Chapter 880
Skye stumbled forward. Alistair caught her, pulling her behind him, his body a wall between her and the room.
“Secure them,” Alistair ordered.
Felix moved in on Caleb.
But the Patriarch wasn’t finished. From the far corner, the old man reached for a hidden lever and pulled.
A heavy iron gate slammed down, cutting the rescuers off from the Hayes family with a thunderous clang.
“You think you’ve won?” the Patriarch laughed, his voice thin and wheezing. “The game has just begun.”
The ticking accelerated. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
“Gas line!” Felix yelled, sniffing the air sharply. “He opened the valves! Run!”
“We can’t leave them!” Skye shouted, looking at Celeste through the iron bars.
T𝘩𝖾 𝘣𝘦𝗌𝘵 𝗋𝘦𝗏𝗶ewѕ 𝗈𝗇 𝘨𝗮𝘭ոо𝘃𝖾l𝗌.𝗰𝗈m
“We have to!” Alistair grabbed her and pulled her toward the hole in the wall.
They scrambled out into the night just as the cellar ignited. A dull, muffled whump shook the earth, and a column of fire erupted from the ventilation shafts.
Skye fell to her knees in the mud, gasping for air.
“Are they dead?” she asked.
Alistair stared at the smoking ruins. “We didn’t see bodies. But the Patriarch served his purpose — he delayed us.”
“Delayed us from what?”
“From stopping the upload,” Alistair said, checking his watch. “While we were playing family reunion, the Mastermind moved the final pieces.”
The aftermath of the explosion was a ringing silence.
Alistair pulled Skye to her feet, his hands moving over her for what felt like the hundredth time. “Did he hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Skye lied. She was shaking. “But the Patriarch — he had an escape tunnel. I saw the air draft near the back wall before the gate came down.”
“We’ll find them,” Lucian said, staring at the rubble. His face was unreadable. He had just threatened to execute his own sister.
“Lucian,” Skye said softly.
“She chose her side,” Lucian said, turning away. “Let’s get out of here.”
They retreated to the Oracle safehouse. The mood was grim.
“We need a new plan,” Julian said, studying the map of Haven City spread across the table. “The Patriarch is underground. He knows those tunnels better than anyone. We can’t hunt him on his own ground.”
“We don’t hunt him,” Skye said, her eyes fixed on the gems in front of her. “We use the Project Insight network. We make him come to us.”
“How?”
“He wants the stones to unlock the Mastermind’s central hub,” Skye said. “So we fake a signal. We use the Insight algorithm to mimic the digital handshake of the stones being slotted into a drive.”
“He’ll think we’re trying to access the Mastermind’s files,” Alistair realized. “Or steal the data.”
“Exactly,” Skye nodded. “We set the trap at the Old Hydro Dam. It’s the only place in Haven City with enough power to run a server node of that size.”
The plan was set into motion. Julian coded the signal. Lucian leaked the fabricated intel on the dark web.
Two hours later, the sensors at the Hydro Dam pinged.
“Movement,” Felix said. “Multiple hostiles breaching the perimeter.”
“Is it him?” Skye asked.