Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 30
The three red targets remained on Cypher’s screen. Dominion’s dormant autonomous weapons were waking beneath Aegis guidance, but no launch command had been issued yet. Cross was assembling leverage before Connor could expose him. The family crisis had become a threat to entire cities.
Connor confirmed that Summer’s security team could relocate her, but moving one child would not protect everyone around her. Scarlett refused to let fear narrow their mission. Guardian had been created to shield civilians, and her mother’s work would not become the instrument of their deaths. They entered the underground route toward Dominion’s backup center.
Loyal operatives secured each junction without alerting Cross. Cypher bypassed old mechanical locks while Scarlett carried the biometric key for Guardian. Connor moved ahead, no longer recognized by the security system he designed. Every locked door demonstrated how completely Cross had stolen his authority.
Above them, Cross assured the board that the target maps were a defensive simulation. Directors demanded access to raw data, but he classified it under emergency powers. Several attempted to withdraw support for his appointment. Cross locked the meeting room before another vote could begin.
Connor’s team reached the backup center and restored a physical archive drive. Deleted audio returned in damaged fragments. Scarlett heard her mother’s voice arguing that Aegis would never guide weapons. Another man answered that moral hesitation had no place in Dominion’s future.
The voice belonged to Adrian Cross. A second recording captured him ordering Voss to stage a fatal accident and recover every copy of the research. Cross warned that Scarlett might inherit her mother’s access and should be monitored. Four years of pursuit began with that command.
Scarlett stood motionless while grief became proof. Connor offered to stop the playback, but she insisted on hearing everything. Her mother had died protecting a technology meant to save lives. Scarlett would finish the work she could not.
Cypher transmitted the restored recordings to directors, police, and international regulators. Cross tried to block the upload, but Hayes Group mirrors carried it beyond Dominion. His voice spread across every boardroom screen. The coup lost its respectable disguise.
Cross appeared over the backup-center channel. He admitted the recordings were real and expressed no regret. Scarlett’s mother had possessed a world-changing system and lacked the courage to use it. He believed history belonged to people willing to make terrible choices.
Connor called him a coward who outsourced murder and hid behind boards. Cross answered that Connor had once understood power before Scarlett and Summer softened him. The argument no longer concerned corporate control. Two visions for Dominion stood against each other.
An alarm warned of movement above the center. Marcus Voss had entered headquarters with armed followers, using the chaos to pursue Cross. He wanted revenge for being blamed, abandoned, and nearly killed. His stolen C-7 fragments opened the same doors Cross believed secure.
Voss reached the board level and confronted his former partner. Cross accused him of failing every assignment, including Summer’s kidnapping. Voss fired, forcing Cross into the central command corridor. Dominion security divided between protecting directors and stopping both men.
Connor’s team advanced from below while Scarlett activated Guardian. The program entered the weapons network but encountered C-7 barriers around the launch system. Her biometric signature could delay activation, not cancel a founding-level command. Cross still possessed the final authority.
Voss cornered Cross near the control chamber. Before he could kill him, Cross triggered an automated defense and wounded two of Voss’s men. He sealed himself inside the chamber with the stolen Aegis fragment. Voss pounded against the reinforced glass as his former partner took control.
Police surrounded the headquarters, but no one could breach the chamber before launch. Cross opened a channel to Connor and Scarlett. He demanded the genuine Aegis core, Connor’s public confession to sabotaging Dominion, and permanent surrender of all ownership. Refusal would make the first city an example.
Connor tried his old master key. The system rejected it because the board suspension remained active. Cypher attempted to restore executive status through the backup center, but C-7 erased each request. Legal authority and technical control had separated at the worst possible moment.
Scarlett searched Guardian for another path. Her mother’s protocol could redirect rescue systems, yet Cross had wrapped the weapons in corrupted Aegis code. Breaking the shell required simultaneous access from inside the chamber. Someone would have to reach Cross physically.
Voss offered to breach the chamber in exchange for immunity. Connor refused to trust him, but time was disappearing. Scarlett suggested using Voss as the disruption without granting him control. Their enemies’ hatred might create the opening Guardian needed.
Cross activated the final targeting display. Three cities appeared, each carrying population estimates and projected casualties. The third was the city sheltering Summer. A fifteen-minute countdown began beneath its name.
Connor’s private phone rang through the interference. Summer asked why every guard looked afraid and whether he was coming back. Connor promised he would, staring at the city marked for destruction. He told her to keep the watch close and follow Scarlett’s emergency rules if the alarms began. Then Cross spoke across the system: surrender Dominion and Aegis, or watch the place holding his daughter become the first target. The timer fell to fourteen minutes while Connor listened helplessly and painfully to both frightened voices through the same device.
