Three hundred wealthy guests watched a maid stop Vanessa’s attack with one hand, never realizing the woman in the gray uniform had once been trained to dismantle dangerous threats. / Chapter 19 / 130

Chapter 19 - Unraveling the Web

Ethan stepped forward, his eyes locking onto Marcus Cole with unyielding defiance. "My family's defense accounts are locked behind triple-layered biometric authorizations. You could burn this entire state down and you wouldn't get a single dollar, Cole."

"I don't need a single dollar, Mr. Whitmore," Cole rasped, taking a slow step backward onto the rainy terrace. "I only need your authorization codes for the autonomous logistics fleet departing from Groton tonight. The fleet carrying experimental railgun prototypes for the Atlantic Fleet."

Naomi’s blood turned to ice. "The Groton naval base... this wasn't an assassination. It's a heist."

"Brilliant as ever, Reyes," Cole sneered. "While you were playing dress-up and disarming my third-tier mercenaries here, my actual strike teams have already breached the Whitmore defense holding in Connecticut. Your little romantic fantasy cost the Department of Defense its greatest weapon."

Cole raised a detonator. "Now... let's see if the billionaire can survive the fall."

Before Cole could depress the trigger, Ethan lunged forward. But Naomi was faster. She tackled Ethan around the waist, hurling both of them behind a massive, load-bearing marble pillar just as the explosive charges planted along the terrace perimeter detonated.

*BOOM!*

The concussive shockwave blew out the remaining floor-to-ceiling glass windows, sending a hurricane of deadly crystal shards across the ballroom. The floor beneath the terrace collapsed into the crashing black waves of the Atlantic below.

Smoke and sulfur filled the air.

Ethan coughed, wrapping his arms around Naomi, shielding her head from falling debris with his own body. He looked down at her through the dust, his face smeared with soot, his tuxedo torn.

"Naomi! Are you hit?" Ethan gasped, his hands frantically checking her shoulders and ribs.

"I'm fine," she wheezed, shaking the ringing from her ears. She looked at the smoldering crater where the terrace had been. Cole was gone. A grappling line hooked to a low-flying, dark helicopter whirred into the rainy night sky, vanishing into the storm clouds above the ocean.

"He's heading for Groton," Naomi said, scrambling to her feet with fierce urgency. "Ethan, the autonomous logistics network—can you shut it down remotely?"

Ethan pulled out his secure smartphone, his fingers flying across the cracked screen. His face went pale.

"The override servers are localized," Ethan said, looking up with sudden horror. "The only terminal with the clearance to abort the launch without triggering the self-destruct mechanism... is the master console in my private study at Whitmore House."

Naomi stared at him. "Cole didn't just breach Groton. He knew we would rush back to the estate."