“Still pretending to be a soldier?” my brother laughed as my entire family humiliated me at our backyard barbecue, but seconds later, a V-22 Osprey landed outside, two officers saluted me, and my father finally realized he had no idea who his daughter really was. / Chapter 88 / 100

Chapter 88 - The Zero Protocol

"Then let's finish it," I said.

"Step back, Elena!" she shrieked, her thumb tightening on the trigger switch. "I swear to God, I will blow this room to dust!"

"No, you won't," I said, taking another calm, deliberate step forward.

"I will!"

"You're a sociopath, Eleanor. But you are not a martyr," I said, watching the micro-movements of her wrist and the slight twitch of her right eyelid. "A woman who spends forty years hoarding four trillion dollars doesn't want to die in a cellar under twenty feet of rubble. You love yourself far too much to push that button."

"You don't know me!" she screamed, her aristocratic composure completely shattering into hysteria.

*AUCTION TELEMETRY: 98% COMPLETE.*

"Vance," I barked without looking away. "Cut the uplink cable."

Vance stepped toward the server rack, his tactical knife drawn to sever the main fiber trunk.

"Stay away from that server!" Eleanor lunged forward across the desk, her arm swinging out to depress the detonator.

Before she could close her fist, a shadow flew past me.

It was Jake.

With an unearthly, animal roar, he hurled himself over the mahogany desk, tackling our mother with the full weight of his body. The expensive antique blotter tore in two; porcelain teacups and silver pen sets crashed to the floor.

"Jake, no!" I yelled.

They hit the carpeted floor in a tangle of limbs. Eleanor scratched wildly at his eyes, her manicured nails digging into his cheeks, screaming profanities that would have shocked the high-society circles she reigned over. Jake didn't strike her; he simply wrapped both of his arms around her right wrist, pinning the detonator against the floor with every ounce of strength he possessed.

"Do it, Elena!" Jake screamed, blood running down his forehead where Eleanor had raked him. "Cut the wire! Cut the damn wire!"

Vance didn't hesitate. He drove his combat blade straight through the master fiber-optic bundle in the server rack, twisting the steel until the glass cores severed with a spray of sparks.

The main terminal screen instantly went red: *CARRIER SIGNAL LOST. OUTBOUND PACKETS TERMINATED AT 99.4%. RECOVERY KEYS UNRESOLVED.*

Eleanor let out a high, piercing wail—the sound of an empress watching her empire evaporate into thin air.

I stepped around the desk, grabbed Eleanor by the wrist, and applied a sharp, practiced combat grip to the radial nerve. Her fingers snapped open in an involuntary spasm. The detonator dropped harmlessly into my waiting palm.

I engaged the manual safety on the detonator and handed it to Vance.

Jake slowly rolled off her, lying on his back on the carpet, staring blankly up at the ceiling lights, breathing in violent, shuddering gasps.

Eleanor lay curled on her side, her hair ruined, her pearl necklace broken into scattered white beads that rolled across the dark rug. She looked up at me with eyes full of pure, undiluted hatred.