Semua Bab RUTHLESS BILLIONAIRE EX-HUSBAND CHASED ME BACK: Bab 211 - Bab 220

The little girl's fingers were ice-cold as they closed around mine. "They're coming," she whispered, her silver-ringed eyes reflecting distant emergency lights.Another explosion rocked the vents, sending dust cascading down around us. Jeff's flashlight beam cut through the gloom, revealing dozens of tiny footprints in the grime."How many got out?" I asked softly.XLII held up both hands, then again, then three more fingers. Twenty-three.Ana cursed under her breath. "That leaves nineteen still trapped near B3."The girl tugged my hand urgently. "The bad voice says to follow the red lights. But the red lights lie."Mateo stiffened. "D-0's herding them toward the detonation zone."Jeff was already mapping the vents on his wrist display. "We need to—"XLII suddenly clapped her hands over her ears. "He's singing again!"The psychic backlash hit like a sledgehammer—*D-0's voice twisting through the corridors, mimicking my lullaby. Children crying as they stumbled toward the sound. A cou

The sterile white lights burned away all shadows, revealing Father standing on an observation platform above us. He looked older than I remembered—his tailored linen suit hanging looser, silver streaking his temples—but his smile remained the same. Chillingly polite."Demetria." He spread his hands. "You've met your sisters, I see."All around us, the golden-branded children floated in their pods, their features varying but all bearing traces of my bone structure, my nose, my stubborn chin.Lina made a wounded noise behind me. "Sisters?"Father's gaze flicked to her. "Granddaughters, technically. Third-generation templates." He tapped the railing. "Though D-1 will always be my favorite."The central pod bubbled as the fluid drained. D-1's body slumped against the glass, her chest motionless. Not dead—dormant.Jeff's pistol never wavered. "What do you want, Ryans?""Want?" Father chuckled. "I already have everything." He pressed a button on his watch.The chamber rumbled as panels slid

The safehouse hummed with the kind of quiet that always came before a storm.I sat cross-legged on the floor of the war room, my laptop balanced on my knees, the glow of the screen casting eerie shadows across the classified files Gregory Varga had so generously delivered. The encryption had been child's play to crack—either he severely underestimated me, or he wanted these files found.Jeff leaned over my shoulder, his breath warm against my ear. "That's the Alpine facility." His finger hovered over a blurred image of a concrete compound half-buried in snow. "But these schematics... these are new."I zoomed in. The blueprints showed subterranean levels that hadn't been there when we'd raided the place last winter. Deeper tunnels. Wider chambers. A whole new wing labeled Project Aegis in my father's precise handwriting.Eva appeared at my elbow, a mug of tea steaming in her hands. She'd changed out of Lina's sweatshirt into one of mine—a black cashmere sweater that hung loose around h

The alarms were a living thing—a shrieking, pulsing beast that rattled my teeth. Red emergency lights bathed the vault in hellish crimson, turning the fluid in the tank the color of blood.My twin’s golden eyes tracked me through the glass.Demetria Sofia Perez-Rykov.She mouthed my name when I did, her fingers twitching in perfect unison with mine. A marionette mirror. A grotesque echo.Greg was already moving, typing frantically at a hidden console beside the tank. “Initiate synaptic sync,” he barked into his comms.Jeff lunged for him, but his wounded shoulder gave out. He crashed to his knees, hissing through clenched teeth. “Demi—run—”The tank hissed.Amber fluid drained in a rush, and my twin—Echo—slithered forward as the glass slid open. Naked, glistening, her chest rising with her first unfiltered breath.Then she looked at me.And I——was seven years old, screaming as cold hands strapped me to a steel table——was twelve, sobbing as a needle pierced my spine——was drowning, a

The woman standing before us was both a stranger and a ghost.Isabella Ortega had been dead for twelve years—car crash in Caracas, no body recovered, just a closed casket and a son who never spoke of her.Yet here she was.Gold threaded through her dark hair like circuitry. Her hands, once calloused from years of fieldwork, now gleamed with metallic tendons beneath the skin.She smiled at Jeff, and it was all teeth."Mijo," she crooned. "Look how far you’ve fallen."Jeff swayed, his breath ragged. The black veins pulsed up his neck, inching toward his jaw."You’re not her," he rasped.Isabella sighed. "No. I’m better."She snapped her fingers.Two soldiers hauled a struggling figure into the light—Eva.Gagged. Bruised. But alive."A trade," Isabella said. "Your hacker... for your compliance."Echo twirled a scalpel between her fingers. "We’ll even throw in the cure for Jeff’s little... infestation."I stepped forward. "What do you want?"Isabella’s golden eyes locked onto mine."Your