Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 22
Connor ordered every available unit toward the safe residence. The nearest team remained six minutes away, an eternity measured against Summer’s frightened breathing. He wanted to drive there himself, but Cypher and the surviving base personnel still needed extraction. Voss had split the crisis with deliberate precision.
Scarlett kept the watch connection open. She told Summer not to leave the shelter unless the visitor repeated the emergency phrase Connor had established. A man’s voice came through the hidden door, calm and reassuring. He claimed Daddy had sent him to move her somewhere safer.
The stranger entered the correct phrase. Dominion’s system accepted his credentials, and the shelter displayed a green authorization light. Summer hesitated because Connor had taught her to obey verified protectors. Scarlett heard the confusion and ordered her daughter to remain inside anyway.
The man overrode the internal lock. He wore a Dominion security uniform and carried identification belonging to a senior evacuation officer. Before Summer could retreat, he lifted her from the shelter and removed the watch from her wrist. The connection ended beneath the sound of Scarlett calling her name.
Connor nearly turned the convoy around. Scarlett stopped him from abandoning the base without a plan, reminding him that the response team was already closer to Summer. She contacted the safe residence through a buried analog line while Connor coordinated Cypher’s rescue. Partnership forced both of them to act through terror.
At the research base, Dominion soldiers entered the damaged control center. They found Cypher pinned beneath a fallen support beam but alive. Connor directed the medical evacuation remotely and ordered the maintenance tunnel sealed. Voss had already escaped beyond the outer perimeter.
Cypher regained consciousness as medics moved him. His first report concerned an unauthorized C-7 credential used during the attack. The code belonged to Dominion’s oldest executive tier and could bypass residential safeguards. No ordinary infiltrator should have known it existed.
Connor asked whether Voss could have stolen the credential from the base. Cypher said the access had been authenticated before the assault began. Someone inside Dominion had prepared Summer’s removal in advance. Her kidnapper had not broken through their security; he had been invited by it.
The first response vehicles reached the residence. Guards found two colleagues unconscious and the service garage empty. Summer’s bedroom shelter stood open, with no sign of struggle beyond a fallen drawing. The authorized evacuation officer whose identity had been used was dead in another city.
Scarlett arrived minutes later and ran through the damaged house. She found Summer’s family picture near the garage door, one corner marked by a muddy boot. The three figures still held hands beneath the winged truck. Scarlett pressed the paper to her chest and refused to collapse.
Connor searched the driveway himself. Tire impressions showed that a medical transport had departed during the blackout. Traffic systems recorded no such vehicle because Dominion clearance had automatically suppressed its route. C-7 controlled more than doors.
An operative found Summer’s children’s watch crushed beside the rear gate. The screen was broken, and its transmitter no longer responded. Connor lifted it with hands that had never trembled around a weapon. He had promised the number would always bring him to her.
Scarlett reminded him that Summer was intelligent and observant. She would leave another clue if given the chance. Connor wanted certainty rather than hope, but hope was the only thing Voss had not yet taken. He ordered every medical vehicle within fifty miles traced manually.
Cypher joined by secure video from the ambulance. Despite his injuries, he reconstructed the C-7 authorization path. The command had passed through a dormant founder account removed from normal audits. Only someone familiar with Dominion’s original architecture could reactivate it.
Voss had not built Dominion alone. Early investors, engineers, and administrators had shared access before Connor consolidated control. Most records from that era existed only in cold storage. Cypher promised to identify every person who could have touched the account.
A call reached Connor’s private number before the search returned results. Video opened on the broken screen of Summer’s watch through a redirected connection. Marcus Voss sat inside a moving vehicle, relaxed beneath dim lights. Summer was visible behind him with her hands bound.
She looked frightened but unharmed. Connor forced his voice to remain steady and told her he was coming. Voss turned the camera toward the window long enough to show only darkness. Then he warned that any tracking attempt would change the condition in which Connor found his daughter.
Scarlett stepped into view and demanded to speak with Summer. Voss allowed the child a few seconds. Summer said she had done what they taught her and apologized for leaving the shelter. Scarlett told her she had done nothing wrong.
Voss ended the exchange before Connor could ask for terms. He wanted the genuine Aegis core, Dominion’s master authorization, and Connor’s public resignation. Instructions would follow once each demand was prepared. If Connor tried to substitute another device, Summer would pay.
The screen froze on Summer’s face. Connor crushed the edge of the phone in his hand, but Scarlett took it before anger destroyed their only line to her. Voss believed a child had made the Merchant of Death controllable. Connor looked at his wife and understood that saving Summer would require them to become more unpredictable than their enemy.
