Chapter 444: Truly Heartless

Chapter 444: Chapter 444: Truly Heartless

After receiving a clear answer, Barry Quinn responded without hesitation.

After the call with his former superior ended, the bureau chief appeared at the office doorway. Looking at the somber group inside, he said, "You know the proper limits, so just do what you have to do.

My only requirement is that you all watch out for yourselves. I don’t want any casualties on our side."

The victims are important, but so are you all.

"Don’t worry, Chief. We know what we’re doing. We won’t be careless with our own safety," Zoe Sawyer said, her tone firm as she clenched a fist.

’I have this amazing ace up my sleeve, and it gives me an information advantage over them. It’s not meant for a head-on clash!’

Seeing that Zoe Sawyer and her team had things under control, the chief waved a hand, gesturing for them to get started.

This case was too big; he had to go find more people for support. He couldn’t let his department handle everything alone!

"Since they have surveillance, we need to test if they have an emergency communication channel.

If they do, we need to know the response time. That delay, the window before they react, is when we’ll make our move," Heath Hale decided, quickly laying out the plan.

"We can’t touch the two in the surveillance room yet. Otherwise, if a bodyguard goes down and there’s no reaction from surveillance, it’ll make them suspicious. If they send more men, it could impede our later moves."

The group quickly selected their test subject.

The bodyguard in the northwest corner. The dark circles under his eyes were heavy, and his face was flushed. If you got close enough, you could smell the alcohol on him.

"Let’s go with him. Given his current condition, it would be believable for him to pass out," Heath Hale said, pointing at the chosen bodyguard.

Zoe Sawyer didn’t ask why. She just nodded, moved the door behind him, raised the tranquilizer gun, and aimed for his neck.

Bodyguard Dean, who had been sitting bolt upright with a serious expression, suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, as if something was watching him.

He whipped his head around, but all he saw was a wall.

"What is it?" asked Bodyguard A, who was sitting across from him, with a frown.

The other two also shifted their gazes from the five captives to Bodyguard Dean, their eyes holding a trace of disgust.

"I don’t know. I just had this weird feeling like someone was watching me," Bodyguard Dean said uncertainly. He reached out and pressed against the wall but found nothing out of the ordinary.

The wall was still just a wall.

He peered out the window but still found nothing amiss.

"Alright, just sit down and be still. It was just your imagination! You wouldn’t be having hallucinations if you didn’t spend all your time chasing women and binge-drinking!

This mission is critical. If you screw this up, who knows if we’ll even make it out of here alive. So you’d better keep it in your pants!" Bodyguard C’s eyes and voice were filled with undisguised disgust.

Clearly, Dean’s recent behavior had thoroughly infuriated him.

Bodyguard B, who had been silent the whole time, wore the same expression.

Dean started to retort, but seeing the foul look on Bodyguard A’s face, he resentfully shut his mouth.

Still, he touched the wall behind him again, a lingering doubt in his mind. ’He really had felt like someone was watching him!’

To be on the safe side, Dean checked his body armor. After confirming it was in place, he finally sat back down in his chair, reassured.

The other three saw what he was doing and rolled their eyes in annoyance, but they still didn’t say anything.

’He could do whatever he wanted, as long as it didn’t affect the mission.’

Heath Hale and the others, who were watching the room’s situation through the open door, saw Dean reach out and touch the wall.

Even though they knew he wouldn’t find anything, they couldn’t help but hold their breath.

"Looks like we picked the right guy!" Zoe Sawyer pumped her fist, a little excited. ’An alcoholic and a womanizer who doesn’t even get along with his own teammates—he’s the perfect target in every way!’

Although the others weren’t as openly excited as Zoe Sawyer, their faces still betrayed a hint of elation.

Since they needed to monitor two rooms, Zoe Sawyer also attached a tiny surveillance camera under the window frame of the security room downstairs.

It gave them a perfect, unobstructed view of everything happening in the room below, allowing them to spot any moves from the other side immediately.

Once everything was in place, Zoe Sawyer took out the tranquilizer gun again. Before Dean could react, a single dart hit him right behind the ear.

Bodyguard Dean shot to his feet, eyes bulging. "There’s—"

He had barely uttered a single word before he collapsed.

The other three shot to their feet the instant he did. Before they could even ask what was wrong, they saw Dean collapse.

A split second later, the entire room was bathed in flashing red light as an alarm blared.

Bodyguards B and C rushed to Dean’s side. After confirming he was still alive, they quickly scanned the area but found nothing, as if he had simply fainted out of nowhere.

Getting closer, Bodyguard C smelled the alcohol on Dean. His expression darkened further. He made a gesture to Bodyguard A and stepped back.

The communicator in Bodyguard A’s pocket began to chime.

"What happened? Why did one of you suddenly pass out?" a lanky man’s voice crackled from the device.

Bodyguard A, having seen C’s gesture, took a deep breath and said, "He’s been overindulging for the past few days. His body just gave out."

A string of curses came through the communicator, followed by the lanky man’s voice again. "Fine, I get it. I won’t report this to the higher-ups this time. You all be more careful!"

With that, he ended the call.

Bodyguard A took a deep breath, walked over to Dean, and looked down at him.

"Useless trash. Tie him up and toss him aside. When this mission is over, I’m personally going to feed him to the sharks!" Bodyguard A’s tone was chillingly calm, but his words sent a shiver down the other two men’s spines.

Bodyguard C couldn’t help but speak up. "Boss, isn’t that a bit much? Once the mission is over, you can drill him hard, but feeding him to the sharks..."

’He was still a brother-in-arms they’d been on missions with. If he could be abandoned so casually, what would happen if one of them made a mistake? Would they get the same treatment?’

Bodyguard A’s gaze shifted from Dean to Bodyguard C, who had just spoken. "He almost drew attention to us.

And is *He* someone to be trifled with? If that happened, forget about Dean—it’s questionable whether *we* would’ve kept our own lives."

At the thought of the man Bodyguard A was referring to, B and C couldn’t help but shudder again, their expressions turning exceptionally grim.

"We have no objections," Bodyguard B said, tugging on C’s sleeve to silence him before looking back at the impassive A.

Bodyguard A nodded, sat back down in his seat, and crossed his arms, watching as the other two tied Dean up and tossed him to the side.

"They’re absolutely ruthless."