Chapter 1100
A glass of water toppled from his lap and shattered on the greenhouse floor.
Skye watched in horror as Ethan rushed into the frame, gripping Julian’s shoulders. Ethan looked directly into the camera, his face ashen, and slowly shook his head.
The feed cut to black.
Skye’s victory turned to stone in her throat.
“Skye?” Alistair asked, reading her expression.
“He’s gone,” Skye whispered, gripping the microphone until her knuckles turned white. “Julian — he saw it. And then he was gone.”
The applause of the crowd washed over her like static.
The applause that had sounded like thunder moments ago now felt like distant static, muffled by the rushing of blood in Skye’s ears. The giant screen behind the podium had gone black, erasing the image of Julian Vance’s slumped form, but the afterimage was burned into her retinas.
Paramedics were already swarming the VIP entrance. The doors burst open and a stretcher was wheeled in with frantic urgency. Ethan Vance ran alongside it, his face a mask of pale terror that had cracked straight through his usual composure.
“Clear the way!” someone shouted.
Skye stumbled down the stairs of the stage, her heels catching on the plush carpet. Her hand still gripped the microphone so tightly her fingers ached. Alistair was there before she reached the bottom step, his arm locking around her, steadying her.
She froze, her eyes fixing on the figure on the stretcher. The pale, angular face. The distinctive tartan blanket slipping off his legs. It was Julian. Right here. In Sea City.
“How?” Skye choked out, the cognitive dissonance making the room spin faster than her exhaustion already had. She had just seen him on the screen. He had been in the Alps. She had seen the mountains, the snow. He couldn’t be here.
Alistair tightened his grip on her arm, his voice a low, urgent rumble against her ear. “The Alps feed was a pre-recorded loop mixed with a deepfake overlay. We couldn’t let Marcus know Julian was in the city. He’s been in the penthouse suite above the ballroom for three days, coordinating the strike.”
“He risked a heart attack in the middle of a war zone?” Skye whispered.
“He wanted to watch Marcus fall with his own eyes,” Alistair said. “They got a pulse. Shocked him twice. It’s weak, but he’s back.”
She looked up at him. A muscle ticked beneath the skin of his jaw. He was holding it together, but she could feel the tension radiating off him.
“We have to go,” Skye said, letting the microphone drop. It hit the floor with a dull thud. “We have to get to the hospital.”
They pushed through the confused crowd — Sea City’s elite scattering like startled birds, whispering and pointing, their eyes darting between Marcus Cain being handcuffed by federal agents and the chaos surrounding Julian’s stretcher.
At the main doors, the ambulance’s flashing lights painted the wet pavement in strokes of red and white. They were loading Julian in.