Chapter 5 - The Reunion in the CrossfireGrant stared, paralyzed. The air rushed out of his lungs. For five years, he had imagined this moment a thousand times—what he would say, how he would hold her, how the nightmare would end. But now that she stood before him, the reality felt entirely unreal, like a hallucination conjured by a desperate mind.
"Mara..." His voice cracked, the single syllable carrying the weight of a half-decade of agony.
She didn't run to him immediately. Her gaze remained locked on Richard, who stood frozen against the glass, his hand inching toward his jacket pocket where a concealed detonator hummed with a faint blue LED light.
"Don't move, Richard," Mara warned, raising a suppressed sidearm with terrifying professional precision. "I spent five years learning how to strip your entire operation down to the studs. I know every wire, every backup, every contingency."
"You think you won?" Richard sneered, his fingers closing around the device. "The facility across town is already being cleared. My men have orders—if I don't walk out of this building in ten minutes, the entire estate goes up in flames, along with your precious daughter."
Grant’s heart plummeted. Sophie. The estate.
Before Richard could depress the trigger, Nora moved with blinding speed. She didn't attack Richard; instead, she slammed a portable signal jammer onto the center of the conference table. A sharp, high-pitched whine filled the room as the LED light on Richard's device flickered, turned red, and died.
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"Signal blocked," Nora said coldly. "Your panic button is just an expensive paperweight now, Richard."
Richard’s composure finally shattered. He lunged blindly toward the door, but Grant was faster. A single, devastating right hook caught Richard squarely on the jaw, sending the traitor crashing unconscious onto the plush carpet.
