Chapter 57 - The Black Forest Fortress
The air in the hallway was thick with cordite and smoke. Alexander stood over three fallen mercenaries, his tactical vest scorched by shrapnel, but his eyes were blazing with adrenaline.
"The roof is clear, Boss! Falcon chopper is on the pad!"
We didn't retreat to Regent's Park. We knew that Arthur Vance would immediately redirect his full military reserve the moment his communications were restored. The only defense was an absolute, immediate offensive.
Three hours later, as the dawn broke over the mist-shrouded peaks of southwestern Germany, our stealth Gulfstream touched down on an abandoned military strip twenty miles outside Baden-Baden.
Leo and Maya had spent the entire flight weaponizing the data on the crystalline drive. It was not merely a bank key; it was the *Obsidian Ledger*—a catastrophic compendium of every illegal sovereign wire, every bribe paid to European finance ministers, and the complete biological blueprint of Arthur Vance’s illegal human engineering project.
"He didn't just engineer us, Mom," Maya said, her voice shaking slightly as she pointed to a classified schematic on her tablet. "Arthur Vance has severe telomere degradation. He's eighty-two years old, and his heart is failing. The entire purpose of the 'Obsidian Line' wasn't just to produce heirs."
I looked down at the medical files, and my stomach plummeted into an abyss of pure revulsion.
"Organ harvesting," I whispered, the words tasting of ash. "He created the four children with his pure genetic markers so their bone marrow, kidneys, and cardiac tissue would possess a zero-percent rejection rate for his experimental cellular rejuvenation therapies."
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Alexander slammed his fist against the cabin bulkhead with enough force to dent the aluminum panel. "The bastard created his own grandchildren to use as biological spare parts."
"He will never lay a hand on them," I said, my voice dead, quiet, and deadlier than a loaded gun. "Alexander, assemble the strike team. We don't wait for the Conclave to convene tonight. We hit the fortress now."
