RNP Page 114
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Trump had barely hinted at it when Keaton jumped up as if stung by a scorpion: "Impossible! Absolutely not! Donald and Mike earned their victory through real fighting. We want clean wins, not these dirty deals! Don't even think about it! Your five million dollars is not attractive at all!"
Jacobs stood to the side, his face ashen, his lips pressed tightly together, expressing his strongest opposition through silence.
After being rejected repeatedly, Trump's patience ran out, and anger and the arrogance of being a 'genius no one understands' burned his reason.
He decided to skip all the 'obstacles' and go straight for Victor Lee, who looked most like a ravenous beast.
Accompanied by two expressionless bodyguards, he barged into the suite at the hotel where Victor's team was staying.
"Mr. Li, this is more money than you could earn in your entire life,"
Trump spread his hands, his tone condescending yet his eyes sharp as knives, trying to dissect the other's fear. "Just a little 'accident,' like a slight stumble in the sixth round… or, you're smarter, you dominate early on, then 'run out of steam' at the end? Think about how many zeros are after that number. Or, you want to see what happens when you offend me? In Atlantic City, even across the entire East Coast, one word from me can make you…"
Victor's massive frame sank into the sofa. He didn't speak, but instead grinned at the two bodyguards with a strange smile: "Donald, are you threatening me?"
Hada, the old man who was as silent as a Texas rock, moved.
He moved slowly, even somewhat sluggishly, to pull an old but well-maintained Colt revolver from his lower back.
Trump's bodyguard tensed up, about to step forward, but Haddad's movements were breathtakingly smooth—with a snap, the magazine snapped open, and with a flick of his rough fingers, a bright yellow .45 caliber bullet landed in his palm.
All the movements were completed in an instant.
Then, he stepped forward and gently patted the bullet into the breast pocket of Trump's expensive Italian custom-made suit. The movement was almost gentle, yet it carried a chilling aura.
Mr. Trump,
Hada's voice was low and hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against wood, with a heavy southern accent; each word struck the ground with a resounding thud, "Business is about money. Any other ideas..."
He paused, his cloudy yet sharp eyes fixed on Trump's face, which had instantly lost its color.
Victor dialed the phone, and Ethan and Michael came out from the next room, took a bunch of parts from a canvas bag, and quickly assembled them into a very crude... submachine gun.
"...We have to ask it first. The Chicago typewriter is old, but Chicagoans' homes are never short of things that can make it talk again. It's that simple."
The suite was deathly silent.
Trump could clearly hear the throbbing of the veins in his temples.
He could feel the cold, hard metal on his chest, its texture penetrating his skin through the thin fabric of his suit.
Neither bodyguard dared to put their hands under the armpits, because the Chicago Typewriters were notorious for their unpredictability and violence, and who knew why these guys didn't use better equipment.
Trump stared intently into Haddad's unwavering eyes, then glanced at the undisguised mockery on Viktor's face.
A long, drawn-out silence followed. The arrogance on his face shattered, then was replaced by an intense sense of humiliation and anger. Finally, all emotions were forcibly suppressed into a cold, deathly stillness.
Without saying a word, he turned abruptly, his leather shoes slamming against the carpet as he slammed the door shut and left.
The bullet, like a red-hot branding iron, remained in his pocket.
Back in his luxury suite, Trump ripped off his tie and slammed it to the floor. His chest heaved violently, the image of Haddad's cold eyes and the bullet burning in his mind, while Victor's gangster-like demeanor fueled Trump's rage.
He had never been so blatantly threatened and humiliated!
He paced back and forth in the room like a trapped beast, the expensive Persian carpet almost bursting into flames with his anger.
Ivana stood to the side, watching her like she was a clown.
The hotel manager and security chief became targets of Trump's anger:
"How could you be a manager! How were you responsible for security? You wouldn't even know if something bad happened? Someone brought a submachine gun into the hotel! What if someone had been shot and killed?"
The security captain was reprimanded on the spot, and then led his men to search Victor and the others' backpacks, only to find a few seamless steel pipes used for treatment, and retreated in defeat.
Trump was even more furious—could what he was seeing be fake?
"Investigate for me, does Viktor have any connections with the mob?"
Suddenly, he stopped, a sinister glint flashing in his eyes.
A more wicked and insane idea popped into my head.
Don't they want to fight? Don't they want clean money?
He grabbed the phone abruptly, his voice trembling slightly with suppressed excitement, and issued a series of instructions to his trusted confidants within the gambling operations team.
The odds began to change subtly but fatally.
Insider information about Viktor's training, including the possibility that "excessive weight gain may lead to physical health problems" and "a recurrence of his old knee injury," was quietly leaked through carefully designed channels.
On the other hand, Tyson's condition was portrayed as that of a god descended to earth, invincible.
The enticing odds drew in bettors who placed even larger bets, sometimes doubling them, on "The Beast" Mike Tyson.
Trump stood in the shadows, watching with a cold smile as funds poured in. He wanted to squeeze every last drop of profit from this game, even at the cost of all the gamblers, to make up for his humiliation and feed his greed.
Chapter 93: The Battle with Tyson (1)
The weighing ceremony on October 24, 1985, was like an absurd drama.
When Victor's massive, door-like body pressed down on the scale, and the pointer trembled violently before settling at 400 pounds, a collective gasp filled the arena.
Tyson calmly removed his hood, revealing 230 pounds of muscles that gleamed like obsidian under the lights.
The two men were less than ten centimeters apart, and Viktor's shadow completely enveloped Tyson, but the fire burning in the young Tyson's eyes made the air almost spark.
"Tomorrow I'll make you look like a kid who failed to rob a candy store."
Tyson's voice was so deep it sounded like it came from underground.
Viktor's lips twitched slightly, and beads of sweat rolled down his fat cheeks: "You'd better have more punches than words, kid, I don't want to see you cry again!"
Trump suddenly stepped between the two, his gold tie almost brushing against Victor's chin.
"Gentlemen! Remember, this is a commercial performance!"
He forcefully broke the standoff between the two, flashing his standard smile at the flashing lights, but the fingers gripping Viktor's arm turned white from the force—because he had just learned that neither Viktor nor Tyson had placed a bet!
·······
October 25, 1985, Atlantic City, Trump Plaza Hotel Center.
Atlantic City was completely ignited by the dazzling lights of the Trump Plaza Hotel at night, like a huge diamond set on the black coastline, radiating a greedy and mesmerizing glow.
The neon lights flickered eerily, crudely projecting the words "Mike Tyson vs. Victor Lee" into the damp night sky.
The crowd surged in like a tide, more like locusts drawn by the scent of blood, pouring into this brand-new boxing temple from all directions. The air was thick with a scorching heat, the sweetness of expensive cologne, the salty sweat of male hormones, and a more primal, more naked desire.
The desire for enormous sums of money and pure violence is strangely mixed, fermenting, and suffocating here.
The spotlight, like a searchlight on Judgment Day, coldly swept across the noisy audience, finally fixing its gaze on the sacred yet cruel square boxing ring in the center of the arena, where the creation and destruction of wealth were about to unfold.
In the VIP box with the best view, Donald Trump was surrounded by celebrities, socialites, and sports tycoons.
His face was plastered with that signature, overly inflated smile, he elegantly swirled the amber liquor in his hand, and chatted and laughed with those around him, his voice loud and confident, every gesture seemingly emphasizing his dominance over the feast.
He reveled in the spotlight, in the grand gamble that bore his name.
However, if the most observant person were to look closely, they might be able to see through that layer of confident makeup and perceive the lingering coldness and tension deep within his eyes.
His gaze would wander uncontrollably for a brief moment, sharply sweeping towards the contestants' entrance, as if waiting for the bell to ring for the prey that would decide his fate.
His financial nerves were on edge, like those of a boxing ring rope.
The enormous bets and complex betting agreements meant that every round of this game was directly linked to his coffers—Trump, who wanted to build a casino empire, abandoned the invincible position of the house and chose a more aggressive, more lucrative option:
The deal was completed within three rounds, and forty million US dollars were easily pocketed.
Thirty-two million within five rounds;
If it goes on for more than ten rounds... you'll lose everything!
No, Trump quickly dismissed the thought, and a disdainful smile returned to his lips.
Who the hell can last ten rounds against Mike Tyson—the god of destruction he personally chose?
The idea itself is absurd, not to mention the help of the referee.
At the entrance, a tsunami-like roar suddenly erupted!
First up was Victor Lee.
That mobile, massive, mountain-like 'refrigerator'!
He wore a large white robe, but the robe could not completely conceal the completely reshaped body beneath.
It was no longer bulky fat, but angular yet strangely smooth and coordinated muscles, tightly covering his massive skeleton, perfectly integrated with the remaining tough layer of fat for resisting blows!
Looking back a year ago, it seems as if it was reshaped by some kind of dark alchemy in a short period of time, evolving from a clumsy prehistoric behemoth into a sophisticated killing machine born for extreme speed and destructive power!
What was most unsettling were his eyes; they no longer burned with mania or fear, but with an almost icy, calculating flame.
Then came screams and gasps that nearly blew the roof off.
Mike Tyson came out.
He wore a simple black cloak, his head bowed, his gaze fixed on the narrow passage beneath his feet, as if the clamor of the outside world had nothing to do with him.
His arms moved quickly and sharply in the air, the bulging muscles gleaming dangerously under the lights.
His every step was heavy and swift, making the wooden passageway thump and clatter. It wasn't footsteps, but war drums, the relentless, deathly rhythm of a cannonball fired from its barrel.
That pure, undisguised ferocity, like a tangible shockwave, swept across the entire arena in an instant, suffocating even the wildest cheers for a moment.
But both of them looked at Trump with fierce expressions!
Trump paused slightly in his glass, his smile freezing for a fraction of a second.
The whispers in the private room took a different turn. A subtle, unplanned unease began to spread like a venomous snake.
The starting bell of the first round was like a death knell for a condemned prisoner.
To everyone's surprise, Victor launched the first fierce attack!
He pounced on Tyson like a white lightning bolt—who would have thought that word could be used to describe him?
His arms swung wildly, creating a raging windmill!
The famous Chicago Typewriter Offensive is back! Eighteen punches in a row, each one deadly, accompanied by a piercing shriek that tears through the air!
The audience went wild!
However, Tyson demonstrated why he was a genius.
His evasive maneuvers were like a ghost; he would dive, sway, and retreat, narrowly avoiding the heavy punches that grazed his skin, making his heart leap out of his chest with every millimeter of the difference.