"It's actually him…" Pepper's face changed a lot.
Tony quickly noticed Pepper's reaction and asked, "You know Killian?"
Pepper didn't hide it: "He was a colleague of mine a long time ago. He used to be a very honest person. I don't know why he's changed so much and even became the president of A.I.M. Group. Not long ago, when he heard I was in D.C., he specially came to visit me…"
Tony was surprised: "When he came to see you, was Happy with you?"
"Yeah," Pepper nodded.
Her face became even more worried, because she realized that Killian probably took Happy because of her.
Thinking of this, she said sadly, "It's all my fault. If I hadn't seen him, Happy wouldn't have gotten in trouble because of me…"
Tony quickly comforted her, "You can't blame yourself. There's no way you could have known he was a problem."
At this moment, Raymond suddenly interrupted, "Miss Potts, don't blame yourself too much. This isn't all because of you. Even if you hadn't met him, he still would have targeted Stark Industries."
"Hm?" Both of them looked at him.
"From my research, his real target is you," Raymond looked at Tony.
"Me?" Tony was confused.
"I'm not sure about the details, but his hatred for you runs very deep," Raymond said calmly. "When he met with Miss Potts, maybe he just wanted to catch up, but the real reason he took Happy was because of you."
"But I don't even know him!" Tony sounded annoyed.
"You didn't know me before today either, but you still managed to offend me the moment we met, didn't you?" Raymond sneered.
Tony's face darkened.
He knew Raymond was right.
With his personality, annoying people was common, but most people couldn't do anything to him. Even if they were angry, they could only keep it to themselves.
The same was true for Raymond. If he was just a regular person, he wouldn't have been able to fight back and could only quietly hold a grudge.
But Tony never cared about who secretly hated him.
The difference now was, when someone who hated him actually had the power to take revenge, things became very different.
Killian's appearance really caught him off guard.
He couldn't even remember who Killian was, or when he ever offended such a person.
Pepper noticed Tony's awkwardness and quickly changed the topic: "Let's not talk about that now. We should figure out how to rescue Happy. He's still in Killian's hands."
Raymond said, "Saving Happy isn't hard. When I found him earlier, I could have brought him out, but taking down Killian and the people behind A.I.M. Group won't be so easy…"
"I came to see you because I want to work with you. Maybe you have a way to capture all of A.I.M. Group's leaders at once without causing problems with the North American government."
"You have a grudge against A.I.M. Group?" Tony suddenly asked.
Raymond didn't answer. He gave them an email address and said, "Everything is in there. Take a look."
Tony didn't ask any more questions. He told Jarvis to open the email, closed his helmet, and started looking through the files.
A minute later, when he opened his helmet again, his face was full of anger. He clenched his teeth and spat out one word:
As the CEO of a big weapons company, Tony was no saint. He had seen plenty of darkness in people.
But he still couldn't accept something as crazy as human experiments.
Even if nothing had happened to Happy, if he found out that A.I.M. Group was doing experiments on living people, he would still take them down.
At this moment, Tony realized that he really did misunderstand Raymond earlier when he was in a hurry.
What Raymond wanted to talk about was joining forces to take down A.I.M. Group, not blackmail as he had thought.
"Sorry, I acted on impulse before," Tony nodded to Raymond.
"It's fine—" Raymond waved his hand and didn't mind. He then asked, "So, do you think the North American government can handle this?"
Tony shook his head, "If we can get proof of A.I.M. Group's crimes, it's not hard to get the government involved. But… it's impossible to take over the entire A.I.M. Group directly. At most, we'll get a share. Some people just won't let go so easily…"
Raymond nodded. This was just as he had guessed.
He knew it wasn't possible to take out A.I.M. Group's leadership and then take all their assets. If it worked that way, the world would be in chaos.
But with Tony's help, at least getting rid of the top people in A.I.M. Group wouldn't be a problem.
"I wonder if Hydra will show up because of this? If they do, maybe I could work with Fury again and gain some more benefits…" Raymond thought to himself.
He wanted to take out the leaders of A.I.M. Group, partly because he couldn't stand what they were doing, but also because he hoped to lure out the big fish—Hydra.
After all, the Hydra spies in S.H.I.E.L.D. were just a small part. If he acted too suddenly, the remaining Hydra members would hide even deeper.
If he didn't get them all in one go, he might get attacked later.
He knew he wasn't invincible. If a group schemed against him constantly, he might fall for their tricks someday.
But if he could use this chance to lure out the Hydra members hiding outside S.H.I.E.L.D., maybe he could get rid of them all.
That would give him another big reward, so why not try?
"No point waiting. Let's act tonight. Go get ready, and we'll move out once it's dark," Raymond said after thinking.
"Alright," Tony quickly agreed.
"Also… About my powers, I don't want others to know for now. I don't want my family to get in trouble because of it, so please keep it a secret," Raymond added.
"No problem," Tony nodded.
"Okay. I'll go now. See you tonight." Raymond turned, walked over to a nearby cliff, and dug out a long stone pillar with his bare hands.
Then he threw it hard into the sky!
Next second, his whole body shot up into the sky, disappearing together with the stone pillar—
Watching all this, both Tony and Pepper were shocked.
Especially Tony. After Jarvis reported the speed at which Raymond just took off, Tony was absolutely stunned.