"What are you doing in my son's room this late, David."That cold, heartbreaking voice shattered the darkness of the bedroom. David Vexley stiffened instantly. His hand, covered in blistered scars, stopped in mid-air just as he had put a bottle of mineral water and a small jacket into Arthur's backpack.David slowly turned his head. In the half-open doorway, Elena stood petrified. The pale light from the apartment hallway illuminated his wife's face, revealing the traces of dried tears on her cheeks."We have to leave this place, El," David whispered in a very quiet voice. He stepped carefully so as not to wake Arthur, who was sound asleep on the bed. "Aris shut down the security cameras in the west wing for ten minutes for server maintenance. This is our only window. I will carry Arthur, and we can pick up Isabella in the basement.""Put the bag down, Dave," Elena commanded. Her tone trembled, filled with incredibly dense bitterness."Elena, pleas

"Your arm is completely dead, Dave. The color is horrifying." Isabella whispered softly, staring at David's left arm, which hung limp and blackened at his side. "Stay behind me. This makeshift pistol only has three bullets, and I'm not going to waste them shooting an empty door."David swallowed hard, enduring the stinging pain still throbbing at the base of his spine. "I still have my right hand and a tactical knife, Bell. Don't worry about me. We have to find Arthur before Aris damages his brain."They stepped slowly past the steel doorway whose biometric lock David had just destroyed at the cost of the nerves in his arm. Behind the door, the air instantly changed. There was no metallic smell of blood, no stuffy air of an isolation room, and absolutely none of the screams of agony they had expected.The room before them instead smelled of fresh wet earth, chlorophyll, and an incredibly foreign mixture of sweet chemicals.Bluish neon lights illuminated a

"A brilliant checkmate, Arthur. You managed to beat Uncle again today."Soft, authoritative applause echoed inside the observation room on the top floor of the AgriGen facility. The room was bathed in afternoon sunlight streaming through giant glass windows. Thick cream-colored carpet covered the floor, and the warm aroma of jasmine tea wafted through the air.Dr. Aris sat back in his leather chair. He smiled at the seven-year-old boy sitting across from him. On the glass table between them, Aris's white king was perfectly cornered by Arthur's black queen.Meanwhile, eighty floors straight down below that luxurious room, absolute darkness swallowed David Vexley's body.There was no sunlight in this underground isolation cell. No plush carpets or warm tea. David lay curled up on a concrete floor covered in puddles of dirty, urine-smelling water. His security guard uniform was torn and sticky with dried blood. His left arm, completely paralyzed from the hig

"Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Boss. This darkness makes you look even more pathetic."The whispered voice was extremely quiet, almost swallowed by the hum of the air conditioning unit inside the isolation cell. David Vexley, sprawling on the freezing concrete floor, did not react immediately. He thought it was a new hallucination created by his cracking mind."I know you are still breathing. Lift your head," the voice whispered again, this time followed by the sound of scraping metal.David forced his stinging eyes to focus on the pitch-black ceiling of the cell. In the corner of the room, the thick iron cover of the air vent had been slid open slowly. Through that narrow gap, a face peered down."Isabella?" David's voice was hoarse and incredibly dry."Thank God that bastard doctor hasn't cut your vocal cords yet," Isabella answered from up there.A small, heavy object was dropped through the vent gap. The object hit the concrete floor near David's knee with a sharp metallic clin

"They are coming from both sides. Stay behind my back, Bell," David hissed. His voice was almost drowned out beneath the deafening wail of the red alarms."I don't need your protection, Boss. Just watch your blind right side," Isabella shot back quickly. She raised her makeshift pistol high.The narrow corridor flickered wildly with emergency lights. Ten security guards in black combat gear charged forward from the front. They didn't raise firearms. Dr. Aris's orders were very clear. They carried high-voltage stun batons, intending to incapacitate David and drag him back to his cell alive."Keep your heads down. Surrender now," shouted the commander of the leading guards.David did not answer. The former king of the world lunged forward. His calf muscles tensed hard, launching his body right into the middle of the enemy formation.The first guard swung his stun baton straight at David's neck.David's eyes tracked the trajectory of the attack