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Catchy Title: "The Classroom Door Was Locked, But What Lay Beneath the Wool Was Not Human..." / Chapter 5 / 6

Chapter 5 - THE CONSPIRACY UNRAVELS

Catchy Title: "The Ultimate Betrayal. The Men in Gray Wore Badges I Recognized.""Step away from the asset, Dr. Carter," the lead man in gray said.

I looked at David, then at the men, my mind spinning at a thousand miles an hour.

"Don't let them take him, Claire!" David shouted, rushing toward the men.

Thud.

The second man in gray effortlessly brought the butt of his weapon down onto David’s collarbone, dropping my husband to the floor in an instant. David groaned, coughing up blood, completely incapacitated.

The lead agent walked up to me, pulling off his sunglasses. I gasped. Beneath the glasses was a face I had seen in family photo albums.

It was Director Thomas—Marcus’s boss at the federal cybersecurity division. The very man my brother was working for.

"Your brother sends his regards, Claire," Director Thomas said with a cold, terrifying smile. "Who do you think leaked the boy’s location to us? Marcus is a loyal soldier of the state. He used you to find the asset."

The betrayal cut deeper than any physical wound. My own brother had set me up. He had sent me into the jaws of the wolf.

"The countdown," I whispered, tears of anger and fear streaming down my face. "It’s going to kill everyone."

"It’s not going to kill anyone," Director Thomas laughed softly. "The neurotoxin story was a lie we fed your husband to make him run. The countdown isn't for an explosion. It’s for a global data upload. Once that timer hits zero, every intelligence agency on earth will receive the bio-data encoded in this boy's DNA. The project will become open-source. We can't allow that. We need to terminate the boy and extract the physical drive before the upload completes."

He raised his weapon, pointing it directly at Leo’s forehead.

00:01:10.

Leo gripped my hand tighter. "Ms. Carter... I'm scared."

In that split second, looking at the innocent face of a child who had been turned into a pawn by greedy adults, a fierce, primal rage took over me. I didn't care about global data, or my husband's lies, or my brother's betrayal.

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

I cared about Leo.

I lunged forward, grabbed a heavy iron pipe from the boiler rack, and swung it with every ounce of strength I possessed.

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