Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 71
The secure team reached Asterion’s archive while Vale’s truck continued down Highway 47. Inside Scarlett’s personal box lay the identification card she found four years earlier. Its photograph showed a Connor still determined to belong nowhere.
Cypher scanned the card without connecting it to any network. Beneath the printed laminate, he found a thin mechanical strip patterned like an old freight lock. Vale had hidden a Zero Hour key inside Connor’s false identity.
Connor remembered Vale issuing the card before his first classified delivery. He believed it merely supported the truck-driver cover. His mentor had made him carry a command key without informed consent.
Scarlett had kept the card because it was once her only proof Connor existed. She used its name to search for him through four years of silence. The object that represented his disappearance now offered a way to make him stay.
A task-force aircraft delivered the card to their mobile command vehicle. Connor inserted it into an isolated reader. Eleven warehouse locks responded, but the lead truck retained control over their timers.
Vale drove toward an abandoned weigh station where the highway narrowed. Police cleared civilian traffic while keeping exits open. An aggressive blockade could roll the truck and trigger every core.
Scarlett’s plan placed two heavy vehicles behind the station barriers. Human drivers moved them only after Vale entered the lane. The armored truck slowed without colliding.
Vale released smoke and mechanical decoys. Task-force officers disabled the devices with direct fire, avoiding the networked systems Zero Hour expected. Connor approached under the commander’s authorization.
The analog radio activated. Vale ordered Connor to board alone and bring the card. If any other person approached, the first warehouse core would begin an independent detonation sequence.
Connor looked at Scarlett before answering. He would not accept the premise as truth merely because Vale presented it as a choice. They reviewed the truck’s old freight design together.
Scarlett remembered the passenger-side maintenance hatch from the night she hid inside Connor’s vehicle. Vale had armored the obvious entrances but preserved the original ventilation route. Her memory created a second path.
Connor boarded through the rear loading door with the card visible. Scarlett entered from beneath the weigh station platform after him. The task force monitored both without taking control away from either.
Vale met Connor inside the cargo compartment. Eleven mechanical displays showed the distant cores. Their timers had fallen below two hours.
He accused Connor of bringing his wife after being told to come alone. Connor replied that Scarlett had never been luggage, leverage, or someone waiting for permission. Vale’s rules did not define their partnership.
Scarlett reached the truck’s internal service corridor. The space resembled the vehicle where they first met, but every panel concealed a weapon. She inserted the card into the maintenance lock.
All eleven warehouse displays paused for one second. Cypher captured the response and began mapping the physical control sequence. Vale heard the mechanism and realized Scarlett was inside.
He activated the truck and broke through the station barrier. Connor seized a support rail as the cargo compartment tilted. Scarlett remained inside the narrow service channel.
Vale drove toward the freight yard where Connor and Scarlett had stopped during the storm four years earlier. He wanted their shared beginning transformed into his final battlefield. The highway disappeared behind sheets of rain.
The first core separated from the central countdown. A red ten-minute timer appeared at the hospital warehouse. Vale announced that only his manual code could stop it.
Scarlett opened the final panel and saw the freight yard ahead through the engine compartment. The timer reached nine minutes as the truck entered the place where Connor had once saved her, loved her, and left before morning.