Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 20
Connor remained in the operations room long after Scarlett finished speaking. Every instinct shaped by his violent life told him distance created safety. Yet four years of absence had not protected Scarlett or Summer from anything. It had only ensured they faced their enemies without him.
He tore the false passports in half. Connor apologized for breaking his promise before fear had even tested it properly. He admitted that disappearing felt easier than trusting anyone to share the burden. Scarlett accepted the honesty but warned that apologies mattered only when they changed the next decision.
This time, Connor asked what she wanted. Scarlett would not expose Summer to operations or turn their home into a command post, but she refused to remain ignorant. She wanted a voice in every plan affecting their family. If Voss believed love made Connor weak, they would prove that partnership made both of them harder to defeat.
Connor agreed and presented the full strategy. The authentic Aegis core would be transferred to an isolated Dominion vault and disconnected from every network. A counterfeit drive would carry a traceable beacon and enough convincing data to attract Voss. Bennett Whitmore would become the path between them.
Scarlett insisted on handling the corporate side of the trap. She called another emergency Hayes board meeting and invited regulators, police, and selected reporters. Bennett received notice that the Aegis investigation would be discussed. Connor allowed information about the false drive to reach a compromised Whitmore contact.
Before leaving, Connor and Scarlett explained the safe portion of their plan to Summer. The child made both parents promise to return together. Connor sealed the promise with the same pinkie gesture she had required at the hospital. This time, he intended to keep it regardless of the enemy waiting.
The boardroom filled under heavier security than before. Scarlett presented the audit documenting Stephen’s shell companies and Whitmore Capital’s purchase of distressed Hayes debt. Transfers, messages, and hidden contracts connected Bennett to the attempted takeover. Directors who once supported his rescue now avoided his gaze.
Bennett accused Dominion of manufacturing evidence to eliminate a competitor. Scarlett responded with transaction records carrying his own encrypted authorization. Police investigators moved closer to the exits. The confidence Bennett wore into the room began to fracture.
He attempted to leave, only to find officers blocking the doors. Connor placed the counterfeit Aegis case on the table where Bennett could see it. The gesture appeared careless, but its purpose was precise. Bennett’s attention fixed on the case despite every accusation surrounding him.
During the confusion, Bennett reached into his pocket and sent a coded alert. Dominion intercepted the message without stopping it. Cypher traced each relay as the signal crossed foreign servers and returned to a domestic location. Connor waited for the coordinates that would finally expose Voss.
Bennett denied sending anything when officers seized his phone. He claimed Connor would never find Marcus Voss and could not prove a connection between Whitmore and the garage attack. The statement confirmed more than Bennett realized. Scarlett watched the investigators record every word.
Cypher received the trace result and went still. The signal did not lead to an abandoned warehouse or foreign compound. It terminated inside Dominion’s most restricted weapons research base. Someone with high-level access had been waiting behind Connor’s own security.
Connor ordered an immediate lockdown. No response came from the base command team. Internal cameras went dark in sequence, followed by weapons-control servers dropping from the central network. Voss had not taken Bennett’s bait; he had used the transmission to announce an invasion already underway.
An alarm sounded through Connor’s secure phone. Cypher attempted to contact the base through a redundant military channel while Dominion operatives surrounded the boardroom. Scarlett saw the tension harden Connor’s face. His empire, the force he believed capable of protecting anyone, had been breached from within.
The room’s screens flickered before every display turned black. A man appeared against the steel background of Dominion’s control center. Marcus Voss was older than the file photographs, with silver at his temples and satisfaction in his eyes. Armed intruders moved behind him among fallen security personnel.
Connor demanded a status report from Cypher, but his lieutenant’s voice vanished from the channel. Voss stepped aside, revealing Cypher restrained before a command console. Blood marked his collar, though he remained conscious. The man who had guarded Connor’s secrets was now leverage inside their enemy’s hands.
Voss congratulated Connor on finding a wife and daughter. He had always wondered what price could bring the Merchant of Death into daylight. Scarlett and Summer succeeded where assassins, governments, and rivals had failed. Love had made Connor visible.
Connor warned that harming Cypher would end with Voss dead. Voss laughed and opened three status windows beside his image. One showed the Aegis transfer convoy, another displayed surveillance near Summer’s safe residence, and the third contained Dominion’s weapons-core systems. He had placed a hand around every part of Connor’s life.
A countdown appeared across the screens. Voss had initiated the research base’s self-destruct protocol and locked Dominion administrators outside the system. Thousands of classified weapons designs would be destroyed, along with Cypher and everyone still trapped inside. Stopping the sequence required Connor’s personal authorization key.
Voss offered him an impossible choice. Connor could use the key to save Cypher and Dominion, but doing so would expose the safe residence protecting Scarlett and Summer; he could secure his family and watch the base burn; or he could surrender the genuine Aegis core and trust Voss to spare them all. None of the choices offered a path without blood. As the timer fell below ten minutes, every eye turned toward the Merchant of Death—and Connor realized he could save only one part of the world he had built.
