My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 238

Chapter 238: The Alliance

[Jake’s POV]

The surveillance van reeked of stale coffee, sweat, and the heat coming off the laptops.

We were wedged into a narrow alley off Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro. Brick walls on both sides, maybe two feet of clearance on either side of the van. The engine was idling low just to keep the air conditioning running. Without it, the back would’ve been unbearable in five minutes with all the gear and both of us breathing in here.

Rain tapped on the roof in a slow, steady rhythm. Every time a bus or truck passed on the main road, light swept across the windshield and threw moving shadows over the monitors, then left us in dark again.

Ethan was in the passenger seat. He had the parabolic microphone set up on a tripod, aimed through a two-inch crack in the window at the second-floor window of the dim sum restaurant across the street. Old red brick. A buzzing neon sign that said "Wah Kee" in half-dead letters. The mic made a faint mechanical whir every time it auto-adjusted to catch sound.

"I have audio," Ethan muttered. He pressed his headphones tighter against his ears with one hand. "Lots of street noise. Buses. Scooters. But the vocal isolation software is cleaning it up."

I leaned over his shoulder. The laptop screen showed two green waveforms, spiking and flattening. Cantonese. Two distinct voices. Both of them angry.

"Put it on speakers," I said.

Ethan tapped a key.

Static, then the voices filled the back of the van. They bounced off the brick walls outside and came back in through the cracked window.

"You lost a weapons shipment, Lin," Han said. His voice was old, rough, like gravel in a cement mixer. "And you blamed me for it. You firebombed two of my betting parlors over a ghost story and bad intel."

"Your men were seen near the docks the night it happened," Lin shot back. Younger. Sharper. Less patience. "But none of that matters now. We were both played, you idiot. The Golden Koi absorbed Zhao’s entire territory while we were busy fighting each other. Li Bai is sitting on half the city right now, and she has Superintendent Cho running interference for her with the police."

The waveform on the screen jumped high and held.

I kept my face blank. No reaction. Just let them keep talking.

"She doesn’t have the manpower to hold it," Han argued. I could hear footsteps. He was pacing. "She bought street soldiers with dirty casino money. Mercenaries. They have no loyalty. You offer them more cash, they switch sides by morning."

"They have enough loyalty to hold the perimeter," Lin countered. "I sent three scouts to the Outer Harbour at dawn. The Golden Koi has locked the whole district down. Armed checkpoints on every major street. Patrols on the rooftops. They’re running military rotations, four hours on, four hours off. This isn’t Li Bai’s doing. The old woman can barely walk. She hired a professional to run her war."

That was me.

Ethan glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. I gave him a small nod. Keep recording. Don’t interrupt. Don’t make a sound.

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