Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 23
Connor ordered the genuine Aegis core removed from its vault. He was prepared to surrender the technology, Dominion, and every secret he owned if Voss returned Summer alive. Scarlett blocked the authorization before it reached Cypher’s team. Giving a murderer perfect targeting technology would create thousands of children like theirs.
Her refusal was not a willingness to sacrifice Summer. Scarlett believed Voss would kill them after receiving everything because the demands existed to weaken Connor, not complete an honest exchange. They needed a core convincing enough to survive inspection and dangerous enough to turn against its new owner. Connor gave her one hour to prove such a device was possible.
Scarlett returned to her mother’s handwritten letter. The language surrounding Guardian seemed too deliberate to be only an emotional farewell. She wrote the first letter of each sentence across a glass board. A hidden instruction emerged from the pattern.
Aegis required “the heir’s living consent” to release its highest functions. Passwords and source code could imitate activation, but only Scarlett’s biometric signature could remove Guardian restrictions. Her mother had made the system inherit loyalty through blood rather than possession. Voss did not know the stolen fragment remained incomplete.
Dominion engineers built a counterfeit core around authentic portions of the code. It would display correct architecture and operate briefly after Scarlett’s fingerprint and iris scan. Once connected to an external weapons network, Guardian would lock every linked system and transmit its location. Voss would receive exactly enough success to believe he had won.
Connor worried that requiring Scarlett’s presence made the plan too dangerous. She reminded him that Voss had already placed their daughter at the center of the war. Remaining behind would not make Scarlett safe, only useless. This was her mother’s creation and her child.
Meanwhile, Summer sat quietly in the moving transport and studied everything around her. She counted turns, listened for road surfaces, and noticed when distant train horns became the roar of aircraft. Connor had told her bravery meant paying attention even while afraid. She repeated his words until her breathing steadied.
When one guard looked away, Summer pulled a star-shaped clip from her hair. She pushed it into a torn seam behind the seat, leaving a piece of herself where someone might find it. Later, she scratched three lines into the fogged window to mark the number of long stops. Small clues made her feel less helpless.
Cypher reviewed the call audio from his hospital bed. Beneath Voss’s voice, analysts isolated a freight train, a low-flying jet, and an obsolete runway beacon. Only two abandoned facilities matched the combination. One was a former military airfield connected to Whitmore logistics companies.
Police searched vehicles recorded near the route. A traffic camera captured a medical transport entering a freight district before its plates changed electronically. Investigators later found Summer’s star clip inside an abandoned van. The clue confirmed that they were following the right path.
Connor stared at the tiny clip in an evidence bag. His daughter had been terrified and still thought about helping them find her. Pride mingled with guilt until he could no longer separate them. He promised Scarlett they would bring her home together.
Voss sent proof of life from a hangar marked with faded military symbols. He instructed Scarlett to bring the Aegis core alone to the abandoned airfield. Connor’s master key had to arrive on a separate encrypted device. Any armed aircraft or visible Dominion convoy would end the exchange.
Scarlett accepted the call and insisted on seeing Summer walk. Voss allowed the child to cross the frame, demonstrating she remained uninjured. Summer looked directly into the camera and tapped one foot three times. Scarlett recognized the signal from their games and knew three guards stood nearby.
The family used Voss’s arrogance against him. Connor would approach through maintenance tunnels identified in old base plans, while Scarlett performed the exchange above. Cypher would monitor the counterfeit core and trigger Guardian manually if its automatic process failed. Police would remain beyond the perimeter until Summer was clear.
Connor rehearsed every failure point. Scarlett finally placed a hand over the maps and asked him to stop searching for a plan without risk. No such plan existed. Their responsibility was to trust each other when the risk arrived.
He gave her a concealed communicator and repeated the emergency phrase that would trigger an assault. Scarlett gave him a different order: if forced to choose between Aegis and Summer, he must save their daughter. Technology could be rebuilt, but childhood could not. Connor promised that no machine would come before her life.
At the airfield, Voss moved Summer into an underground holding room. She heard guards discussing the Merchant of Death with fear. The knowledge that they feared her father gave her courage. She asked Voss why he hated Connor so much.
Voss answered that Connor had stolen an empire they built together and pretended morality justified it. Summer said Daddy stopped bad people, which made Voss laugh. He promised she would soon learn that every empire was built by someone willing to choose power over family. Summer refused to believe him.
The final message arrived with coordinates and a deadline. Scarlett had sixty minutes to reach the main runway. A live detonator appeared beside Summer in the video, proving Voss had prepared for betrayal. Connor checked his weapon while Scarlett secured the counterfeit core.
Their vehicles separated at the edge of the city, one heading toward the visible airport entrance and the other toward forgotten military tunnels. Scarlett watched Connor’s lights disappear in the mirror. Ahead, Voss waited to test whether a mother could deceive him while her daughter’s life rested on every word. She tightened her grip on the counterfeit core and drove forward.
