My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 118

Chapter 118: The Praetorian

[Ethan’s POV]

I aimed for the squad leader’s center of mass and squeezed the trigger.

The Glock barked, the muzzle flash cutting a bright, violent arc through the fog. The 9mm round slammed into the PMC’s heavy ceramic chest plate. It didn’t penetrate, but the sheer kinetic force of the impact lifted the massive man off his feet and threw him backward into the gravel.

The frag grenade slipped from his fingers, bouncing under the rusted wheels of a nearby freight car.

"Down!" I roared, tackling Claire to the muddy ground behind the wooden boxcar.

The explosion shook the earth. A shockwave of heat and concussive force ripped through the rail yard, sending a shower of jagged shrapnel and splintered wood raining down over our heads. My ears rang with a high-pitched whine, and the taste of sulfur flooded my mouth.

I didn’t wait for the dust to settle. I grabbed Claire by the harness of her vest and hauled her up, dragging her behind a stack of steel shipping containers.

The two remaining PMCs instantly turned their weapons toward our position. Suppressed gunfire chewed through the edge of the container, sending sparks and chips of metal flying into my face. We were pinned.

I pressed my back against the corrugated steel, ejecting my half-empty magazine and slamming a fresh one home. My hands were shaking, but my mind was terrifyingly clear.

Flashback - Twenty Months Ago

The private airstrip in Virginia was bathed in the sweltering heat of mid-July.

I stood in the shade of a hangar, holding a bottle of water, watching Darius run an obstacle course. But it wasn’t a football drill. He was wearing a sixty-pound weighted vest, carrying a customized assault rifle, and moving through a mock-up of a multi-story building with terrifying, fluid speed.

He breached a door, double-tapped three targets in the span of a second, and transitioned to his sidearm seamlessly when his rifle clicked empty.

Standing next to me, holding a stopwatch, was a lean, scarred man named Vance—a former Delta Force operator who charged ten thousand dollars a day for his time.

Darius finished the course, jogging over to us. He wasn’t even breathing hard. He looked like a tank that had somehow learned to move like a sports car.

"When the hell did you become John Wick?" I asked, handing him the water bottle.

Darius laughed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "About six months ago. Right after Jake bought out Aegis Solutions."

"I thought Aegis was supposed to be our muscle," I said, confused. "Why is Jake paying ex-Delta and Mossad guys a fortune to run you through black-site drills?"

Darius’s smile faded, replaced by a grim, absolute loyalty. "Because Jake is smart enough to know that mercenaries fight for the highest bidder. Aegis is loyal to the Vanguard paycheck. But Jake said he needed a general. He needed someone who was loyal to the family."

I looked at the massive linebacker. "So he paid to have you rebuilt."

"He paid seven figures to have the best killers on the planet break me down and teach me everything they know," Darius said softly. "CQB, evasion, counter-surveillance, psychological warfare. I have the body of a linebacker, Ethan, but Jake bought me the brain of a Tier-One operator. I’m not just his friend anymore. I’m his Praetorian Guard. And starting tomorrow... I’m going to start teaching you."

Present Time

Darius’s voice echoed in my head. They are used to having a god’s-eye view. When you cut their wires, they panic. Use their panic.

I didn’t stay pinned. I dropped to my stomach, crawling through the mud until I reached the far edge of the shipping container, putting ten yards between me and the spot they were currently shooting at.

I peeked around the corner. The two PMCs were advancing slowly, their weapons raised, their night-vision goggles glowing in the fog. They were focused entirely on the spot where I had just been.

But they had forgotten about the ghost in the yard.

High above them, the massive, rusted arm of a loading crane swung silently through the mist. Jake had climbed the gantry.

A heavy steel shipping chain, thick as a man’s wrist and ending in a massive iron hook, plummeted from the fog. It didn’t hit the ground. It wrapped around the neck of the PMC on the right.

The man didn’t even have time to scream. The chain snapped taut, violently jerking him upward into the impenetrable gray mist. A sickening crack echoed across the yard, followed by the sound of a heavy body being dropped onto the roof of a train car thirty feet in the air.

The last PMC spun around, firing wildly into the fog above him, completely losing his nerve. "Show yourself! Show yourself, you freak!"

He backed up, his boots crunching loudly on the gravel, his weapon tracking shadows. He backed right into the narrow gap between two freight cars.

A hand reached out from the darkness between the cars.

It was a filthy, blood-stained hand. It grabbed the barrel of the PMC’s submachine gun, violently jerking it upward. The PMC pulled the trigger, emptying the rest of his magazine into the sky.

Before the PMC could draw his sidearm, a second hand shot out of the shadows, gripping the man’s tactical vest. With a terrifying display of raw, brutal strength, the PMC was yanked violently into the pitch-black gap between the train cars.

There was a brief, frantic scuffle. A wet thud. And then, absolute silence.

I stayed frozen behind the container, my gun raised, my heart hammering against my ribs. I waited for a minute. Then two.

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