Chapter 361 - 253: Deep Hatred
Sean Raines still carved out some time to visit Paige Summers that evening.
He hadn’t been worried at first, but when she kept ignoring his calls, he knew something was wrong.
But the moment he walked in, he saw Paige Summers sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, staring blankly into space. And right in front of her... lay a dead body.
’Oh my god! This is terrifying!’
Still uneasy, he quietly walked over and checked for a breath...
’Just as I thought. Nothing!’
A muscle in his cheek twitched.
Paige Summers looked up as if she had just noticed him. "What... are you doing here?"
Sean Raines was finally getting a taste of what she must feel when dealing with Nadia. ’What a headache!’
"What’s going on here? And this is...?"
Paige Summers let out a heavy sigh. "Quentin Sutton. He was... a collaborator, I guess. He was helping me investigate those three families. When I rushed over this afternoon, I found him like this. I had no choice but to bring him back here first."
Sean Raines wasn’t particularly moved by the man’s death. His first thought was, ’He must have found something!’
’That’s right. They wouldn’t have gone to such extreme lengths to silence him unless he’d uncovered something important—some secret they couldn’t afford to have exposed.’
"Most likely," Paige Summers said, her gaze darkening. "But his house was wiped clean. And I’ve already searched his body and his phone. I didn’t find anything."
Hearing the strange tone in her voice, Sean Raines stopped examining the body and turned to her. "Are you okay?"
Paige Summers shook her head.
"I was careless. I should have hired a real professional. Then he wouldn’t have had to lose his life over this."
’A person can only be responsible for their own life,’ Sean Raines thought cynically. However, he studied her for a moment with narrowed eyes before the words that came out were, "You two knew each other before, didn’t you?"
"...Yeah. We both came from The Dead City. We were friends once, then enemies, and more recently... collaborators."
Sean Raines scoffed and shrugged. "I thought you knew. There are no permanent friends, only permanent interests."
Paige Summers was silent for a long time before replying, "It’s not that permanent friends don’t exist... just that he and I weren’t them. But it’s strange..." Her voice grew heavy. "I used to find him so annoying. But now that he’s dead, I keep remembering our time in The Dead City. He once gave me a medical textbook and taught me to start with the basics. Another time, he had the perfect opportunity to hand me over to Nora Lowell, but he let me go instead..."
Sean Raines gave her a couple of casual pats on the shoulder. "That’s perfectly normal. People are like that. You only remember the good things after they’re gone. If he were still alive, you’d still find him annoying."
Paige Summers looked up at him. "And you call that comforting?"
Sean Raines stared at her, genuinely shocked. "It’s not?!"
Paige Summers rubbed her forehead.
"...Fine. Can you do me a favor?" She pointed to the body on the floor. "Help me... take care of this."
"Mhm."
When it came to this sort of thing, Sean Raines was far more experienced than Paige Summers.
He carried a special solution on him. There was no need for fire; he just had to sprinkle it on the body, and before long, all that would be left was a pile of ash that looked like dirt.
With her own hands, Paige Summers placed Quentin Sutton’s ashes into a ceramic urn. ’If I get the chance,’ she thought, ’I’ll bury him back in The Dead City.’
Her storage space had no issue with the urn, so she put it away without any trouble.
Only then did she let out a long sigh.
Seeing that she was merely subdued and that it wasn’t anything more serious, Sean Raines finally drove home.
Watching him leave, Paige Summers thought to herself, ’There aren’t really any shared interests or ulterior motives between us right now, but you’re still a friend, aren’t you? Forever is too long. Maybe it’s enough to just cherish the time we have now.’
Quentin Sutton was dead, and the lead was gone with him.
Paige Summers had no way of knowing what he had uncovered.
But as they say, when God closes a door, he opens a window.
「Three days later.」
Irving Thorne’s voice sounded weary over the phone. "Just as you suspected. There’s definitely something wrong with the Power Federation. The Dudley Family seems to have a hand in it..."
On the other end of the line, he couldn’t see the look of astonishment on Paige Summers’s face.
’What is this?’
’...So the two cases are actually connected?!’
She rubbed her face, struggling to process the information. When Irving Thorne finally paused, she jumped in, "Why don’t we meet in person to discuss this? This is something we need to plan out carefully."
Their meeting was at the same restaurant as before, but Sean Raines wasn’t with them this time. Without him there, the two of them dropped all pretense and acted like their usual selves. Having a common enemy had aligned their goals, which paradoxically made their interactions feel more natural.
"Tell me about the Dudley Family," Paige Summers demanded forthrightly.
Irving Thorne glanced at her, then launched right into his explanation. "The Dudley Family is one of the old, established Noble Houses. The Reid Family used to be able to rival them, but now that the Reids are finished, the Dudleys are all that’s left. Honestly, it’s not that their family’s power is necessarily so profound these days. The real reason the other Noble Houses treat them with such respect is that the Dudley Family’s Old Master is not only still alive and well, but he’s also a Tenth Rank Superpower User!"
"Old Master? Exactly how old is ’old’?" The idea of a Tenth Rank Superpower User was shocking, but Paige was more curious about something else. ’Is this old man really still in good physical shape?’
Irving Thorne dropped his feigned, refined demeanor, and a hint of the scoundrel surfaced. "He should be seventy-five this year. I saw him two years ago, and his hair wasn’t even completely white. His own son doesn’t look much younger than him! Hmph! An old man who refuses to die is nothing but a scourge."
Paige’s eyes glinted with understanding. "So how did you end up with a grudge against him?"
Irving Thorne’s expression changed in an instant. His gaze turned sinister, brimming with malice. He stared at her for a long moment before letting out a ragged, suppressed breath. "You figured it out..."
Paige met his gaze, her own eyes clear. "If you didn’t want me to figure it out, you shouldn’t have been so obvious."
Irving Thorne looked away. "I’m treating you as an ally. Don’t make me regret it."
Paige Summers stared at her cup on the table and replied softly, "Same to you."
Whether they truly saw each other as allies was hard to say, but one thing was certain: for now, they shared a common enemy.
Her relationship with the Lowell Family had initially been the subject of wild speculation, but after what happened before she left the city, the Lowells were now dead set on standing behind and defending her.
Now that the Lowell Family was in trouble, how could she just stand by and do nothing? That wouldn’t be right.
She was sure the man sitting across from her understood all of this perfectly well.
And as for his own grudge, while she didn’t know the specifics, she could tell his animosity was genuine.
She was confident of at least that much.
So now, they were comrades in the same trench.
Paige Summers rested her hand on the table, tapping her fingers lightly. "So, what’s your plan?"
Irving Thorne said in a low voice, "The best way is to infiltrate the Power User Federation first. We’ll use it as our entry point."
Paige Summers nodded in agreement.
"But... we’re talking about a Tenth Rank Superpower User... Before we do anything, we have to be completely prepared. We’ll need intel on his superpower, his habits, everything we can get our hands on!"
As she was lost in thought, he suddenly frowned and asked, "Hey! Hasn’t Jovitas given you any information at all?"