"Don't move."The voice wasn't mine. It wasn't Caleb’s. It was the man in the three-piece suit—my son, grown into a titan with silver eyes. He stood at the edge of my ice block, his hand resting on the glass. The heat from his palm made the surface hiss."Where is he?" My voice was a dry rattle in my throat. I couldn't feel my legs. My lungs burned like I'd swallowed a box of nails."Caleb is where he chose to be." The man—Leo, I remembered his name now—didn't look at me. He looked at the woman in the silver dress. "He’s at the border. Keeping the sleepers back. Someone had to stay in the cold while the rest of us moved into the light.""He stayed?" I tried to surge forward. The ice didn't break. It just bit deeper into my skin. "You left him out there?""I didn't leave him." Leo finally met my eyes. The silver light in his pupils was cold. Professional. "He’s the warden of the Ark now. If he leaves, the liquidation starts again. The board didn't die, Ethan. They just changed their op

"Who gave you that?"I didn't wait for him to answer. I grabbed Leo’s wrist. Hard. His skin felt like marble—no, like the glass on a high-end smartphone. Smooth. Unyielding. Under the surface, I could see the silver barcode pulsing. It wasn't a tattoo. It was a live feed."The board," Leo said. He didn't flinch. He didn't even look at his arm. He just kept staring at the briefcase. "They said you'd be difficult about the transition. They said you'd forget that the debt always has to be balanced.""I paid the debt." I shoved his arm away. My knuckles were white, shaking. The alcohol withdrawal was starting to bite, a cold tremor deep in my stomach. "The Ark is gone. The sleepers are dust. There is no board.""There's always a board, Ethan." Leo opened the briefcase.Inside wasn't money. It wasn't gold. It was a single, obsidian tablet. The screen was dark, but as Leo touched it, a series of coordinates flickered in violet light."The Ark was the distraction," Leo whispered. His voice w

All Chapters of The Hostile Takeover: Signed, Sealed, and Claimed: Chapter 61 - Chapter 62

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