2025-11-06 04:34:07Like a tomb, the warehouse doors yawned open. Alexander coasted on momentum until gravel crunched beneath the tires after killing the Suburban's engine two blocks out. With his mask tight and his scar aching, he ventured out into the darkness. With Mira's weight pressing heavily against her chest in the sling, Tatiana trailed behind, Glock lifted. Lucy's zip-ties were rattling with each stumble, and Cole and Victoria were at her sides. Despite the pain, Grayson brought up the rear with his AR-15 solid and his side bandaged tightly.
Alexander had a buzzing burner. Bring the patents, Harrison. She may also bleed.
He smashed the phone and threw away the pieces. "No bargain."
When Tatiana noticed the ink leaking through his shirt, her gaze shifted. "You're on fire."
"Later." He gestured ahead.
Boots silent on crumbling concrete, they crept through a side door. Broken skylights striped the floor with moonlight. The smell of rat droppings and grease filled the air.
On his wrist tablet, Grayson's drone stream was glowing. Harrison's central level. Jacob's left cage. Mira is correct, sedated, vital signs declining.
Tatiana gasped for air. "How much time?"
"Just twenty minutes prior to organ failure."
Cole looked up the charge of breaching. “On three, flashbangs.”
Lucy had her ankle ties cut by Victoria. "You die when you scream."
Lucy nodded, her tears slicing through the dirt.
With a Glock in one hand and a dagger in the other, Alexander led the point. They moved from shadow to shadow like fog. A guard with a bright cigarette came around the corner. Alexander flashed his blade. The man's throat opened and he fell silently.
Face stony, Tatiana stepped over the body. "Unambiguous."
They arrived at the main floor. Harrison was standing on a metal table with Mira limp under a hanging worklight. She had IV lines running into her arm. Five-year-old Jacob, blond and scared, hunched in a dog box with his fingers sticking through bars.
Mira's throat was pressed up against Harrison's knife. Patents. Right now.
Alexander moved to the center of attention. "Release her."
Harrison's chuckle was heard. "You first." A drop of blood formed as he squeezed the blade.
Tatiana's Glock jerked to life. "Give her another touch; I'll take your hand."
With her pistol out, Victoria turned to the left. "Simple, cousin. The family get-together is over.
Cole threw a flashbang at them. It clinked and rolled. Harrison's gaze expanded.
The sound was deafening. The light was white and strobed. Alexander made a lunge. Harrison cut wildly. Hot fire erupted from the knife as it struck Alexander's forearm. Ignoring it, he threw Harrison to the floor. Bone on bone, the fists swung.
Tatiana tore IVs free and leaped the table. Mira's eyelids fluttered as she gasped. "Mom?"
"I got you, sweetie." She took the girl in her arms and held her tight.
Cole opened the carton with a kick. Sobbing, Jacob staggered out. Lucy collapsed to her knees as she raced to him. "Baby, I'm here. I'm present.
With his bandage leaking blood, Grayson covered the exits. "We're burned. Four police officers."
Harrison's wrists were zip-tied by Victoria. I'll cut your face for I*******m if you don't confess on camera.
Harrison spewed blood. Benjamin has left already. private aircraft. Cayman at sunrise.
He was pulled up by the collar by Alexander. "Then the message is you."
He threw a recorder down and pulled Harrison to the table. "Speak."
Harrison's tone faltered. "Stolen patents. The heir of Mira. Alex was framed by Benjamin. Everything.
Tatiana pocketed the drive and hit stop. "Insurance."
Mira shifted around in her embrace. "Daddy Ghost?"
Alexander bent down and gave her a forehead kiss. "Right here, little one."
His vision became hazy. Spots of black danced. He wavered.
He was apprehended by Tatiana. "Alex?"
Blackridge's gift of radiation poisoning struck like a freight train. Black phlegm spattered the concrete as he coughed. He felt pain in his stomach.
Over communications, Grayson's voice cracked. Medevac is on its way. Wait a moment.
Tatiana threaded Alexander's hair while holding his head on her lap. "Remain with me."
He took hold of her wrist. "Island." Assure me.
Sirens cried out nearer. Cole burned the patents, causing the paper to turn black. Victoria tucked the knife away after wiping it.
Lucy rocked Jacob in her arms. "Are we free?"
Tatiana never took her eyes off Alexander. "Not just yet."
His body seized. His lips flecked with foam. His name was screamed by Tatiana.
Dropping down to them, Grayson tore open the medical kit. "Now, atropine."
Cole poked Alexander's thigh with the needle. His pulse was faint, but the seizure slowed.
Grayson's code blue yelled from the hospital pager.
In the distance, monitors screeched. The ER coded Grayson.
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Chapter 190: Sealed Breath
In the sudden silence, the seed's pulse sounded like a silent thunderclap. It wasn’t a threat. It was true. There was a period at the end of a sentence, but it had rolled under the desk and was just waiting to be picked up. They didn’t speak. They merely stared at the little, black glimmer on the white sand. It was beneath the slide, or where the slide had been, but it was now only a metal curve protruding from the dune that had been washed by the sand. “We could leave it,” Alexander remarked, his voice scratchy. He wrapped a protecting arm around Mira, who was quiet, watching the seed with a child’s somber interest. “Bury it deeper. Forget it’s here.” “It would grow,” Tatiana responded, her own voice weary beyond measure. "In the dark." without anyone to observe it. What kind of story blooms in the dark, alone?” She thought about Benjamin, nurturing his hatred in seclusion. "A perverse one." A spiteful one. Thus, we demolish it. Right now. He took a step toward it, his foot sinki
Chapter 189: Death Fruit
The playground was eerily quiet. There was no longer any wind. The distant sounds of the suburb were gone. On the wood chips, it was just the three of them: Tatiana on her knees, a sobbing seven-year-old Mira clutching to her, and Alexander Harrington's elderly, breathless husk with a jar of his final sigh sitting on his ribcage. The floating orchard was gone. The sky was a neutral, flat blue. The golden swing lay neglected, its chains now dull and inactive. All that existed was this finale. CHAPTER 400. Tatiana stared at the jar. The label was final. Absolute. This was not feasible. It was a receipt. For all the struggles, loops, and love that had unavoidably brought us to this point. To a playground where her spouse died of old age in minutes, his life-force robbed to pay the mortgage of 215 destroyed tragedies. Mira’s small hands clutched her mother’s arm. “Is Daddy sleeping?” The innocent question was a knife. Tatiana said in a cracked voice, "No, sweetheart." “He’s… gone.” I
Chapter 188: Sky Swing
The fruit was a gut-punch of recollection made tangible. Tatiana could hear the ghost of her own cry, feel the slick heat of Alexander's blood through her clothes, and smell the cordite and champagne from the gala. Trapped in that sphere of smoked glass, it was all there, a museum display of her biggest failure. To reach Mira, she would have to fly past it. Its proximity seemed toxic, a psychological radiation that threatened to suck her back into that moment, to make her feel the death that had defined so much of their war. Mira swung, heedless in her enchanted sleep, a trapped princess in a floating necropolis of horrible endings. This is his creation, Tatiana realized, hovering, her twilight wings beating the thin air. In order to trap her among the ruins, he enticed her up here. To remind me of the cost of every victory. Benjamin weaponized their own past since he was no longer able to prevail in a straight fight. She gazed from the Death Fruit to her daughter. A choice. Confr
Chapter 187: Swing Altar
The sight of their daughter, ankle-locked to a golden swing and soaring into the heavens with a puppet’s laugh, broke something in Alexander. The cool, strategic half of him was destroyed, leaving only raw, paternal terror. He yelled, "MIRA!" and lunged for the swing set. However, the swing was no longer fixed to the playground's typical A-frame. The cables stretched skyward, unimaginably long, vanishing into the cloud layer. The actual machinery was someplace in the heavens; the set was really a stand-in. Harrison-13 stood back, his hands in his pockets, gazing with a peaceful, inquisitive look, as if seeing an interesting science experiment. He was no longer the shy boy next door. He served a purpose. A plot device. Tatiana didn’t spend breath on shouts. She stared down at her own body, at the ripped bridal robe. She focused on the region between her shoulder blades, where the storm-cloud wings had erupted. They were gone, but the canal was burnt open. The phantom agony served a
Chapter 186: Priest Smile
The word “granddaughter” hung in the fragrant air of the false cathedral, a spider’s thread of possession. Benjamin’s smile returned, thinner now, harsher. The rebellious bride, Tatiana, was not in his line of sight. His sights were on the prize, the heir. Standing motionless in her maid of honor's gown on Mira-20. Benjamin reiterated, his voice a calming, toxic tune, "The story must go on." We transplant to another branch if one fails to produce fruit. The tree is alive. The orchard endures.” He extended a hand toward Mira. “Come, child. Take your mother’s place at the altar. Accept your legacy. After all, you have a birthright to it. Mira remained still. Her eyes were wide, fixated on Tatiana. She was the seventy-year-old female who had nibbled the apple from Chapter 1. She was aware of the price of legacy. Alexander discovered his voice, a rough rasp of sound. “You don’t touch her.” Benjamin’s gaze flicked to him, amused. “Or what, Alexander? Will you use your naked hands to de
Chapter 185: Gold Wedding
It was triggered by the taste. A circuit was finished when a synapse fired. The rented ranch house, the stormy backyard, the chain-link fence, all of it melted like a watercolor painting in the rain. The sensations from the fruit became reality. The aroma of myrrh and orange flowers permeated the thick, fragrant air of a large, packed room. The sensation of silk became the heavy, structured weight of a wedding gown on her torso. The organ's sound gave way to the grand, soaring sounds of Wagner's "Bridal Chorus." Tatiana blinked. In a vast, gothic church, she stood at the end of a long, red-carpeted aisle. Stained glass windows portraying not saints, but elaborate, abstract patterns of thorns and roses, reflect colored light on the stone floor. Hundreds of guests sat in pews, their faces a jumble of happiness and sorrow. All were dressed in impeccable, formal clothing. She was clutching a bouquet of white roses and black calla lilies. She looked to her left. Alexander stood there
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