Chapter 74 - The Serpent's Ledger
I waited until the sound of Eleanor’s footsteps faded into the stone corridor before moving.
Trusting Eleanor Vance was an act of suicide. Julian was a rabid dog, yes, but Eleanor was the poison in the well. She had treated Noah’s life as a calculated risk, a variable in her multi-decade war for supremacy. If I stayed here, Noah would never be free; he would become the crown prince of a shadowy empire, raised in cold blood and molded into a sociopath.
I had to get out.
I checked on Noah. He was sleeping deeply, his cheeks flushed with warm color. I took the cashmere swaddle and reinforced it with a heavy silk scarf from the wardrobe, binding him securely against my torso, his weight centered against my diaphragm so my hands remained free.
Next, I searched the suite. The panoramic glass was ballistic-grade, at least three inches thick—no escape there. The electronic door was sealed from the outside.
I turned my attention to the credenza where Eleanor had tapped the remote. The digital interface was locked, demanding a fingerprint scan. But beneath the credenza, tucked behind a false panel in the baseboard, my fingers brushed against something cold: an emergency analog data terminal, hardwired into the compound's backup grid.
I booted the small monochrome display. Lines of green text flickered to life.
`OVERRIDE CODE REQUIRED: _`
I didn't know Eleanor’s corporate passwords. But I remembered what she had said on the bridge: *Identical to the lullabies I remembered from my childhood.*
What had she sung to me every night before the car crash?
*Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green...*
I typed: `LAVENDER1998`
The terminal blinked.
`ACCESS GRANTED: SOVEREIGN ARCHIVE.`
Folders cascaded across the miniature screen. I bypassed the financial spreadsheets and went straight to the military logistics log. What I found made the blood drain from my face.
Julian hadn't broken out of federal custody with the help of the Blackwood remnants.
Eleanor’s own private tactical unit had attacked the transport truck.
She had freed Julian herself. She had left him alive, burned, armed, and leaked the coordinates of Elysium Ridge to his remaining loyalists.
She wasn't hiding from Julian.
She was using us as bait. She had lured Julian and the entire remaining Blackwood syndicate to this isolated mountain redoubt to slaughter them all in a single catastrophic crossfire—and she didn't care if Noah and I were caught in the blast radius.
"My God," I whispered into the quiet room.
Suddenly, a deafening siren shrieked through the facility. The lights flashed violent amber.
The terminal screen instantly updated with a flashing red banner:
`PERIMETER BREACH: SECTOR FOUR. HEAVY ARTILLERY DETECTED. DEFENSIVE PROTOCOL: OMEGA.`
May you like
The siege had begun.
***
