2024-09-26 09:01:49
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CHAPTER 645
The Adjutant’s grip on the tablet tightened until his knuckles turned white.As he listened to Tedmond, his eyes tracked him from head to toe, searching for familiarity in the cut of the suit, the quality of the fabric, the subtle tells of belonging.There were none.He couldn’t place him, couldn’t place the voice, the posture, the confidence.And yet, from the way Tedmond spoke, the Adjutant was certain of two things: Tedmond was not one of them… and he was far from ordinary.‘He mentioned Washington, the man thought uneasily. ‘Is he part of that family?’“The network is isolated!” the Adjutant finally snapped. “We switched to physical tablets specifically to avoid—”“Because you’re afraid,” Tedmond cut in smoothly.“But physical tablets leave physical fingerprints. Do you really want to be the man who handed the keys to the Gilded Cage to a ghost because you were too proud to let a specialist verify the encryption?”The Adjutant hesitated.His eyes flicked to the tablet, then back t
CHAPTER 644
Tedmond’s eyes fell on the man in the jade mask, noting the way his hand subtly shifted toward the inside of his tuxedo jacket.‘Probably a weapon, Tedmond thought, his gaze narrowing.If anything went wrong, the attack would be immediate. And it wasn’t just the jade mask watching him now; the others had turned as well, their eyes dark behind their masks.‘Think, Tedmond. If you can’t sound like them, act like someone they’re afraid to question.’“I didn’t,” Tedmond finally replied, leaning into the silence with chilling, low-volume intensity.He didn’t try to mimic their accents anymore; he let his own voice become sharp and surgical.“And the fact that you’re asking tells me the security protocols for this evening are even more compromised than I feared.”He shifted his gaze to the onyx mask, deliberately ignoring the jade mask’s growing hostility.“I’m here because the London interests, as you so quaintly refer to the board, are tired of hearing rumors about functional trauma from
CHAPTER 643
The ballroom was a sea of masks, each one a lie.Tedmond moved through the crowd with a practiced elegance he hadn’t used in years, his tall frame cutting through the neon fog. He didn’t look like a man who had just scaled a mountain; he looked like a man who owned it.Beside him, Marek was a brooding shadow. Every time a waiter passed with a tray of crystal flutes, Marek’s eyes flicked to the man’s throat, finding an artery before dropping to the drinks.“Relax,” Tedmond breathed, barely audible over the swelling orchestra. “You’re looking for a fight. I need you to look for a conversation.”“Hard to do when my ‘bespoke ensemble’ smells like a midlife crisis and expensive soap,” Marek muttered, the leather bone-mask tilting toward a cluster of men at the center of the room. “See the far pillar? The guy in the gold lion mask. He’s checked his watch every thirty seconds. He’s waiting for a handoff.”Tedmond didn’t look immediately.He accepted a flute of champagne from a passing tray
CHAPTER 642
Tedmond peered at Marek.Though Marek was a formidable fighter, he had always preferred force over finesse, and it had worked for him more times than he could count.“I suggest using the head you spent five years training,” Tedmond replied, his voice cold and sharp.While Marek focused on the physical barrier, Tedmond’s eyes traced the faint thermal signatures lingering on the keypad. His mind honed by years of analyzing complex systems and patterns saw the code before he ever touched the panel.Without his earpiece, without Thomas whispering the sequence in his ear, he relied on instinct.His fingers, rough yet astonishingly precise, moved with mechanical speed.He didn’t kick; he manipulated.A thin needle tool from his belt shorted the proximity loop, and he entered the four-digit sequence, guided only by the heat signatures.With a soft, melodic chime, the seal hissed open.Tedmond looked at Marek, expression flat.“Brute force is for the climb. Intelligence is for the kill. Let’
CHAPTER 641
Marek’s grin turned sharp and jagged as his hand openly gripped the hilt of his blade.“Now that is a plan I can follow,” he rumbled, voice thick with dark satisfaction. “After you, Young Master.”Inside, relief surged through him.For hours, Thomas’s cautious logistics and Albert’s digital hand-holding had felt like wearing a suit two sizes too small. To Marek, safety was secondary; effectiveness was everything. He’d been waiting for Tedmond to stop playing the obedient student and start acting like the predator he’d trained him to be.The safe route was for men who feared the dark. This raw, improvised chaos was where real power was tested. He was glad the boy had finally stopped listening to the voices in his ear and started listening to the pulse in his veins.Tedmond paused, gaze shifting to Marek. He noticed the change immediately: the loosened shoulders, the lethal joy dancing in the older man’s eyes. Not for the first time, he wondered how many risks Marek had taken to gr
CHAPTER 640
Tedmond studied the door, brows furrowing.The lock, a heavy biometric mag-lock, looked more suited for a vault than a kitchen entrance.Its cold, clinical surface reflected a flash of his own face for a moment.He glanced at his rough, calloused knuckles, then back at the high-tech mechanism.Five years ago, he might have waited for a locksmith or searched for a key.Now, his first thought was brute force: how many pounds of pressure to rip the frame from the stone, or where the wiring hid behind the plate so he could short it with a blade.He wasn’t just a scholar anymore; every object in the world was either a tool or an obstacle.‘Is she behind a lock like this?’ The thought hit his gut with a sharp pang of anticipation. ‘Does she hear the wind out here? Does she know I’m standing on the other side of the wall?’He pushed the feeling down. Thinking too much made you slow. Slow got you dead."Thomas," Tedmond whispered, low and controlled. "The lock, it’s a Grade 5 biometric. Can
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