Chapter Forty-Eight: Kim Bradley

“Listen to me… hic… I invented the greatest technology in the world… hic… Howard is just a thief… hic… you should have been Tony Stark’s…”
With every word, Ivan Vanko’s father let out a drunken hiccup, the stench of alcohol pouring from his throat and spreading through the entire basement.

Ivan glanced back at his father, who lay sprawled on the bed, and said nothing. He’d never really believed his father’s drunken ramblings. For as long as he could remember, his father had rarely spoken anything sensible, always shouting about being a great scientist, yet no one from any institute or organization had ever visited their home.

“Don’t doubt me… hic… I have the blueprints… hic… once I figure them out… I’ll be so rich, unimaginably rich… then I’ll take you and we’ll kill them all!”
His father rambled on, but figuring out the blueprints was out of the question. After all these years, his research skills had regressed to who knows what level; he probably couldn’t even understand them now.

Boom!

Suddenly, an explosion erupted outside. Before Ivan could even react, a soldier in uniform burst through the door.

The soldier’s face was smeared with ash, his panic clear even beneath the dust.

“Don’t move! Nobody move! Hands in the air!”
The soldier waved his pistol at everyone inside, shouting repeatedly.

Under the barrel of the gun, Ivan obediently raised his hands, but his eyes were far less compliant, scanning for any possible route or chance to retaliate.

“Give up your futile struggle. All your backup has been taken down.”
A burly man appeared in the doorway. His features were sharp, his skin marked with scars, and he was blind in one eye, but the sheer force of his presence was overwhelming.

Ivan also noticed something odd: the man’s only weapon was a longsword gripped in his right hand. This confused Ivan—why were men with guns afraid of someone wielding a mere blade? It made no sense.

“Bradley! Drop your weapon! I… I have a hostage!”
The soldier, rattled, swung his gun toward Ivan’s father on the bed—perhaps figuring that a paralyzed drunk couldn’t raise his hands to surrender?

King Bradley regarded the soldier with cold indifference, his expression carrying a distinctly Russian sense of disdain—hostage? What was that to him?

Bang!

In his panic, the soldier pulled the trigger. As the bullet flew, Bradley moved. In a flash, he appeared before the soldier, his sword slicing through the air, cleaving the man in two.

“Dad!”
Ivan threw himself desperately toward the bed. Blood soaked the small mattress; his father had stopped breathing.

After only a few seconds of weeping, Ivan found the tears would no longer come. For some reason, he realized he wasn’t as grief-stricken as he’d expected—instead, he felt something akin to relief.

King Bradley stepped to the bedside, glanced down at the corpse, and frowned at Ivan. “Ivan Vanko?”

“You know me?” Ivan half-knelt at the bedside, looking up at Bradley.

Bradley lifted Ivan effortlessly with one hand. Though Ivan was thin and undernourished, he was still a grown man—yet Bradley hoisted him as easily as a chick.

“I knew I shouldn’t have let him raise you. For a father to say such things—disgraceful!” Bradley’s expression never changed. “From now on, you’ll come with me, or he’ll finish ruining you. I’ll see to his coffin myself.”

As he spoke, Bradley carried Ivan out of the basement. Corpses littered the area. Once outside, Bradley set Ivan down and fixed him with a steady gaze.

“My name is King Bradley. Just call me King. Understand?”

Ivan nodded, feeling strangely timid. Every time he tried to muster a tough response, Bradley’s face would immediately suppress any resistance.

“Let’s go. The mob will be here soon to clear the place. You shouldn’t stay here. You’re too weak—you need training.”

With that, Bradley strode off toward a rugged vehicle parked not far away.

Climbing in, Ivan saw a man in the passenger seat who was clearly a gangster.

“Mr. King, here’s your payment. My boss isn’t well, so he asked me to thank you on his behalf.”

The gangster’s sycophantic tone made it sound as if King Bradley was the real boss.

Bradley took a paper bag, glanced at the cash inside. “Just a job for pay. Take us to the usual place.”

“Yes, sir.” The gangster turned to the driver. “Are you deaf? Drive!”

Ivan watched Bradley from the corner of his eye. This man seemed to have known his father, though probably not as a friend—perhaps even as an enemy.

He kept replaying Bradley’s sword strike in his mind. What kind of attack was that? His eyes hadn’t even caught the movement.

“King… where are we going?” Ivan asked softly.

“Louder. If you can’t even speak up, what else can you do?” Bradley barked without turning.

“King! Where are we going?” Ivan repeated, shouting this time.

“Good. That’s more like it.”
Bradley offered a rare, emotionless compliment. “We’re going home.”

Home? Ivan fell silent. He didn’t know how to respond, just sat there, but for the first time he felt a little less afraid.

Watching everything unfold from a god’s-eye view, Yang Qiu nodded in satisfaction. The opening of Script Eight was perfect—King Bradley’s performance could not have been better, and Ivan Vanko’s reaction was just as expected.

With King Bradley leading him, Ivan Vanko’s life would never follow its original path again. From this day on, everything would change.

Meanwhile, at the Vanko residence, Russia’s Paranormal Rapid Response Squad arrived on scene. They inspected the corpse lying at the center of the basement with practiced efficiency, jotting notes in a ledger.

Then they wrapped Ivan Vanko’s father in a body bag, preparing him for cremation.

Beyond these tasks, they did nothing extra. They simply turned and left, setting fire to the basement as they departed.

All those blueprints Ivan’s father had always hung on the wall were consumed by the flames, vanishing into smoke and ash.