All Chapters of The Zombies Apocalypse Brought Me Back To My Fiancee : Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

“I don’t know how to explain this without it sounding worse than it actually is,” Isabella said, her hands trembling now, all pretense of composure gone entirely. “Though I suppose, given everything else I’ve just admitted, there isn’t much room left for it to sound better.”“Start with the leverage,” Vanessa said. “What does he actually have on you.”Isabella was quiet for a long moment, something old and painful visibly working behind her eyes before she finally answered.“Before I worked for Hale, I worked for someone else. A man who ran what I thought, at the time, was a legitimate security consulting firm.” Her voice had gone distant, reciting something she’d clearly spent years trying not to think about. “It wasn’t legitimate. By the time I understood what I’d actually been helping facilitate, people had already been hurt. Badly. I left the moment I understood, but leaving doesn’t erase what I’d already done, and Hale found the records of my involvement two years ago.”“What kin

“That’s convenient,” Adrian said, his voice tight, the accusation hanging just beneath the surface of the words. “An anonymous tip, leading you here, at exactly the hour we’d be searching. That story works equally well whether you’re telling the truth or covering for yourself.”“I’m aware of how it sounds.”“It’s not simply how it sounds. It’s genuinely, structurally identical to any cover story someone would construct after being caught.”“Adrian,” Vanessa said sharply, “that’s my father you’re talking to.”“I’m aware of that too. I’m also aware that we just discussed, less than an hour ago, that whoever we’re looking for has been embedded in this family longer than Hale has. Your father fits that description better than almost anyone else currently in this compound.”“He’s not the one who did this.”“You don’t know that with certainty. None of us do, which is precisely the problem.”“I know my own father.”“You knew Rosa too, for twenty years, and we genuinely considered her a suspe

For a full three seconds, nobody said anything at all.Then Reyes turned from the terminal, her own face registering something between confusion and genuine, visceral shock, staring at the screen like it had personally betrayed her.“That’s not possible,” she said. “I pulled that log myself. If it were me, why would I show you my own name.”“That’s actually a fair point,” Adrian said slowly, though his hand hadn’t moved from where it rested, tense and ready, near his sidearm.“It could be deliberate misdirection,” Victor said, his voice carrying none of the earlier warmth from his conversation with Vanessa, fully back in command mode. “Showing us the evidence yourself, banking on exactly the confusion it’s currently creating.”“Or it could be someone spoofing my credentials,” Reyes said, her composure cracking into something closer to genuine panic now. “I haven’t left this team’s side in weeks. When exactly would I have had the opportunity to trigger a manual override from a terminal

The room Vanessa had been assigned came equipped with a single guard posted outside her door, a young operative named Felix who’d apparently drawn the short straw of monitoring the compound’s most notoriously difficult prisoner.“You don’t have to stand there the entire time,” she called through the door, an hour into her confinement. “You could get a chair.”“Director Hale’s orders specify constant visual monitoring.”“Constant visual monitoring of a closed door doesn’t actually require standing. I’m just saying, as someone who cares about your lower back health.”“I appreciate the concern. I’ll remain standing.”She gave up on that particular line of conversation and instead focused on the small, cracked gap beneath her door, through which she could just make out the corridor beyond, and more importantly, the opposite door where Adrian’s own confinement had been established roughly fifteen feet away.It took her twenty minutes of careful observation to realize the corridor’s old int

Midnight arrived with the particular tension of a held breath, Vanessa watching through her door’s narrow gap as the shift change began, Felix handing off his post to a considerably less alert-looking replacement who immediately settled into a folding chair with visible disinterest in the job.Felix gone, she scrawled quickly. New guard looks bored already. Good sign.Same here, Adrian’s response came. My replacement is actively scrolling through his phone. Considerably less vigilant than Felix.Dad’s guard just left to get coffee, came Miriam’s note, considerably more encouraging than the earlier updates. Said he’d be back in ten minutes. That’s our window.Victor’s response arrived with characteristic precision. Ten minutes. Coordinate now. Vanessa, you’re closest to the supply closet marked on the compound’s original blueprints, the one with the maintenance access panel. Can you reach it unassisted if your guard’s attention is sufficiently diverted?I can try, Vanessa wrote back. W