Escaping to Safety
When the blinding floodlights inside Steve's heavily fortified luxury villa suddenly, violently dimmed into pitch-black darkness, and deafening gunshots rang out simultaneously, the tension on the perimeter spiked.
Handsome Rob and Left Ear, who were waiting anxiously outside in the dark trailing vehicle, as well as Lyle, who was actively providing encrypted technical support from a secure van at the foot of the hill, were all violently startled by the sudden chaos.
"Charlie!"
Handsome Rob had the absolute deepest bond with Charlie Croker; they had been loyal old friends for grueling years and were his longest-standing partners in the underworld.
Seeing that something catastrophic seemed to have just happened to his leader, Rob immediately began calling out in a raw, desperate panic through the encrypted comms, desperately hoping his old friend could give him a reassuring answer.
However, there was absolutely nothing but heavy, suffocating static and silence on the communication channel.
After a full, agonizing minute or two of dead air, Rob's sharp eyes had turned completely red with terrifying anger and grief.
"Left Ear, are there absolutely still heavy explosives in the back of the car?"
Rob asked sharply, his voice cracking with lethal intent, aggressively questioning Left Ear in the passenger seat!
Left Ear's stoic face didn't look good either. He swallowed hard and nodded heavily: "There are still a few simple, highly volatile explosives hastily assembled from raw blasting caps!"
His rugged expression changed instantly, widening in profound shock when he clearly saw Rob aggressively pull out a heavy, loaded handgun directly from his tactical harness.
"Rob, have you completely lost your damn mind?" Left Ear hissed, trying to physically grab his arm.
If they were ever caught strictly for grand theft, they would realistically be sentenced to anywhere from a few grueling years to over a decade in federal prison.
They had the massive financial resources to easily hire highly expensive, shark lawyers, and usually, they could organically get out on parole in a few short years at the absolute most.
Moreover, if the sophisticated theft wasn't successful, the angry owner of the stolen property would, at the absolute worst, give them a severe, bloody beating on the asphalt.
But if innocent human lives were violently involved, it would immediately become a massive, inescapable federal problem.
This tactical reality was even more undeniably true when dealing with a ruthless sociopath like Steve!
Steve had violently dared to murder people in cold blood over in Europe, but he absolutely wouldn't dare do it openly in front of multiple witnesses within the highly litigated United States.
The legal reasoning was incredibly simple: although U.S. law stipulated that a villa owner could legally kill a violent intruder on their private property when their personal safety or property was threatened under the Castle Doctrine,
The federal government and local LAPD would still aggressively, thoroughly investigate the specific, bloody circumstances afterward!
Steve was currently aggressively using a highly fabricated, fake identity to buy the sprawling luxury villa; his paper trail wouldn't stand up to a single, rigorous FBI investigation at all.
Furthermore, the massive mountain of gold he had recently lost was also violently stolen, so naturally, he absolutely didn't dare let things escalate into a highly public bloodbath.
This exact, calculated reality was exactly why Charlie had cleverly come up with the desperate plan to use the terrifying threat of a massive bomb to organically force Steve to release the hostage.
But if Rob aggressively carried a loaded gun inside and even got into a violent, lethal firefight with Steve's heavily armed mercenaries, then things would truly, violently spiral completely out of control.
Rob could absolutely no longer care about thinking things through logically!
His old friend Charlie wasn't responding to the comms at all; he absolutely had to go save his life.
"I'll aggressively go in alone!"
After Rob finished speaking his dark promise, he absolutely didn't wait a single second for Left Ear's frantic reply.
He aggressively grabbed the highly volatile explosives directly from the back seat.
Then, firmly holding his lethal handgun, he violently pushed the car door open, got out into the sweltering night, and rushed aggressively toward Steve's dark villa nearby.
Left Ear was left completely behind in the idling car, shouting continuously into the dark night.
After a long, agonizing while of heavy hesitation, he violently gritted his teeth, slid over to the driver's seat, and aggressively drove the heavy car directly toward the fortified villa to back his partner up.
***
Meanwhile, Steve, driving the heavy Volkswagen sedan fully loaded with fake 'gold bars,' soon returned aggressively to the front courtyard of the dark villa.
Before he even got physically close to the main structure, he clearly heard the loud, chaotic shouting of his panicked mercenaries.
The armored, bulletproof SUV that had rushed back earlier was already parked aggressively in front of the villa's shattered main gate.
However, the heavily armed men in the car had already rapidly gotten out.
Steve immediately noticed that his ruthless subordinates were absolutely all actively chasing toward one dark side of the sprawling villa, their tactical flashlights cutting through the blackout.
He quickly picked up his heavy walkie-talkie, switched to the encrypted tactical channel, and barked aggressively: "All teams report your exact status right now! Have any intruders been violently found?"
"Villa main gate is completely normal, boss!"
"Boss, the main electrical distribution box in the courtyard was violently pierced by a heavy, armor-piercing crossbow bolt. There is absolutely more than one highly trained opponent actively operating here."
"The private security company has already been urgently contacted; they will actively send someone soon to physically repair the blown circuit."
"Boss, we've definitively spotted an intruder actively escaping toward the dense garden on the far right side of the villa."
"The massive backup power generator in the basement is about to violently kick start in a few seconds."
Hearing this chaotic flurry of tactical reports, Steve was just about to aggressively push his car door open and join the hunt.
Suddenly, it was exactly as if his highly paranoid mind remembered something crucial.
He instinctively, violently adjusted the front of the heavy car and aggressively flicked on the blinding high beams, shining them perfectly toward the treacherous, rocky cliff at the absolute rear of the property.
In a single, terrifying instant, Steve's handsome face changed drastically into a mask of pure, unfiltered shock.
Through the piercing white light, he clearly saw a dark, muscular figure in the distance rushing with terrifying, superhuman speed directly toward the edge of the lethal cliff.
And that unknown, phantom person absolutely seemed to be carrying something heavy in their arms.
Steve genuinely couldn't see very clearly through the glare, but thinking violently back to the desperate, muffled scream he had heard inside the dark villa just moments ago, his face turned incredibly grim and murderous.
He immediately picked up the tactical walkie-talkie and said sternly, his voice dripping with lethal intent: "Team One, get to the rear cliff area immediately. There is absolutely something happening over there, move right now!"
Steve quickly, aggressively got out of the idling car. The narrow, paved gap between the massive villa and the rear cliff edge was only wide enough for a standard car to pass through with great, scraping difficulty.
To tactically avoid blocking his heavily armed subordinates who were frantically following behind, he simply decided not to aggressively drive any further.
However, the heavy car engine was absolutely still running, and Steve deliberately didn't turn off the blinding high beams illuminating the cliffside.
He aggressively grabbed his lethal assault rifle, violently slammed the car door shut, and aggressively chased toward the dark cliff behind the villa.
***
Arthur , carrying the bound Stella who was still tightly tied to the heavy wooden chair, headed straight for the treacherous cliff directly behind Steve's fortified luxury villa.
With Stella securely in tow, the physical difficulty of climbing over the imposing, three-meter-high concrete walls was undoubtedly entirely too great, even with his superhuman attributes.
In sharp tactical comparison, aggressively escaping by smoothly rappelling down the dark, jagged cliff at the very back had a vastly lower difficulty factor for a man of his terrifying skills.
"Mmph!"
"Mmph!"
Stella struggled continuously and violently against the thick ropes, seemingly trying desperately to say something through the coarse napkin gag.
Unfortunately, Arthur had absolutely no intention of paying her frantic noises any mind whatsoever.
At the very least, not until they had successfully, flawlessly escaped the lethal compound; he absolutely didn't want to deal with Stella's chaotic emotions right now.
This woman was undeniably beautiful, but she was also a massive, unpredictable source of tactical trouble.
Relying flawlessly on his raw physical fitness, which already vastly exceeded that of an ordinary adult man by more than twice the genetic average, Arthur quickly, aggressively reached the immediate vicinity of the cliff edge with Stella in his arms.
Just then, two blinding, intense beams of white light suddenly shot violently over the darkness, illuminating their exact position.
Clearly, they were the powerful high beams of an approaching car.
"Damn it, Steve and his heavily armed men noticed," Arthur cursed silently, his dark eyes narrowing against the harsh glare.
Arthur steeled his cold heart, and under a massive, full-body burst of raw adrenaline and kinetic energy, his already terrifying physical speed actually aggressively increased by another fraction.
After absolutely only two or three heavy, frantic breaths, he arrived perfectly at the edge of the sheer cliff with Stella.
He deliberately, carefully laid Stella, still bound tightly to the heavy wooden chair, face down on the dry grass so she completely couldn't see his face or his physics-defying actions.
Arthur quickly, seamlessly reached into the empty air and took out a heavy set of professional rappelling gear directly from his invisible private space and rapidly put it on.
After flawlessly finishing securing his heavy tactical harness, he was just about to aggressively tie the thick nylon rope directly to a heavy steel climbing piton he had violently hammered into the top of the cliff during his last visit.
Suddenly, a massive, terrifying sense of lethal crisis washed over him like a bucket of ice water.
He instinctively, violently rolled his muscular body hard to the side!
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Deafening gunfire soon rang out through the night, and a massive, violent burst of lethal bullets sprayed aggressively toward the exact spot where Arthur had just been standing, ripping the grass to shreds.
"An AK!" Arthur identified instantly, his tactical mind racing.
There was absolutely no solid physical cover near the barren edge of the cliff, and Arthur scrambled rapidly to roll violently away into the shadows in a sorry, dusty state.
Steeling his cold heart, he quickly reached into his invisible private space and took out a heavy, high-explosive fragmentation grenade that he had aggressively requested from Dom earlier that day.
Then, he flawlessly pulled the metal safety pin with his teeth and threw it with terrifying, superhuman precision directly in the dark direction the lethal bullets were violently coming from.
Boom!
With the massive, deafening sound of the high-explosive detonation rocking the hillside, the AK-47's aggressive gunfire stopped abruptly, replaced by a chaotic cloud of thick smoke and flying dirt.
Arthur absolutely couldn't be entirely sure if he had successfully hit the heavily armed target with the blast.
But he knew perfectly well with absolute certainty that Steve's remaining mercenary men would all be violently drawn directly to this exact location very soon.
Immediately leaping up from the dusty ground, Arthur absolutely didn't have the precious time to brush off the dirt and dry weeds as he rushed aggressively back toward the very edge of the steep cliff.
"Are you completely okay?!"
Arthur shouted to Stella lying not far away, while his calloused hands worked in a mechanical blur, quickly tying the heavy rappelling rope to the steel climbing piton.
"Mmm-hmm!"
Hearing that Stella's muffled, frantic response didn't carry any sharp tone of physical pain, Arthur breathed a small sigh of tactical relief.
He was just about to aggressively pick her up and descend the sheer cliff into the dark void.
Suddenly, Arthur's highly intelligent mind seemed to remember something crucial about his paranoid enemy.
He quickly knelt down on the hard rock and carefully, meticulously inspected the heavy steel climbing piton.
Soon, with a cold, predatory sneer, Arthur seamlessly took a massive, heavy sledgehammer directly from his invisible private space and struck the steel piton hard several times, driving it violently back deep into the solid rock face.
"What an incredibly insidious, treacherous guy; I almost got violently killed by your paranoid trap."
When Steve and his mercenaries had previously discovered the climbing pitons Arthur had aggressively driven into the cliff during his earlier infiltration, they hadn't chosen to logically remove them at all.
Instead, they had ruthlessly tampered with them, deliberately loosening the heavy steel pitons just slightly in the rock.
Take this specific climbing piton on the sheer cliff that Arthur was actively using as the primary anchor for his heavy rappelling rope, for example.
If his supernaturally enhanced perception absolutely hadn't noticed the trap and he had hurriedly jumped down into the void after tying the heavy rope,
The compromised piton would highly likely have been violently ripped entirely out of the rock by Arthur's massive body weight because it had been lethally loosened.
f that disastrous scenario actually happened, he would have violently plummeted to a terrible, bloody death on the rocks below.
He absolutely couldn't help but marvel inwardly for a brief, calculated moment at Steve's pure, unadulterated insidiousness.
However, Arthur knew perfectly well that right now was absolutely not the time for philosophical reflection.
He quickly, flawlessly took out a sharp tactical knife, went to Stella's side, and nimbly, aggressively cut all the thick, unforgiving ropes binding her body to the heavy chair.
The absolute second Stella was untied from the wooden stool, she immediately reached up to violently rip the coarse napkin gag from her mouth.
"Go!"
Completely ignoring Stella's frantic reaction, Arthur quickly, efficiently used the other strong end of the heavy rappelling rope to make a secure safety harness around her slender waist.
Then, holding her tightly against his broad, muscular chest, he rushed aggressively toward the sheer cliff edge and rapidly, flawlessly descended into the swallowing darkness of the night.