Chapter 544

Tony Stark had been forgotten.

After Agent 47 disappeared with Maya Hansen, Tony’s frustration had somehow managed to surpass even Killian’s.

When a bald man in a tailored suit and tie had suddenly stormed into the room, killed several guards in the blink of an eye, and put multiple bullets into Killian, Tony had assumed the government’s intelligence agencies had finally managed to do their jobs.

They’d found the enemy’s headquarters.

They’d sent a competent agent to rescue him.

Then the man had simply grabbed a woman and left.

Tony hadn’t even been considered.

Seriously?

Had that guy mistaken this place for a bandit camp and Maya for the prize?

Killian suddenly turned toward Tony.

His murderous glare was enough to make Tony’s stomach tighten.

Why are you looking at me?

That definitely wasn’t my guy.

"Sir, what happened in here?"

The flashbang had been loud enough to shake the entire building. Three surviving guards came running into the room, apparently intending to find out what had happened.

Then they opened the door.

Two bodies lay on the floor, both with bullet wounds between their eyebrows.

The guards stopped dead.

They’d already had terrible luck today.

Not long ago, Tony Stark had stormed through the estate with a gun and fought his way all the way to the Mandarin’s room. He’d nearly been captured, only for another intruder to appear shortly afterward and slaughter two more guards right beside their boss.

At this rate, being a bodyguard was beginning to look like a remarkably short-term career.

Killian stared at the three men.

His eyes were bloodshot.

His fists clenched hard enough to crack his knuckles.

For one glorious moment, he genuinely considered killing all three of them himself.

Instead, he forced his temper back under control.

"Get everyone ready to move. This place is compromised."

Two attacks in a single day meant one thing.

His location had been exposed.

Worse, the second attacker had escaped without taking any serious losses. There was every possibility he’d return with a larger force to sweep the entire estate.

Killian wasn’t going to wait around and find out.

He would relocate immediately.

And he would accelerate the final stage of his plan.

Once he survived this critical window and the plan succeeded, everything would be settled. With the new President of the United States protecting him, Killian would be practically untouchable.

His orders sent the remaining guards scrambling.

Fortunately, there wasn’t much to pack.

They only needed to move the people.

The only things worth preserving were the data stored on the computers.

Two guards with technical experience hurried toward the machines.

They were about to begin wiping the hard drives when Killian shoved them aside.

"Get out of the way!"

His entire body flushed orange-red.

He opened his mouth.

A jet of flame erupted from his throat.

The computers immediately caught fire.

The guards stared in shock.

Killian finally felt some of the pressure in his chest ease.

Then he noticed all of them standing there like statues.

His mood soured again.

"What are you waiting for? Get Tony Stark loaded up!"

"Yes! Right away!"

The guards snapped back to reality.

They lowered the metal-framed bed Tony was strapped to and lifted it from the floor.

Then they carried him toward the exit.

Tony screamed when the bed slammed into the doorframe.

The thing was wider than the doorway.

After several increasingly desperate attempts, they finally figured out they had to angle it sideways to get through.

Killian watched them struggle.

He sighed.

"I must have been out of my mind when I hired these idiots."

Considering he’d undergone his own transformation not long before hiring them, perhaps his brain really hadn’t been functioning properly.

He shook his head and walked deeper into the estate.

There was one particularly important guest he still needed to deal with.

Colonel James Rhodes.

War Machine.

Rhodey’s luck had been spectacularly bad.

Ever since the Mandarin’s terrorist campaign had begun, he’d been flying around the world in his armor, raiding one suspected hideout after another.

He’d barely stopped.

At least once, he’d even had to take care of basic bodily functions inside the armor.

But eventually, after all that effort, he’d finally found the right place.

And walked directly into a trap.

Now he was sitting inside his damaged armor, imprisoned in Killian’s estate.

Rhodey was a crucial piece of Killian’s plan.

The President was surrounded by security, making a direct assassination extremely difficult.

The Vice President, meanwhile, needed to maintain his cover. He couldn’t simply introduce Killian’s assassins to the President.

That left one obvious solution.

War Machine’s armor.

Anyone wearing it would naturally be mistaken for Colonel Rhodes.

That person could walk straight into the President’s presence without raising suspicion.

It was the perfect Trojan horse.

There was just one problem.

A Trojan horse was supposed to be hollow.

Rhodey was still inside.

Killian needed to get him out first.

"How long can you keep this up?" Killian asked, approaching the armor. "Aren’t you thirsty? Hungry?"

"You’ll get this armor when I’m dead."

Rhodey was drenched in sweat.

Most of the armor’s systems had stopped functioning, including its temperature regulation.

Being trapped inside it felt like being sealed inside a steaming pressure cooker set to low heat.

Killian rubbed his hands together impatiently.

"Under normal circumstances, I could wait you out."

He glanced toward the door.

"But I don’t have time anymore."

He was just about to take matters into his own hands when a storm of gunfire erupted outside.

Killian’s head snapped toward the door.

"What is it?!"

Not again.

That was the third time today.

Three separate attacks.

Was the universe personally offended by him?

The radio crackled.

"We’re... we’re under attack!"

"Who? Who is it?"

Killian snatched up the radio.

"Who’s attacking us?"

"The American... Captain..."

Static.

Then silence.

Killian slammed the radio onto the floor.

"Damn it!"

He turned toward the six remaining men in the room.

"My soldiers."

His voice dropped.

"What are you waiting for?"

The six men immediately began to change.

Orange-red light flickered beneath their skin.

Extremis.

They charged out of the room.

Captain America alone wasn’t particularly frightening.

Killian was confident that his Extremis soldiers could hold their own against Steve Rogers. They had the numbers, and ordinary armed guards were still scattered throughout the estate.

But if other Avengers had joined him...

That possibility made Killian’s eyes narrow.

He turned back toward Rhodes.

Then he stepped forward and drove both palms into the center of the armor’s chest.

Heat erupted from his hands.

The metal glowed.

Rhodey grunted inside the armor.

Killian gritted his teeth.

If there was one thing he couldn’t afford right now, it was another Avenger arriving before his plan was complete.

And so the man who had already prepared a Trojan horse decided to stop worrying about subtlety.

He would simply burn the horse open.