CHAPTER THIRTY-ONEAs Margaret stumbled, her legs buckling from the early stages of hypothermia, Zane reached out instinctively to steady her.It was the moment the predator in the room had been waiting for.A shadow loomed over Zane—a man built like a siege engine, his face twisted by a mixture of frostbite and feral greed. He was clearly ex-military, his stance wide and balanced despite the slick floor.As Zane shifted to support Margaret, the man lunged, swinging a heavy, desperate fist aimed straight for Zane’s head.Zane’s instincts, honed through weeks of brutal training at IVDS. He ducked, the wind of the punch whistling over his hood.“Pretty boy,” the man spat, his breath a thick plume of gray mist. “You're no match for me. Hand over that coat! Hand over everything!”The giant didn't wait for an answer. He reached out to rip the thermal hat from Zane’s head, his fingers clawing like talons. Zane didn't flinch. He caught the man’s wrist in mid-air—a collision of bone and high-

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE The message on the screen was a death sentence for most, but Trigger simply tilted her phone away from the dim light. She reached up, pulling off her heavy tactical hat. A cascade of dark hair fell over her shoulders as she leaned back into the worn leather of the sofa. A playful, sharp smile crossed her lips as she locked eyes with the man at the center of the room. Rex remained motionless. Raze had whispered earlier that IVDS—the Iron Vault Defense System—was sending an elite operative for a “base assessment." He just hadn't expected the operative to be her. “Trigger,” Rex said, his voice a low, vibrating chord. “What brings you to this frozen hellscape?” Trigger let her gaze wander across the reinforced walls. This fortress was her second-most prized architectural creation, though seeing it now, she felt a flicker of irritation. It wasn’t perfect. She suppressed the sudden spike of adrenaline in her chest, masking her fear with indifference. “Asses

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVETwo weeks ago, when Trigger had delivered his latest shipment of armaments, she’d handed him a physical envelope and an encrypted USB drive. At the time, her words had seemed like typical dramatic flair: “I risked everything for this. Your fortress is the only place safe enough to hold it.”She told him it was a history, which also included his data, to be opened when he was ready. Zane had agreed, more out of a sense of tactical storage than genuine curiosity.When he’d first plugged the drive in days later, the data had been a chaotic mess of high-level schematics he barely recognized. He knew only one thing for certain: his parents’ fingerprints were all over the code.But now, everything had changed. The image of Raze’s custom cybernetic eyes burned in his mind.Having captured the encrypted string of code through his own surveillance sub-routines, Zane returned to the HELIOS-9 files with a new key. He navigated to a sub-folder he remembered that was labeled

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT The cold slowly invaded the Vaughn residence. It began as a jagged chill snaking from the main building, crawling over every surface until it reached the glass. Within seconds, the once-clear windows were swallowed by frost, transforming into opaque, dark glaciers that sealed the house off from the world. Edgar felt a violent shiver rip through his spine. He turned to his mother, Madelyn, eyes wide and searching for a shared flicker of fear. But Madelyn sat calm and unbothered. I’m just traumatized, Edgar thought, hugging himself. The cold is playing tricks on my nerves. Suddenly, the overhead lights stuttered. They flickered once, twice—two seconds of uncertainty that left Edgar’s heart hammering against his ribs. “Mom? Did you see that?” he croaked. “The lights... something is wrong.” Madelyn didn't even look up. She let out a sharp, mocking huff. “Honestly, Edgar, was that mutton you ate laced with something? It has clouded your brain so much that yo

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINEThe blast from the main gate had been the easy part. The real work was clawing through the corridor of Block D, where the air was so cold it felt like liquid iron in the lungs.Tristan was huddled in the middle of the pack, using the larger, more aggressive inmates as human shields against the biting draft. Years of soft living and corporate luxury had left him lean but brittle; his hands, shoved deep into a stolen guard’s jacket, were already losing feeling.“Move, Vaughn! Or I’ll leave you as a doorstop!” a mountain of a man named Charles growled, shoving Tristan forward.Charles was the one who had secured the thermal charges. Tristan was just the man who had known the prison’s structural blind spots from a hushed board meeting years prior. He was a tool, nothing more.Tristan stumbled, his boots skidding on a floor slick with frozen blood. He didn’t argue. He just kept his head down, his mind already drifting to the world outside.He had a plan.He’d get back t