2024-09-25 16:03:33
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CHAPTER 686
Albert paused, brows lifting as he considered the implications.An idea had formed in his mind, but he needed to shape it carefully.“Perhaps…” he began, trailing off.“Perhaps?” Thomas prompted, curiosity sharpening his tone.“To get something only a Washington can provide,” Albert whispered. “Think about the protocols. To unlock the family’s deep-reserve vaults, the ones holding Legacy tech and the offshore black sites, it requires two keys. One from the head of the family… and one from the heir.”He turned to the board, sketching a rough diagram to illustrate his point.“They aren’t hiding her from Tedmond. They’re trying to make him desperate enough to use his half of the key to save her. They’ve been waiting for him to grow tired. Waiting for him to stop thinking and start reacting.”Thomas glanced back at the monitors, at the signal-loss screen marking where the plane had gone down. The realization settled in.“They played us. They played all of us. Those people… they’re monste
CHAPTER 685
Thousands of miles away, in a room lit only by the cold glow of monitors, Thomas was losing his mind.His fingers flew across the keyboard, but the screens were a chaotic mess of flatlines and flashing SIGNAL LOST warnings.“I can’t find them! Albert, I can’t find them!” Thomas’s voice cracked with raw panic. “The transponders snapped off when the tail blew. One second, they were at thirty thousand feet, and the next—nothing! They’re just gone!”Albert didn’t respond. He sat perfectly still, face drained of color, staring at the last known GPS coordinate. He looked like a man watching the world end in real-time.“Albert! Say something!” Thomas slammed his fist onto the desk. “What was the last thing Marek said? Did he have a chute? Is Tedmond awake?”Slowly, Albert turned his head. The calculated mask he usually wore was shattered. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenched so tightly the bone looked ready to snap. He didn’t look like a professional anymore; he looked like a man pushe
CHAPTER 684
The truck hit a hard bump, and Tedmond’s limp body slid across the metal floor.“Tedmond!”Lottie’s scream ripped through the small cabin, sharp and panicked.Up front, Marek flinched so hard his hands jerked on the wheel. The heavy steering column slipped, and the transport truck swerved violently toward the ditch. Tires screamed against the dirt before he wrestled the vehicle back onto the road.His heart pounded against his ribs.He had stayed quiet during the drive, assuming the silence in the back meant everyone was finally resting after the hell of the North Block.“What the fuck happened back there?” Marek roared, his voice thick with sudden, icy fear. “Lottie! Talk to me!”“He’s down! Marek, he’s down!” Lottie’s voice was high-pitched, a sound he had never heard from her. “There’s so much blood. It’s his head. It won’t stop!”Calm dissolved into chaos in the back.“Oh God, oh God,” Hugo gasped, hyperventilating, his hands hovering over Tedmond’s body, unsure where to touch.
CHAPTER 683
“Clara!” Tedmond roared, reaching the base of the shaft.The elevator car hadn’t merely settled.A secondary ceiling collapse had dumped a fresh mound of concrete slabs and rebar directly onto the crumpled floor.Clara wasn’t in the hallway.She was still in the rubble, buried beneath the new fall.Tedmond threw himself at the debris.He didn’t use the crowbar. He used his bare hands.‘I didn’t bring her out of that chamber just to let the building finish the job,’ he thought, fingernails tearing as he heaved a fifty-pound slab of masonry aside. ‘Not another body. Not today.’“Lottie, stay with Molly and Hugo! Keep the light on the corridor!” he barked over his shoulder.“Tedmond, the timer!” Lottie shouted back.Her heart lodged in her throat as she hugged Molly close. The girl was hyperventilating, small hands clutching Lottie’s tactical vest.‘Please let him find her,’ Lottie prayed silently. ‘If we lose Clara now, after everything—’“I’ve got a hand!” Tedmond growled.Through the
CHAPTER 682
The darkness was absolute, a suffocating weight that tasted of pulverized concrete and old copper.For a long moment, there was no sound but the slow settling of tons of debris above them, an ominous grinding of stone against steel.Then a ragged, wet cough split the silence.“Tedmond?” Lottie’s voice was a thin rasp, barely audible over the ringing in her ears.‘Is this it?’ she thought, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. ‘Buried in the dark while she watches from the light?’The image of Sorsha’s smug, blood-smeared face flashed behind her closed eyes.‘Not like this. I can’t die as her failure.’“Don’t move,” Tedmond’s voice came from somewhere in the dark, low and strained.He was pinned.A jagged slab of the elevator ceiling had buckled inward, forming a narrow triangular pocket of survival, but a twisted support beam crushed his left thigh, locking him in place.‘Move, damn you,’ he snarled inwardly, his thoughts sharp with cold fury. ‘I didn’t survive the
CHAPTER 681
She was clawing at the gurney restraints, icy blue eyes wide with manic, trapped-animal terror. She saw Tedmond and saw the silhouette of a man who looked hauntingly like the woman she’d been imprisoned beside, and her mouth opened in a silent scream."Hugo—the code!" Tedmond roared, the sweet gas beginning to blur the edges of his vision."I’m trying! The terminal’s slaved to the Spire!" Hugo’s fingers flew across the keypad, bruises dark under the flashing emergency strobes. "They’ve locked the local override!""Thomas! Albert!" Lottie shouted into her comms, her knees dipping as the gas thickened. "We’re at the door! Sorsha has the lockout!""Working on it," Albert’s growl came back, faint but steady. "Clara has a biometric bypass. If you can get her to touch the glass from the inside, the pressure sensor might trip the emergency release."Tedmond’s gaze snapped back to Clara.She was panicking.And they had less than three minutes.Clara’s fingers were bloody from clawing at the
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