All Chapters of The Cold Compromise : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Chapter 72: Château du Lac Ethan arrived in Zurich long before dawn, stepping off the train with a body that felt like it had been carved full of cracks. Every breath stabbed at his ribs, sharp and hot, but his mind stayed icy and focused. Pain was no longer a weakness. It was a reminder. A compass pointing him toward what mattered most. Luca was in danger, and Ethan had no intention of letting Thorne win. The cold Swiss air cut through him as he walked through the station, but the chill only fed his fury. He had already confirmed the exact location of the Château du Lac—a secluded villa tucked near a private lake, known only among men who traded favours in shadows and built wealth on silence. It was the kind of place where sins were washed in luxury and secrets were stored like wine. The moment Ethan heard its name, something in him snapped into place. That was where Thorne was keeping Luca. But before he could get there, he had to handle the rot hiding closer: Silvio. The trai

Chapter 74: Into the Fire Ethan moved through the pitch-black service tunnels with painful slowness, every step forcing another shallow breath out of his injured ribs. The darkness felt heavy enough to press against him, as if the stone walls themselves were leaning in to swallow him. Damp earth clung to the air, thick with mould, and the smell only grew stronger the deeper he went. His suit dragged across the rough concrete, the expensive fabric now reduced to nothing more than a thin shield between his body and the cold, unfriendly walls. The only thing guiding him was the small tactical lamp clipped to his harness. Its narrow beam carved a thin path through the dark, barely strong enough to touch the corners of the tunnel. In that light, Silvio’s stolen schematics felt almost too detailed—evidence of a traitor who had known the Chateau’s bones more intimately than anyone should. Every turn, every access point, every exit door had been mapped by a man who had never planned to

Chapter 76: Traitor’s Price The satellite phone felt heavier than it ever had in Luca’s hand. It's cold metal pressed against his palm like a final link to the world he had grown up in—a world of coded calls, blood promises, and decisions that split a life into before and after. Around him, the night was shaking. The Château groaned under the weight of battle. Gunfire cracked inside like bones snapping. Furniture crashed. Men screamed. And over it all came the distant cry of Swiss sirens rising steadily, getting closer, circling the mountain like wolves that had caught a scent. Luca’s chest rose and fell quickly, each breath tight with both fear and fury. He knew this moment would come. He could feel it down in his bones. A traitor didn’t just vanish. A traitor repeated the pattern until someone forced their hand to stop. And Silvio had been repeating that pattern for years. Ethan burst out of the shadowed trees, limping but still moving with the stubborn force of adrenaline. Swe

Chapter 78: Mountain Sanctuary The plateau emerged from the fog like a shadowed promise. The old hunting lodge sat nestled among the twisted pines, its rough stone walls muted beneath the morning haze. Luca and Ethan stumbled onto it, bodies battered, lungs burning, hearts hammering—not from exertion alone, but from the relentless, escalating weight of enemies still hunting them. Ethan’s ribs screamed with each breath. He leaned heavily against the thick pine trunks lining the plateau’s edge, fingers pressed to the splints Luca had hastily fashioned in the trees below. “I can’t… I can’t keep this up,” he rasped, voice ragged. Luca ignored the pain in his own legs and the burn in his lungs. He grabbed the heavy back door and shoved with all his strength. It creaked open on rusted hinges, the smell of decay and cold wood washing over them. The lodge was abandoned, a relic of simpler hunts and simpler days. Dust lay thick over the floor, and a faint, lingering scent of old woods

Chapter 80: The EMP Trap The lodge was a frozen skeleton of its former self. Frost clung to the edges of broken windowpanes, and the smell of damp wood and burnt oil hung thick in the air. Luca moved with quiet, precise urgency, dismantling the old generator for its magnet coils, stripping copper wire from the attic, and twisting it into dense coils around a rusted gas canister. Every movement was deliberate. Every touch was a calculation. Ethan, pale and bruised, leaned heavily against the stone fireplace, ribs tightly bound. Despite the agony in every breath, he was alert, eyes sharp with the cold clarity of a former agent who had never stopped thinking two steps ahead. “The secure vans use a proprietary encryption for the remote ignition bypass,” Ethan explained, his voice rough but controlled. “It’s a low-frequency broadcast. But it needs a sudden surge of power to override it, fry the system. We’re not building an EMP in the usual sense—we’re building an oversized, low-frequ