THE UPRISING HEIR

Chapter 5: Twenty-Four Hours to Bleed

The video replayed on the tablet screen, over and over. Mia’s soft whimpers filled the room, each one like a dagger in Jayden’s chest. She was blindfolded, her small hands bound with zip ties. A man’s silhouette moved behind her, but the lighting was dim, too calculated, too clean.

The voice had been disguised, processed to sound metallic. “You’ve been playing the empire’s game. Let’s see how well you play when it’s personal. Twenty-four hours. Alone. Or the girl dies screaming.”

The video cut off. Jayden stood frozen for several seconds, then smashed the tablet against the wall, shards flying like shrapnel. “FIND HER!” he roared, voice raw with rage, Voss rushed in, followed by Sage and two tactical operatives. The shattered screen crackled with sparks. “She’s been taken,” Jayden said, barely holding his composure. “We have twenty-four hours.”

The Race Begins. In the war room, Sage immediately initiated a scan on the metadata of the video. “No location signature,” she muttered. “They knew what they were doing. Whoever edited this used a ghost OS.”

“But no system is perfect,” Voss said. “Check for environmental cues.”

They scrubbed the video frame by frame. Jayden stood behind them, heart pounding in his chest like a war drum. “Wait,” Sage whispered, zooming in on the background.

There, in the top-right corner of the frame, was a blinking red light. Barely visible. Jayden leaned in. “What is that?”

Sage smiled grimly. “An emergency beacon. Standard in old Council interrogation rooms.”

“Where?”

She paused. “Facility X12-R04-V13.” Jayden’s heart stopped. “The same one encoded on the coin.”

Voss paled. “That site is supposed to be off-grid. Sealed after the Cold Transaction War. It was used to… extract confessions.”

Jayden grabbed a combat vest from the weapons locker. “Then that’s where I’m going.”

“I’m going with you,” Voss said.

Jayden turned to him. “No. This is on me. If they see a squad, they’ll kill her.”

Sage handed him a small implantable tracker. “Put this under your skin. If anything goes wrong, we’ll find you. And Jayden?”

He turned back. “Don’t die.” En Route: Alone into Hell

Jayden boarded a private jet, silent, black, no logos. It flew under a shell corporation registered to a ghost name. he sat alone, staring at the broken coin in his hand. Its jagged edges dug into his palm, he remembered Mia’s laughter when they were kids. The way she clung to him when their mother died. The way she always believed in him, even when the world called him trash.

“This time,” he whispered, “no one takes her from me.” The jet touched down in a snowy wasteland outside Novosibirsk, Russia. A black SUV waited, engine already running. The driver wore no insignia. No words were exchanged. Jayden was taken to the edge of a frozen forest, where a narrow metal door stood embedded in a rock face, half-covered in snow.

Facility X12-R04-V13. The interior was as cold as the ice outside, bare metal walls, flickering lights, long-abandoned corridors smeared with old stains. Jayden moved slowly, gun drawn, he passed cells, some still containing skeletal remains. Rusted chains. Scratched words in multiple languages on the walls. "No truth in torture."

"We were loyal."

"He lied."

Then he heard it. A single sob. He followed the sound through three locked chambers, until he reached a room surrounded by heavy glass. Mia. She was alone, sitting on the floor, trembling. No one else in sight. Jayden burst in, kneeling beside her. “Mia, it’s me.”

She flung her arms around him. “Jay… they said you wouldn’t come…”

“I’ll always come,” he said fiercely, cutting her binds. “Let’s get you out of here.” But the moment he stood, the door slammed shut behind them, red lights flooded the chamber. A voice came through the speakers. “Congratulations, heir. You’ve passed your first test. But let’s see what you’re willing to sacrifice for your throne.”

Gas hissed from vents above. Jayden yanked Mia close, covering her mouth and dragging her into the far corner. “Stay low!” he said, then another door opened, opposite side of the room two men entered. Armed. Military gear.

Jayden opened fire, one dropped. The other fired back, grazing Jayden’s shoulder. Mia screamed. Jayden tackled the man, slamming him into the wall. They fought brutally, hand-to-hand, bone to bone. Jayden’s training kicked in,granted by weeks of Voss’s harsh drills. In seconds, it was over.

Jayden stood, blood on his shirt, chest heaving. His arm burned. The other man lay unconscious, or dead. Another voice spoke. This time, familiar. Evelyn. “You were never meant to win that cleanly.

But I’m impressed.”

“What the hell is this?” Jayden spat.

Evelyn stepped into view behind the glass, arms folded. “I told you there were players neither of us understood. Someone staged this. Lured you to the facility that only Board-level members know exists. That means there’s a leak among your own.”

Jayden looked down at Mia, then back at her. “Then why risk her life? Why risk mine?”

“Because they wanted to see what you’d do under pressure,” she said. “How far you’d go.”

Jayden’s jaw clenched. “And you just watched?”

“No,” she said. “I recorded everything. Including the man who brought Mia here, your old friend, Grant Whitaker.” Jayden froze.

“Check the logs,” Evelyn continued. “He sold you out to the Architect. That thumb drive? Laced with trackers.” Jayden remembered the handshake. The faint smirk,  bile rose in his throat.

Evelyn stepped closer. “You want to stop being a pawn? Then stop playing fair.”

She dropped a flash drive onto the floor. “Take this. It’s the Architect’s shadow network. Use it, or die trying.” Then she vanished back through the security doors.

Back at the Estate. Mia was rushed to the medical wing safe, sedated, recovering. Jayden sat in silence, wounds bandaged, mind spinning. Whitaker. The Architect. The Vault. The Coin. The broken dragon. Everyone wanted a piece of him, but no one had taken his soul yet

He inserted the flash drive into the estate’s mainframe and watched the screen light up with lines of code, backdoor entries, wire transfers, blackmail folders… and the names of every Board member involved in a second inheritance plan.

A plan called Project Ouroboros. It didn’t just aim to split the empire. It aimed to destroy it, and replace it with something far worse, that night, Jayden received a short video from an untraceable number.

A man in a dark suit sat facing the camera, his face… exactly like Wesley Worldsen. “Hello, Jayden.

They told you I was dead. But that… was only half true.”