He Opened the Nursery Door and Found His Mother Attacking His Wife—Then Her Shocking Accusation Revealed a Secret That Could Destroy Their Entire Family. / Chapter 63 / 80

Chapter 63 - Blood Under the Ice

"Move!" David hissed, grabbing Leah’s shoulder and shoving her forward into the darkness.

Above them, the ceiling erupted.

Charges of thermite-laced C4, planted directly above the drainage channel by Arthur’s forward scouts, blew downward in a blinding fountain of white-hot slag and shattered stone. The blast wave threw David and Leah forward into the freezing muck.

Through the gaping three-foot hole in the ceiling, tactical flares hissed into the tunnel, illuminating the murky water in grotesque shades of neon red.

Heavy ropes dropped through the opening. Before the smoke could clear, three heavily armored Cardinal Syndicate operatives rappelled down with surgical precision, their night-vision optics glowing like predatory green insects in the gloom. Their suppressed carbines were already raised, sweeping the tunnel.

"Prototype confirmed," the lead operative spoke into his throat mic, his voice flat and robotic. "Contain primary specimen. Neutralize the maternal variable. Secure the female juvenile."

They didn't see Leah.

She had rolled behind a collapsed buttress of brickwork. As the second operative stepped into the crimson water, Leah lunged. She didn't use a knife; she slammed the emergency magnesium flare she had carried in her pocket directly into the oxygen regulator valve of the soldier’s tactical mask.

The 2,000-degree chemical fire detonated the regulator in a blinding blast. The operative screamed, a muffled, horrific sound as he collapsed backward, thrashing in the water.

The lead soldier pivoted his rifle toward her, but he was already too late.

David was on him.

The speed of David’s attack defied human biomechanics. He closed a twenty-foot gap in the space of half a heartbeat, knocking the barrel of the carbine upward just as a three-round burst chewed into the ceiling. David drove his ceramic combat blade straight under the soldier’s Kevlar collarbone, severing the subclavian artery, and wrenched the assault rifle from the dying man’s hands in a single, fluid revolution.

The third operative fired blindly through the steam.

A round grazed David’s bicep, tearing through cloth and flesh. David didn't even flinch. The pain vanished into the roaring, cold matrix of his mind. He dropped to one knee in the crimson-stained water, brought the captured carbine to his cheek, and fired two controlled rounds directly through the center of the third soldier’s visor.

Silence returned to the tunnel, save for the hiss of the magnesium flare sputtering out in the bloody water and the sound of David’s ragged breathing.

Leah stood trembling, her knuckles white around Maya, who had buried her face in her mother's neck.

David lowered the weapon. He turned back to the hole in the ceiling. Looking up through the smoke, he saw the silhouette of Arthur Sterling peering down into the ruin, resting his chin on his silver cane, completely unbothered by the slaughter of his men.

"Magnificent," Arthur’s voice echoed down the shaft, sounding warm, paternal, and thoroughly demonic. "Thirty years in isolation, and the neural conditioning remains flawless. You were always my masterpiece, David."

"Come down here and say that," David snarled, raising the rifle toward the hole.

Arthur laughed—a dry, rattling sound. "Why should I soil my coat? You’re walking directly toward my terminal, David. There is only one exit to this drainage main. And waiting at the end of it... is your mother."