The next morning, at New York Airport, William followed Ginny and Amanda out of the arrival gate. The charter he booked was a medium-sized private jet. William boarded first and settled into a small guest room on the plane, while Ginny and Amanda followed the flight attendant's instructions and stayed on the sofa in the charter's lounge.
From a distance, he saw Bryan, his ex-wife Lenore, and several other middle-aged men and women standing at the arrival gate.
Ginny and Amanda, seeing their parents, happily rushed forward with their luggage. The group embraced, cried, and made a fuss for quite a while.
William waved to Bryan. He didn't go forward to meet Bryan's family and friends. Bryan also knew William didn't want to be introduced in such a situation, so he gave William a thumbs-up and a nod.
Under the captain's proxy, William passed through security and got into the Bentley sedan he had booked yesterday, heading for Fifth Avenue. He wanted to meet Winston first and see what this hitman boss had to say to him.
Arriving at the Continental Hotel, William paid and got out of the car. He looked up at the Continental Hotel, which resembled an iron. The hotel's design was truly unique; the architect had a wild imagination, designing and building such a peculiar 87-meter-tall building a hundred years ago.
Led by a hotel bellhop, William entered the lobby. The lobby's furnishings appeared quite outdated, probably not having been renovated for ten or twenty years.
Looking at the people sitting in the hotel lobby, William, with his extraordinary sensory intuition, knew that over 90% of the dozens of people sitting in the lobby exuded a faint smell of blood. These guys were definitely assassins.
William was somewhat surprised. The Continental Hotel was truly brazen. So many assassins were sitting there so openly. Weren't they afraid of exposing their identities? Or did these people simply not care if their identities were exposed?
However, after a moment's thought, William understood. In modern society, the police need evidence to make an arrest, or they must catch someone in the act. Without evidence, even if the police knew these people were assassins, they couldn't directly arrest them.
Moreover, Bryan had mentioned that the Continental Hotel had a history of several centuries, with several branches in Europe and America. The power behind the hotel must be deeply entrenched in Europe and America, and it must have its own secrets for survival.
Walking up to the lobby reception desk, a middle-aged black man wearing glasses smiled and said, "Good morning, sir, my name is Charon. How may I help you?"
William smiled and said, "Hello, Charon. I'm here to see Winston. Someone sent a message to me yesterday, saying he hoped I would meet him here. You can tell him my name is Cavendish."
Charon didn't ask further, smiling and nodding. "Please wait a moment, sir, I will notify Winston now."
Charon made a call, then hung up and smiled, saying, "Please follow me, Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Winston is waiting for you on the top floor of the building."
Led by Charon, William entered the elevator, curiously observing the old-fashioned elevator from before the 1940s. Nowadays, no building still uses such old-fashioned elevators, seen only in movies. He wondered if it was safe.
Seeing William curiously examining the elevator's decor, Charon carefully explained, "Mr. Cavendish, although this elevator is 70 years old, everything except the interior decoration has been modernized. There will be no safety issues."
William pouted. Was he trying to show off the Continental Hotel's long history? What was there to show off about only 70 years? The Cavendish family had a legacy of thousands of years. What was there to say about 70 years?
Upon reaching the top floor, William's eyes lit up as soon as he exited the elevator. He hadn't expected the rooftop to be filled with plants. All sorts of green plants and flowers surrounded the perimeter of the rooftop, with only a four-seat table and chairs placed in the center.
A middle-aged man with a somewhat South American appearance and a white-haired old man were sitting opposite each other, talking. On the table was an open leather case filled with gold coins, probably around 200 of them.
Seeing the guest arrive, both men smiled, stood up, shook hands, and wished each other well. The white-haired old man even smiled and nodded at William as he passed by.
The middle-aged man said to Karon, "Thank you, Karon. You can go about your business. I'll take care of things here."
Karon nodded and said, "Alright, sir."
The middle-aged man gestured to a chair, indicating for William to sit first. After William sat down, the man poured him a cup of black tea and said, "My name is Winston. According to our seniority, you should call me Uncle. I've almost forgotten how many years it's been since we last saw each other.
William, I still remember what you looked like when you were born. I even held you then. Black hair, blue eyes, a small nose, a small mouth—just a little ugly. I never thought almost 20 years would pass in the blink of an eye."
Although William had mentally prepared himself when he arrived, hearing Winston say he was William's uncle still made him choke on the black tea he had just sipped. He coughed a few times, covering his mouth, and looked at Winston with an expression of utter disbelief.
After he had recovered from his cough, William looked at the South American-looking man in front of him with a strange expression. No matter how he looked at it, the two of them didn't seem to be related by blood.
Winston immediately understood William's puzzled look and explained, "My grandmother and Henry's mother were sisters. One married into an English family, and the other into an Argentinian family. That's why we don't look very similar, but there's one thing we do have in common." He then pointed to his hair and laughed heartily.
William politely chuckled along, but honestly, he didn't find it particularly funny. Suddenly, a man with a South American face claiming to be his uncle, who had even held him as a newborn, was a lot for William to take in.
"Alright, I know you don't believe me, but someone can prove that everything I'm saying is true. Let me show you something." He then made a call. "Please bring up the cipher cylinder from the safe."
Within a few minutes, a middle-aged woman came up with a small cipher cylinder and handed it to Winston. After waving the woman away, Winston gave the cipher cylinder to William.
"Henry gave me this. You should understand once you open it."
William looked at the cipher cylinder in his hand, puzzled. How was he supposed to open it without a password?
Winston saw William looking at him strangely and shrugged. "Don't look at me. I don't know the password either. Henry didn't tell me the password when he gave it to me; he just told me to give it to you at the right time."
William recognized the cipher cylinder in his hand as belonging to the Devonshire family at a glance. It bore the family crest, an imprint, and even a coded message. After a moment's thought, William understood the meaning of the coded message, but he wasn't in a hurry to open the cylinder.
Instead, he asked Winston, "Why are you giving it to me now?"
Winston smiled and said, "Henry said that if you didn't inherit his legacy when you grew up, he would let you live a normal life. I, your uncle, might never have acknowledged you. But from what I know, you've not only inherited Henry's legacy but have far exceeded both his and my expectations. I never imagined you would grow to this extent.
You've done an excellent job. After Henry's death, I secretly watched over you. When you got into London University, I thought you would safely marry and have children, living a stable life forever. I never expected you to fool everyone. You truly are Henry's successor. I believe Henry must be very comforted in heaven."
A thought suddenly flashed through William's mind, and he quickly said, "So, because of your protection, my mother and I were able to live peacefully and undisturbed for 10 years?"
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