Chapter 28

Elias stormed in, eyes burning with barely contained fury and raw, devastating fear.

“Talk to me,” he demanded, voice low and lethal.

Roger stepped forward first, his face grim. “Sir, both trackers went offline at the exact same time. Last known location is the second-floor bathroom, Hall 2 of the culinary institute. Thomas was stationed at the main entrance the entire time and never saw her exit.”

Jasmine leaned over her keyboard, typing rapidly. “Her estate phone is still with her, sir, but it’s powered off. I ... I think I can still trace it. The signal might be faint, but if I run a triangulation through the nearest towers and cross-reference with the school’s internal Wi-Fi logs, I can get a location. It’ll take longer, but it’s possible.”

Elias’s jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. He began pacing like a caged lion, hands flexing at his sides. The entire room could feel the storm building. These people had seen him in crises before — cold, calculating, terrifyingly efficient. None of them had ever seen him like this.

Roger continued carefully, “I have twelve vehicles already moving toward the school — fully equipped tactical SUVs. They’re fast, discreet, and ready for anything.”

Elias stopped pacing for a split second. Then, with a savage roar that shook the monitors, he drove his fist into the reinforced concrete wall beside him, blood smearing across the gray surface.

Every single person in the room froze in shock.

They had never seen Elias Voss lose control. Not like this.

Roger’s jaw tightened, but he kept his composure. Jasmine stared at the blood on the wall, stunned silent for a moment before forcing herself back to work.

Elias stood there breathing hard, blood dripping from his hand onto the floor. His eyes were wild, burning with a terrifying mixture of rage, fear, and something almost broken.

“Lena...” he whispered, the name cracking in his throat.

The girl who had become his entire world was out there somewhere with no trackers, no way for him to reach her instantly. The thought was unbearable.

He turned back to the room, his voice dropping into a deadly, ice-cold command that sent chills down every spine present.

“Find her. I don’t care what it takes. Tear the city apart if you have to. Bring my girl home. Now.”

The command center exploded into frenzied, hyper-efficient action. Roger started barking orders. Sophisticated black SUVs roared out of the estate, engines growling as they sped toward the culinary school. Jasmine worked furiously on tracing the powered-off phone.

But inside Elias Voss, the storm raged on — the devastating realization that for the first time in his life, he might actually lose the one thing he could not survive without.

He stood at the center of it all, blood dripping from his knuckles, eyes fixed on the main screen as if willing it to show him where Lena was.

His Lena.

And God help anyone who had touched her.

───

The hunt for Lena had begun.

───

“Jasmine,” he ordered, voice sharp as a scalpel, “pull every CCTV feed around the school. Inside and out. Run facial recognition on everyone who entered or exited in the last two hours. Cross-reference against every face we have on record — anyone who has ever stepped foot in this estate, anyone connected to me, to Lena, to her mother, or anyone who has ever worked here. Every acquaintance, every delivery person, every ghost. Run it all.”

“On it, sir,” Jasmine replied, her fingers dancing across multiple keyboards at blinding speed. Large screens around the room lit up with dozens of camera feeds — entrances, exits, hallways, parking lots.

The room fell into a tense, focused silence broken only by the rapid clicking of keys and the low hum of servers working overtime.

Minutes ticked by like hours. Elias paced again, a caged predator ready to tear through anything in his path. Roger stood nearby, coordinating teams on the ground, his voice steady but urgent as sophisticated black SUVs converged on the culinary institute.

Then Jasmine’s voice cut through the tension.

“Sir ... we have a match.”

A face appeared on the main screen, enlarged and crystal clear.

Samantha Davis.

Elias’s blood ran ice-cold. His entire body went rigid.

The timestamp showed her exiting the building mere minutes after Lena’s trackers had gone silent.

He knew.

He knew.

Roger stepped closer, jaw tight. “She was inside, sir. Left through the east side exit. No sign of Lena on any camera leaving after her.”

Elias’s voice was deathly quiet. “Find Samantha Davis. Track her phone. Pull every record we have on her — financials, properties, known associates, everything. Cross-reference her with all my acquaintances, past and present. I want to know who she’s spoken to in the last six months.”

“Already running, sir,” Jasmine said, sweat beading on her forehead as she worked.

Elias turned to Roger. “Search the entire school. Every room, every closet, every bathroom. She might still be inside. Tear it apart if you have to.”

Roger nodded sharply and began issuing rapid orders into his comms. “Launch both helicopters — full aerial sweep over the campus and surrounding five blocks. I want eyes on every exit and rooftop. Move!” Two helicopters lifted into the sky with a thunderous roar of rotors, slicing through the air to provide overhead coverage. Multiple teams were already sweeping the school building room by room. Jasmine worked frantically on tracing Samantha’s phone and digging through records.

Elias stood motionless in the center of it all, his mind a whirlwind of lethal calculation and soul-deep terror.

Lena was out there.

And for the first time in his life, he didn’t know exactly where she was.

The thought was unacceptable.

He would burn the city down if he had to.

His girl was coming home.

───

The hunt intensified with every passing second.

───

Half an hour later, Samantha’s silver car glided through the quiet suburbs and turned onto a long, overgrown private driveway. The destination was an old, imposing estate on the outskirts — once grand, now clearly abandoned. Ivy crawled up the stone walls, windows were dark and dusty, and the vast gardens had turned wild. It looked like the perfect place for secrets.

Samantha killed the engine and stepped out, her heels clicking against the cracked pavement. She looked triumphant, almost giddy, as she walked toward the main entrance.

Lena stayed perfectly still in the back seat, heart hammering so hard she was sure it would give her away. She was terrified — bleeding from the incision on her thigh, no trackers, no phone, no plan. But desperation had sharpened her mind. She couldn’t let Samantha disappear inside without knowing what was happening.

She waited until Samantha was halfway to the door. A short man stepped out to greet her. Lena didn’t recognize him, but the moment her synesthesia brushed against him, a wave of pure, suffocating darkness hit her — cold hatred, ambition, and a deep, personal vendetta. Whoever he was, he wanted Elias destroyed.

The two embraced briefly, sharing a cold, satisfied laugh before disappearing inside the house.

Lena moved.

She slipped out of the car on the opposite side, staying low and using the vehicle as cover. The estate had cameras — she could sense their electronic hum and see the faint red lights in the corners. But the property was old and poorly maintained. Many of the outer cameras were angled poorly or partially obscured by overgrown vines and branches.

She moved like a shadow, keeping to the blind spots, using the dense bushes and stone pillars for cover. Her thigh burned with every step, but adrenaline drowned out most of the pain. She circled around to the side of the building, finding a ground-floor window that was slightly ajar — likely left open for ventilation in the abandoned wing.

With careful, silent movements, she pushed it open just enough to slide through, landing softly inside a dusty, forgotten corridor. The air smelled of mold and old wood. She pressed herself against the wall, listening.

Distant voices echoed from deeper inside the house.

Samantha’s voice, laced with dark excitement: “It’s done. She drank it. The virus is in her system. By tomorrow morning, she’ll start showing symptoms. Within forty-eight hours, Elias will be watching his precious little pet die slowly, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

The man’s laugh was low and vicious. “Perfect. Then we move on him while he’s distracted and broken. The great Elias Voss, finally on his knees.”

Lena’s blood ran cold. She stayed hidden in the shadows, breathing shallowly, her mind racing. She had to find out more. She had to stop this.

But she was alone, injured, and deep inside enemy territory.

And the clock was already ticking.

───

The trap had been sprung — but Lena was no longer just the prey.

She was now hunting the hunters. Lena moved like a ghost through the decaying corridors of the abandoned estate, her heart thundering in her ears. Every creak of the old floorboards felt like a gunshot. The air was thick with dust and the faint metallic tang of chemicals. She kept one hand pressed to her bleeding thigh, the makeshift bandage already soaking through, but she pushed forward anyway. She slipped from room to room, staying in the shadows. Most of the house was empty — forgotten furniture covered in sheets, cracked mirrors, and peeling wallpaper. But deeper inside, past a heavy locked door she managed to wedge open, she found the truth. A hidden laboratory. The space was modern, coldly clinical, and utterly out of place in the crumbling mansion. Stainless steel tables gleamed under harsh emergency lights. Shelves lined with vials, petri dishes, and refrigerated units hummed quietly. Cages — some still containing the remains of test animals — sat in one corner. The smell of antiseptic mixed with something darker, more biological. Lena’s stomach turned. She moved closer to the main workstation. Stacks of notebooks and printed research papers covered the desk. Her trained surgeon’s eyes scanned them rapidly. Detailed notes on viral engineering. Genetic sequencing. Weaponization vectors. And then, in a thick black folder, the words that made her blood freeze: Project Eclipse – AI-Assisted Lethal Pathogen Pages upon pages of data. The virus they had given her was no ordinary bioweapon. It was something far worse — an AI-designed, rapidly mutating strain engineered for maximum lethality and near-undetectability in the early stages. Notes in the margin praised its elegance: “Perfect for high-value targets. Slow neurological degradation.” Lena’s hands shook as she flipped further. Then she found the other folder. Elias Voss – Target Profile Dozens of photos. Elias at medical conferences. Elias in the operating room. Elias walking through his estate. Candid shots of him with Lena. Even older ones — Elias as a younger man, standing beside a woman who must have been Liz. Pages of analysis followed: his routines, his security protocols, his psychological profile (“Extreme possessiveness. Will become unstable if subject Lena is removed”), his surgical schedule, even predictions about how he would react to Lena’s death. They had been planning this for months. Lena felt sick. She kept searching, desperate for more information on their plan for Elias himself. What were they going to do to him after her? How deep did this go?