Late at night Steve lay in bed.
Even though it was long past midnight, he felt no drowsiness at all.
'Strange—why am I so on edge today?'
'Is something bad about to happen?'
Steve had once served in the US Military; he fought in the first Gulf War more than a decade ago and was later stationed in Haiti with US forces.
After being discharged because of an injury, chance led him to meet Charlie and the others.
For five or six years the group worked together.
They burgled the safes of several drug lords, gangs, and tycoons, raking in well over a hundred million us dollars.
Charlie Clock had always insisted the ill-gotten gains be split evenly.
But money that came so easily gradually blinded Steve with greed and desire.
Finally, a little over a year ago in Venice, they robbed a secret stronghold of the Italian Mafia.
They made off with the "three-five-zero" Mafia's one-ton stash of gold bars.
That single ton of gold ignited the greed and ambition growing inside Steve.
In the past few years he had poured every cent he earned into hiring men.
When Charlie Clock's plan succeeded and they seized the Mafia's ton of gold bars,
Steve struck during the celebration, just as they were about to divide the loot.
He not only grabbed every bar but also shot dead Charlie's mentor and close friend, the master lock-picker John.
After keeping the entire hoard for himself, for more than a year now—
to be honest—Steve hadn't felt particularly elated.
His former underlings began to resent him because of that ton of gold.
Steve had to spend time and effort eliminating every subordinate who wanted a share.
Since then, though he'd quickly flashed more cash to recruit new men,
Steve now trusted no one but himself.
Consequently, in this huge villa where he lived,
apart from occasionally hiring professional cleaners to tidy up,
he preferred to raise the perimeter wall and install a battery of surveillance cameras rather than let a single guard set foot inside.
His ever-growing paranoia made him fear a greedy underling might target his gold again.
After all, those adorable glittering bricks—
even he himself checked on them several times a day to feed his greed.
He didn't believe anyone else on earth could resist their temptation.
'Wait—gold bars!'
A sudden, terrible thought flashed through Steve's mind.
Cold sweat broke out on his back; he shot upright in bed, his face turning grim.
Lately, Steve had been feeling like he was being watched.
No matter where he went, he had a sense that someone was spying on him from the shadows.
Steve trusted his intuition; it was an ability that had saved his life on the battlefield years ago.
His first suspicion fell on Charlie.
Having worked with Charlie and his crew for several years, Steve was naturally very wary of them.
In his view, Charlie and his team...
...aside from being too principled and not ruthless enough...
...were all highly capable and incredibly troublesome individuals.
If it hadn't been for that ton of Gold Brickss being so alluring...
...Steve wouldn't have been able to resist their charm.
He probably wouldn't have wanted to provoke Charlie and the others either.
But clearly, the grudge had already been formed.
After Steve stole the gold and killed Old John...
...he knew very well that things could never go back to the way they were between him and Charlie's crew.
Steve calculated the time; it had been a year and a half since he betrayed Charlie and kept that ton of gold for himself.
Although he had set up many contingencies beforehand...
...which should have kept Charlie and the others wandering around Europe for a long time searching for his 'hidden' self...
...Steve also knew those arrangements wouldn't fool them forever.
Calculating the time, they should have realized by now.
They might have even tracked him here to the United States.
The more the paranoid Steve thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
Coupled with the persistent feeling of being watched recently...
...Steve's heart sank. He suspected Charlie and the others had arrived in Los Angeles and found his hideout.
"Those damn bastards."
At the thought of this possibility, Steve's mood grew even more irritable.
He immediately got out of bed and went through a door in the bedroom to the adjacent room.
Inside the room, an LCD screen hung on one wall.
On it, more than twenty different surveillance feeds were densely displayed... Steve walked quickly to the screen and began to examine them carefully.
The monitors around the villa, distributed at the gates and along the walls, showed nothing unusual.
Steve picked up the walkie-talkie hanging on the wall, turned it on, and asked the guard at the main gate, "This is Steve. Is anything happening at the front gate?"
He could actually see clearly from the surveillance that the guard was standing at his post, working diligently.
However, Steve was paranoid by nature.
Moreover, he knew Charlie had a computer genius named Lyle under him.
That guy could easily breach most security systems in the world.
So Steve was also worried that the surveillance footage he was seeing might have been hacked and replaced with fake loops.
After the walkie-talkie crackled for a moment, a familiar voice came through.
"This is the guard post, Mr. Frazelli. Everything is normal at the front gate. You can rest easy."
"We guarantee no one will disturb you."
The security at the main gate came from a professional security firm that provided paid services for the luxury villas in the area.
They weren't Steve's subordinates, so their voices carried a hint of impatience.
Clearly, they had been disturbed by Steve like this many times lately.
But it was precisely because they weren't his men...
...that he could feel somewhat at ease, not having to worry about his gold being targeted by them.
After confirming it was the familiar voice, Steve let out a sigh of relief.
He said thanks and turned off the walkie-talkie.
Just as he was about to hang it back up, Steve suddenly noticed one of the monitoring zones on the screen go dark and turn into static.
The next moment, a piercing alarm blared throughout the room.
Steve's face darkened as he lunged to the side and grabbed an AK hanging on the wall.
Because he knew that the blacked-out surveillance zone was located exactly in the room where he hid his safes.
And the piercing alarm meant the trap Steve had set at the safes had been triggered.
"Someone broke into the villa and found the safes where I kept the Gold Brickss."
Steve was both anxious and furious, the veins on his hand gripping the AK bulging.
He rushed out of the bedroom and charged down toward the first floor of the villa..
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