THE MORNING AFTER GRANDPA'S FUNERAL, MY PARENTS CAME TO STEAL HIS HOUSE. THEY NEVER EXPECTED THE MAN WAITING BEHIND HIS STUDY DOOR / Chapter 74 / 118

Chapter 74 - Submerged in Blood

Smoke and CS gas rolled into the command center in a suffocating gray wave.

Through the haze, the red laser designators of the Orion Group contractors swept across the room like the predatory eyes of mechanical spiders.

"Suppressing fire!" Victoria screamed, dropping behind a heavy steel terminal and firing double-taps through the smoke.

I didn't wait for orders. I rolled to the right, sliding behind an auxiliary power generator just as a hail of 5.56mm armor-piercing rounds shredded the holographic projector above, showering the deck with fragments of glass and circuit boards.

Two contractors moved through the breach, their thermal goggles glowing green behind ballistic masks.

I popped up from the generator's flank, aligning my iron sights with the first operator's neck where the Kevlar vest left the carotid artery exposed. *Two shots. Double tap.*

The weapon bucked in my hands. The first operative dropped instantly, his rifle discharging harmlessly into the ceiling as he collapsed. The second operator spun toward me, but before he could acquire his target, a familiar silhouette dropped from the overhead cable catwalk above the door.

Evelyn.

Her hospital gown was soaked in blood from her re-opened shoulder wound, but her hands were steady. She drove an eight-inch surgical scalpel directly through the mercenary's ear canal, riding his collapsing body to the deck before snatching his dropped submachine gun in one fluid, terrifying motion.

"Missed me?" she yelled through the smoke, spraying a burst back toward the corridor to suppress the reinforcements.

"You were supposed to be in the ICU!" I shouted back, crawling along the bulkhead to drag Arthur's wheelchair behind the defensive barrier.

"The nurses tried to sedate me," Evelyn spat, ejecting an empty magazine and slapping a fresh one home with the heel of her hand. "I don't like needles. Especially when I hear your father’s voice on the public address system."

"Move! To the sub-dock!" Victoria ordered, tossing a smoke canister back toward the breach. "Julian, push the chair! The service lift behind the main console goes straight down to Submersible Bay Zero!"

I grabbed the handles of Arthur’s transport chair, sprinting backward toward the reinforced lift while keeping my handgun leveled at the smoke. Evelyn covered the left flank, her fire discipline relentless and lethal.

Suddenly, an armored figure stepped through the secondary ventilation access directly beside the lift.

It wasn't an Orion mercenary.

It was my father.

Richard Vance wore a bespoke black tactical vest over a tailored cashmere sweater, looking entirely composed, an automatic shotgun resting casually against his hip. Behind him stood two massive, heavily augmented security guards.

"End of the line, Julian," Richard said, a cold, patronizing smile spreading across his face. "You've had your little rebellion. You played the soldier boy, just like your grandfather wanted. But the real world is run by people who write checks, not people who pull triggers."

"Richard," Arthur wheezed from the chair, his face contorted in agony. "You... you were never my son. You were just an infection."

Richard didn't even look at the old man. He kept his eyes locked on mine. "Drop the weapon, Julian. Hand me the drive. Come home. Your mother has prepared a very comfortable suite for you in Zurich. You'll never have to hold a weapon again. Just give us the biometric access, and you can live like a king."

"I saw what you did to his study, Dad," I said, my voice dropping into a register of absolute, murderous calm. "You tore his house apart looking for scrap metal. You sold out your own blood."

"Blood is a biological accident, Julian," Richard sneered. "Power is deliberate."

Richard raised the shotgun.

Before he could pull the trigger, Arthur threw his weight forward, lunging straight out of the wheelchair with a roar of pure, dying fury, tackling his son’s legs and knocking the shotgun's muzzle upward just as it fired.

The blast shredded the hydraulic lines above, spewing high-pressure red oil across the walls.