He Came Home Early and Found a Pet Collar Around His 6-Year-Old Son’s Neck. His New Wife Called It “Discipline”—Until Her Own Mother’s Phone Revealed What They Had Planned Before the Party Even Began. / Chapter 79 / 80

Chapter 79 - The Sovereign Dawn

Before Daniel could turn back to Mason, the ocean bay beneath the cliff violently erupted.

A massive, black steel hull broke through the surface of the Atlantic, shedding tons of white foam and ocean water like a rising leviathan. It was an eighty-meter, stealth-hulled midget submarine—an unregistered deep-sea extraction vessel belonging to the Sovereign Syndicate.

Hydraulic hatches on the vessel’s dorsal deck slammed open. Four heavy mooring cables fired from the sub's deck, embedding steel harpoons directly into the rock face beneath Arthur’s transport gantry.

*CLANK-CLANK-CLANK.*

The automated winches engaged instantly. The tracked gantry carrying Arthur Vance’s pod began rolling down the pre-laid steel rails toward the water’s edge, pulled inexorably toward the submarine’s open cargo bay!

"The extraction protocol was automated!" Daniel realized with sudden, sickening horror. "Arthur initiated the docking sequence before the conservatory blew!"

Inside the capsule, Arthur Vance was laughing. His oxygen mask fogged with every manic, gasping chuckle. He pointed a trembling, skeletal finger at Daniel, then at Mason, mouthing words through the soundproof glass:

*HE COMES WITH ME.*

A secondary hatch on the cliff bunker slammed open. Two remaining cybernetic-enhanced shock-troopers—the Syndicate’s Praetorian vanguard—lunged out with magnetic harpoon nets.

"Mason, RUN!" Daniel screamed.

One of the commandos fired a pneumatic cable net. The weighted steel mesh expanded in mid-air, wrapping entirely around Mason and pinning the six-year-old boy to the rocky ground.

"DADDY!" Mason shrieked as the cable winched backward, dragging him across the sharp basalt toward the descending gantry.

Daniel sprinted, firing his last two rounds into the first commando’s faceplate, dropping him instantly. But the second commando slammed into Daniel with the force of a freight train, driving him to the edge of the cliff.

They grappled on the slick rocks, fists and blades trading flesh in the dark. Daniel felt his fractured ribs splinter further, an agonizing pain shooting up his spine. With a final, desperate surge of adrenaline, Daniel locked his legs around the commando’s neck and threw his weight backward over the edge.

The commando plummeted fifty feet into the churning sea, his body dashed against the submerged rocks below.

Daniel barely caught the lip of the stone causeway with his bleeding fingertips. He hauled himself up, coughing blood, every muscle screaming in revolt.

Ahead of him, the gantry had already reached the submarine’s deck. The automated mechanical arms had hoisted Arthur’s pod inside the cargo bay.

And dragging behind the pod, trapped in the steel net, was Mason.

On the sub’s conning tower, Emily Vance had already regained consciousness, pulled aboard by two deckhands. Her face was bloody, her broken arm strapped to her chest, but she stood tall as the submarine’s ballast tanks began venting high-pressure air, preparing for an immediate emergency dive into the Atlantic abyss.