"Moshi moshi?"
The familiar old voice coming from the phone instantly cut off Milluki's laughter.
Under Milluki's wide-eyed stare, Luke spoke: "Is this Mr. Zeno Zoldyck?"
"Hm, yes, indeed it is this old man..."
On the other end, Zeno Zoldyck, the previous head of the Zoldyck Family, responded: "Being able to reach this number means the card was given to you by a direct family member."
"If the card came from me, the greeting wouldn't have been so formal."
"If it came from Silva, you should have called Silva directly."
"Similarly, Illumi would be the same. And although Illumi is young, his professionalism is extremely reliable."
"So..."
Zeno said, "It must have been that brat, Milluki, who gave you the card? How rare. That kid actually bothered giving someone a card."
His tone carried a bit of curiosity.
Just from a single polite greeting, he deduced all of this.
Truly worthy of the former head of the Zoldyck Family…
Suppressing his amazement, Luke nodded under Milluki's frozen stare: "That's right. Milluki gave it to me."
"Seems the little guy is helping us expand business."
Zeno's amused voice came from the phone: "Since it's rare for him to bring us business..."
"I'll give you the highest discount, 15% off."
Fifteen percent off…
Luke glanced at Milluki and found the latter stunned, clearly not expecting the price to suddenly increase…
"Wasn't it supposed to be 30% off?"
"Ah, looks like I remembered it wrong. Yes, thirty percent off."
Zeno's extremely calm voice came through the phone.
Obviously, this old fox, Zeno, was clearly testing whether Luke knew the lowest price.
If he didn't know the highest discount, then Zeno could earn that extra difference of fifteen percent…
One really couldn't tell whether their main profession was assassins, or merchants, or perhaps... they simply treated assassination as a business.
Luke shook his head and stopped paying attention to these unnecessary things.
"Then, sir, whose name I still do not know, what assassination request do you need this old man to handle for you?"
Zeno continued over the phone: "If you find it inconvenient to reveal your name and identity, that is also fine."
"As long as the price you offer is appropriate, the money arrives on time, and you tell me the clear target, I guarantee to give you a very satisfactory result."
"There's nothing inconvenient."
Luke directly said: "I am Luke, the Vice-Chairman of the Hunter Association."
"I heard that you and the head of the Zoldyck Family, Silva, have accepted a new job together.
"The target is the Mafia Don at the Ambrossa, Pablo Escobar."
"He is one of mine, and Ambrossa is my territory."
Luke opened with complete bluntness and did not hide anything.
This fact was already an open secret within the Hunter Association.
All the other members of the Zodiac Twelve more or less knew about it.
But they all chose to tacitly accept it, offering no opinions and raising no objections.
Especially since Ambrossa had already moved onto the right track and earned money entirely through computers and electronic systems.
It had truly begun operating a legitimate international trade.
Long ago, it had completely severed ties with the mafia businesses run by the previous leader, Oscar Salvatore Malas.
Now Ambrossa, on the surface, was fully washed clean, doing proper business.
Of course, if there were times when they needed to show force and flex their muscles, the mafia members were not freeloaders.
But as long as the internal mafia skirmishes didn't affect ordinary civilians, then it wasn't something the Zodiacs cared about.
They simply turned a blind eye.
In fact, some of the more radical ones thought: the more mafia members killed off in their internal fights, the better.
Furthermore, once they learned Ambrossa belonged to Luke's faction, and after witnessing how Luke monopolized authority and nearly turned the entire Hunter Association into a dictatorship of one voice, no one wanted to provoke him or be so blind as to disturb him.
Thus, even the Hunter Association didn't bother asking too many questions about Ambrossa.
And with Luke's backing and certain policy support, Ambrossa, aside from internal mafia disputes, rarely attracted external attention.
As for the other Mafia Dons, they should have already understood the gap between themselves and Ambrossa.
Yet they still chose such a face-slapping approach by hiring the Zoldyck Family to carry out an assassination.
There must be someone behind them, urging and guiding this.
Luke subconsciously thought of Pariston, but then felt it wasn't likely.
This method was far too low-level and didn't match Pariston's usual style.
More importantly, if Pariston had thought such a method workable, he would have done it long ago.
He understood clearly that doing so would achieve nothing except further angering Luke, which was pointless.
Hence, he never used such a crude method.
So the force instigating and nudging the Mafia Dons behind the scenes was quite interesting.
At least, Luke hadn't noticed any such movements within the Hunter Association.
Which meant this was likely an outside, higher-level power.
In this world, forces of that level were very few.
The most likely applicants were V5 and the Kakin Empire.
As for the Kakin Empire, it had no direct conflict with Luke.
The only connection was previously when the Kute Gang of Thieves, the group Luke eliminated, stole the peculiar Stone of Seven Emotions and Six Desires from Kakin's Forest Pavilion.
Later, that stone ended up with Luke, but he gave it to Ging Freecss.
So Ging could study and figure out how to handle it.
Although Ging had temporarily put the matter aside because Luke gave him the Restoring Beam to repair ruins,
Recently, the research was back on schedule, with some progress already made.
If the Kakin Empire truly had a problem because of the Stone of Seven Emotions and Six Desires, they would have come looking for Luke long ago, not suddenly jumping out now.
Besides, the Kakin Empire still had Beyond Netero.
But with Pariston as an undercover, giving him information, Beyond also knew not to act rashly against Luke.
Thus, the behind-the-scenes force had already become clear.
They encouraged the Ten Mafia Dons to hire the Zoldyck assassin duo to deal with Ambrossa, and they clearly didn't care at all about Luke's authority as Vice-Chairman of the Hunter Association…
Only a higher-level power, V5, fits that description.