Alle Kapitel von The Man Who Married My Name: Kapitel 21 – Kapitel 30

"Dad?" The word tore from my throat, raw and fractured, vibrating through the blood-red emergency light of the sterile laboratory. Dr. Viktor Brooks stood blinking in the harsh crimson glare, his silver hair neatly combed, his white lab coat spotless. He didn't look like a man who had been brutally executed a decade ago. He looked like a ghost stepping out of a nightmare I had spent my entire life trying to forget. "Nadia," my father said, his voice smooth, warm, and utterly devoid of any paternal warmth. It was the calm, clinical tone of a scientist addressing a test subject. "Or do they call you Agent Brooks now? It doesn't matter. You've grown into quite the operative. Though your choice in company remains remarkably poor." Lucien didn't lower his weapon, but a muscle ticked violently in his jaw. His dark eyes scanned the man before us with cold, analytical disbelief. "I put a bullet through your skull in front of that fireplace, Viktor." "You put a bullet through a wet-clay

The blaring red alarms pulsed in perfect, agonizing time with my frantic heartbeat.UPLOAD AT 24%... 45%...Viktor’s triumphant laugh echoed through the freezing, fog-filled room. I hadn't just failed to destroy the weapon; my very presence had unwittingly handed them the final key. The biometric scanners had stripped the sequence directly from my retinal pulse.Silas lowered his gun from Lucien's neck, a cruel, victorious smile spreading across his frost-dusted face. "The sequence is secured. Kill my brother."My finger tightened on the trigger, but I didn't pull it against my own skull. The leverage of my own life was gone.I whipped the barrel of my submachine gun away from my temple, leveled it directly at the massive, glowing server racks behind my father, and held down the trigger until the magazine clicked empty.The high-caliber rounds tore through the fragile glass and exposed circuitry of the mainframe. The holographic terminal violently shattered in a blinding shower of blu

"Are you out of your damn mind, Brooks?"Vance’s voice crackled through the headset, laced with a dangerous mix of fury and disbelief. He didn't turn around, his hands white-knuckling the chopper's flight controls as we sped away from the burning mountain. "That drive was the only bargaining chip you had left with the agency. Without it, you aren't an operative. You're a massive liability.""I'm not an operative anymore," I replied smoothly, pressing a bloody pressure bandage hard against Lucien's torn shoulder. "The formula is ash. There is nothing left for the agency to exploit, and there is no weapon left for the black market to buy. The board is cleared."Vance cursed under his breath, violently banking the gunship toward the dark, jagged silhouette of the Alps. "The board is never cleared, Evelyn. Silas had a board of directors. The Voss Syndicate is a hydra. You just cut off the head, but the body is still twitching.""Then let them twitch," Lucien growled, his head resting heav

"You."The word scraped out of my throat, hollow and completely stripped of oxygen.Director Vance stood on the freezing tarmac, the runway lights casting long, demonic shadows across his weathered face. The six elite mercenaries flanking him didn't flinch, their laser sights painting a dozen glowing red dots across Lucien’s broad chest."Close your mouth, Agent Brooks," Vance said, his voice entirely devoid of the paternal warmth he had weaponized against me for years. "You’re letting the cold air in."My mind violently fractured, desperately trying to reconcile the man who had just handed us our escape route with the monster orchestrating our enslavement. "You’re intelligent. You’re the Director of a federal agency.""I am a pragmatist," Vance corrected, casually spinning his umbrella. "Governments change. Agencies lose funding. But the Board? The Board is eternal. We are the true architects of the global underworld. Silas thought he could outgrow us with your father’s bioweapon. He

The cold was not a temperature; it was a living, breathing entity. It clawed at my skin and ripped the oxygen directly from my lungs the second we were expelled into the midnight sky.Terminal velocity is roughly one hundred and twenty miles per hour. Falling through the freezing stratosphere without a helmet or oxygen mask felt like being crushed by a phantom weight. The roar of the wind was absolute, a deafening shriek that drowned out every thought except one.*Hold on.*My arms were locked like steel bands around Lucien’s broad chest, my face buried deep into the collar of his heavy coat. We were tumbling end-over-end through the black void. Below us, the jagged, snow-capped peaks of the Swiss Alps rushed up to meet us like a mouth full of broken teeth.Above us, the crippled Gulfstream jet disappeared into the clouds, taking Director Vance and my former life with it."Brace!" Lucien roared, his deep voice vibrating through his chest against mine.He didn't wait for us to stabiliz