Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 21
The countdown fell beneath ten minutes while Marcus Voss watched from every screen. He expected Connor to choose between his family, Cypher, and the empire built around them. Each option demanded a sacrifice Voss could exploit. Connor refused to believe an enemy offering three paths intended to honor any of them.
He turned to Scarlett instead of issuing an order. Aegis had been designed by her mother before Voss corrupted it, and its original purpose was rescue rather than destruction. If a fourth path existed, Scarlett understood the mind that created it. For the first time in a crisis, Connor openly asked what she saw.
Scarlett remembered the handwritten letter recovered beside the Aegis drive. Several passages described a shield that protected rescuers when every ordinary system failed. The words had seemed sentimental until that moment. She opened the scanned document and searched for a technical meaning hidden beneath them.
Voss warned that hesitation would kill Cypher first. On-screen, an armed man pressed a weapon against the lieutenant’s head. Connor showed no reaction, trusting Cypher to understand that surrender would doom more than one hostage. His silence bought Scarlett precious seconds.
She found repeated references to a “guardian beyond the network.” Cypher’s technicians had cataloged a dormant Aegis routine named Guardian, but no one knew its purpose. Scarlett believed it was an independent isolation protocol her mother built to prevent military misuse. If activated, it might separate compromised systems without requiring Dominion’s central authority.
Connor entered only the first segment of his authorization key. Voss smiled, assuming he had chosen Dominion over his family. The partial key opened emergency routing without surrendering complete control. Scarlett injected Guardian through the Aegis test environment before Voss realized another process was running.
At the captured base, Cypher used the distraction to cut one restraint against a broken console edge. He attacked the guard nearest him and reached the manual safety panel. Automatic shutdown remained locked, so he began disabling explosive relays by hand. Each circuit he severed saved another section of the facility.
Guardian spread through Dominion’s network like a wall assembling itself. It isolated the safe residence, erased its routing trail, and closed the channel Voss had used to monitor Summer. The window showing the child went black. Scarlett had protected her daughter without giving Voss the true Aegis core.
The same isolation trapped hostile access inside the research base. Connor transmitted new commands to loyal security teams while Voss fought to retain control. Several blast charges stopped responding, but the main reactor countdown continued. Someone had to reach it physically.
Cypher descended into the damaged control chamber despite blood running from his shoulder. He pulled the manual release and took the force of an electrical discharge through both arms. The reactor entered emergency cooling with less than two minutes remaining. Half the base survived, though the western laboratory collapsed in fire.
Voss abandoned the control room before Connor’s team reached it. He copied a portion of Aegis source code and escaped through a maintenance route prepared by his inside collaborator. The stolen fragment could not unlock Guardian, but it contained enough architecture to create another threat. Connor watched his image disappear from the screens.
Cypher’s voice returned through a damaged radio. He reported that the reactor was stable and most personnel had reached reinforced sections. Connor allowed himself one breath of relief. Then Cypher warned that Voss had transmitted an external attack order before losing access.
The order targeted the safe residence. Guardian had severed remote surveillance but could not stop operatives already moving toward the property. Connor called the security commander and received no response. Every external camera had gone dark.
Scarlett tried Summer’s watch. The call failed twice before a weak connection opened. Static filled the line, followed by the child’s frightened breathing. Connor took the phone but remembered not to conceal what was happening from Scarlett.
Summer whispered that the lights had gone out. The guards had told her to remain in the bedroom, yet she could hear doors opening downstairs. Someone was moving through the house without calling her name. Connor instructed her to enter the hidden shelter behind the wardrobe.
Scarlett guided Summer through the release sequence, keeping her voice gentle. The child moved the wooden star, pressed the concealed button, and crawled inside. She closed the reinforced panel just as footsteps reached the hallway. The watch carried every small sound to her parents.
Connor dispatched the nearest response teams and prepared to leave the boardroom. Voss had designed the attack to force him across multiple battlefields, but Connor would no longer face them alone. Scarlett entered the mobile command vehicle beside him. Together they monitored Summer and the damaged base.
At the safe residence, emergency power flickered once and died. A beam of light crossed the bedroom beyond Summer’s shelter. The child covered her mouth, remembering Connor’s instruction to stay silent. Metal scraped against the hidden panel.
Connor promised they were coming. Summer asked whether he could still find her without the house cameras. He told her the watch was enough and that Daddy would always follow her voice. Another sound interrupted him before she could answer.
The shelter lock disengaged with an authorized Dominion tone. Someone outside had used a valid senior security code. Summer backed into the darkness and whispered the only warning she could manage: “Daddy, there’s someone in the house.” Then the reinforced door began to open.
