Take My Breath Away

Erica quietly walked out from behind the cabinet and approached the man. She acted quickly and accurately. When the man heard a noise, he turned around and was greeted by Erica as she sprayed him three or four times in the face.

Before the drug could take effect, though, he shouted, "It's you! Erma Huo!" The next moment, he took out the cellphone from his pocket to notify the others about what was happening.

At the same time, Erica reached out, trying to grab the phone, but the man kept his grip so tight around the device that she wasn't able to snatch it from him.

Luckily, the drug soon began to take effect as he loosened his grip. With his eyes already closed, his body slid down from the chair until it was on the ground.

Erica heaved a sigh of relief and turned off his phone before throwing it aside. Then the room was finally on the clear for her to look into it.

On the surface, there didn't seem to be anything special about the house, but since it was guarded by more than ten people every day, there must be something hidden inside it.

Erica suddenly regretted drugging that last man. If she had thought about it earlier, she would have threatened and forced him to tell her what the secret they kept in the house was instead.

Yet she didn't have much time to think about it now. The effect of the drug wouldn't last long, so she had to continue to inspect the room before they woke up.

A couple of minutes later, as Erica was fumbling around one of the cabinets, her hand accidentally bumped into something, causing the seemingly fixed furniture to start moving.

Carefully, she took two steps back while she watched the cabinet rotating one hundred and eighty degrees.

When it finally stopped moving, she strode forward and noticed a square-shaped hole on the ground. Taking a closer look at it, she realized there was a way down to a basement.

She was immediately led to believe that all of Kirk and Pike's secrets should be hidden in that basement.

Erica briefly looked back at the group of people still asleep behind her and then went down the hole without hesitation.

At first glance, she noticed the place was quite spacious. On the long table at the center, there were all kinds of bottles at disposal. Two people had their backs to her, and they didn't seem to have heard her coming down. Anyway, she had no clear sight of what they were doing so intently.

When Erica took her final step down, the cabinet restored to its original place, sealing the basement entrance once again.

With no way of going back, she quietly hid behind a shelf and took out a dagger in case she needed to protect herself.

Erica's attention was immediately grabbed by lots of white powder in several airtight bags over the shelf. She bent over to smell one of them but didn't find a scent.

All of a sudden, one of the two men turned around with a glass tube in his hand. However, Erica couldn't name the kind of chemical liquid which was inside it.

She took the opportunity to photograph them anyway.

Gladly, her camera was soundless, or else she would have been caught.

She also took photos of the stuff on the shelf. She could tell they weren't good news. If her feeling about them was right, these were the type of powder that couldn't just destroy a man's body but also his spirit.

She registered everything within her reach. As she quietly moved, she inadvertently saw a huge cage hanging from the ceiling.

'What's that in the cage? Wait! Is it a person?!'

Erica was suddenly so frightened that she had to bring a hand over her mouth in order to muffle a shriek.

The person was lying unconscious in the cage and covered in blood. She couldn't tell whether the person was dead or alive.

But before she could take any action, a big noise came from above the basement. The cabinet moved again, freeing the access downstairs. "Go down and take a look!" someone shouted.

"Yes, sir!"

Erica cried in her mind, 'Oh no!'

She quickly stepped back and hid herself in the corner.

Two men hurried downstairs as one of them shouted, "Hey, did you see anyone come down?"

The men, who had been working in the basement, turned to them and looked around before they shook their heads and said, "No."

They all began to search after her in every corner of the basement. Even if Erica tried her best to shrink herself behind a shelf, she had nowhere to run. It was a matter of time until she was found. Soon, a man was looking into Erica's eyes as he shouted, "The widow is here!"

Immediately, Erica rushed out with the dagger and kicked the man who had found her.

However, she didn't go very far. The next moment, she found herself surrounded by three men who came down running her way.

By the time everyone had heard where she was, more people started to come down. Each one of them had a vicious look on their faces and a dagger in their hands.

"Kirk is right. There is something wrong with this widow!"

"How dare you sneak into here? You're dead meat today!"

"Brothers! Not so fast! We're going to have some fun with this bitch before we kill her!"

The man's words caused a burst of laughter among the others. "Ha-ha! That's great!"

Erica gritted her teeth and rushed to the two men in front of her with the dagger. At that moment, more than ten men in the basement were fighting against the woman.

In ten minutes, ten men were lying on the ground, whimpering in pain. Erica pressed the dagger on the neck of the last one she had defeated and ordered him coldly, "Take me upstairs!"

With the blood-stained dagger on his neck, the man didn't dare to breathe. "Yes... Yes!"

After he opened the basement door for her, Erica pulled him down before he could climb up, and then she hurried upstairs.

But, what she didn't expect was to find even more people waiting for her once she came up.

Now there were over thirty men in the room holding sticks and daggers against her. Meanwhile, Kirk sat in a chair, calmly having a smoke. The moment he saw her, he laughed and said, "Little widow, I must recognize you're quite skillful."

From the beginning, he had known there was something wrong with this woman. That night, he deliberately changed his plans and didn't leave the village. He had been waiting nearby just for her to fall into his trap.

Erica, on the other hand, was ready to fight her way on her own, but Kirk suddenly took out a black object that was attached to his waist and placed it on the table next to him.

Erica didn't fail to notice it was a gun.

However, she never thought that Kirk had access to this sort of weapon.

Putting away her dagger, Erica smiled at him. "Kirk, how about we talk about it?"

Then they both laughed at one another.

Kirk then crooked his finger at her and said hoarsely, "Come here and let me have a look at you." Suppressing the sick feeling in her stomach, Erica took two steps forward. Everyone present was instantaneously watchful of her every move.

Kirk stared at her for a long time until he finally nodded. "Good. I'll give you two choices. The first one is to be my woman. And the second is to die here."

As she had found out their secret, there was no way they could keep this woman alive.

'Be your woman? Do you honestly think you deserve me? Screw you!' Erica smiled, pretending to be amused by the offer. However, she was indeed cursing the man inwardly the whole time.

The gun was right next to her now. As long as she was fast enough, she would be able to reach it out.

Yet she couldn't fool Kirk. Seeming to understand her intentions, he stretched out his hand to get the gun.

Erica gave him a quick kick on the wrist before she moved to grab the weapon.

However, as soon as she reached out for it, one of the other men beside the table raised his dagger and stabbed her hand, forcing her to retreat and give up on the idea altogether.

Immediately, she had to come up with a new plan.

So, she turned around and rushed to the door. But all she could find was a closed door, at the same time someone came and attacked her from behind. In order to protect herself, she had no choice but to deal with these people first.

"Erma Huo, if you move again, I'll shoot you!" Kirk's face was still pale after the kick he got. Yet, with his uninjured left hand, he raised the gun and aimed at the woman at the door.