapters ahead on my p@tr~on:
[email protected]/ForgottenDaoist (@ = a, link is in my profile).
