My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 178

Chapter 178: physical ledgers

[Jake’s POV]

Isabella Vane’s mountain fortress was a jarring contrast to the brutal wilderness outside. The corridors were pristine, sterile, and blindingly white, illuminated by recessed LED lighting. It looked like the headquarters of a tech giant.

But the men patrolling the halls were definitely not software engineers.

We moved through the subterranean levels with terrifying, methodical precision. Without Oracle to map the blind spots in the security cameras, we had to rely on Darius’s extensive military experience. We hugged the walls, timing our movements to the rhythmic panning of the automated lenses, slipping through the sterile corridors like phantoms.

"The architecture is modular," Darius whispered, his eyes scanning the seamless white walls as we paused at a T-intersection. "Blast doors recessed into the ceiling every fifty meters. If the compound goes into lockdown, this entire level compartmentalizes into sealed kill boxes."

"Then we make sure they don’t trigger the lockdown until we’re ready to leave," I replied, checking the digital map Nia had downloaded to my tactical wrist-pad.

According to the blueprints Katarina had provided, the physical ledgers weren’t kept in a standard server room. Isabella Vane was too smart for that. Digital data could be hacked, corrupted, or wiped by a brilliant enough mind. But paper? Paper was permanent. Paper required physical destruction.

The vault was located at the very center of the sub-level, surrounded by three feet of reinforced concrete and a dedicated security detail.

We rounded the final corner, dropping to a crouch behind a heavy, polished steel supply crate.

At the end of the corridor stood the entrance to the vault. It was a massive, circular bank-style door, gleaming with polished chrome and heavy locking bolts. Flanking the door were four Tier-One PMCs. They were heavily armed, wearing full ballistic armor, and standing in a relaxed but highly alert posture.

"Four hostiles," Darius murmured, his suppressed MP5 raised. "Overlapping fields of fire. No cover between us and the door."

"We can’t stealth this," I said, my voice cold. I checked my watch. 02:24 AM. "Katarina hits the front gates in six minutes. We need to be inside that vault before the alarms go off."

"On your mark," Darius said, his breathing slowing to a calm, rhythmic cadence.

I pulled a flashbang from my tactical vest, my thumb resting on the pin. I didn’t have the predictive algorithms to tell me exactly where the grenade would bounce. I had to trust my own hands.

"Mark," I growled.

I pulled the pin and hurled the heavy cylinder down the pristine white corridor.

The mercenaries reacted instantly, their training kicking in. "Grenade! Eyes down!"

BOOM.

The blinding flash of white light and the deafening concussive blast filled the narrow hallway. Before the echo even began to fade, Darius and I broke from cover.

We advanced with lethal precision. Darius fired two short bursts from his MP5, dropping the two guards on the left before they could recover. The two guards on the right fired blindly through the smoke. Bullets sparked off the walls, filling the air with drywall dust. I dropped to one knee, sliding across the floor, and fired my assault rifle. The heavy rounds tore through the third guard’s abdomen, spinning him into the vault door.

The fourth guard managed to lock his sights on me.

I saw the muzzle flash. I felt the supersonic crack of the bullet passing inches from my ear, the heat of the friction burning my cheek.

Darius didn’t give him a chance to fire again. He closed the distance, grabbed the barrel of the mercenary’s rifle, and drove the stock of his MP5 directly into the man’s faceplate. The visor shattered, and the guard collapsed in a heap of ruined armor.

"Clear," Darius barked, his eyes scanning the empty corridor.

I stood up, my heart hammering against my ribs. The adrenaline was burning away the last remnants of the freezing lake water. I walked up to the massive chrome vault door.

"The biometric lock is tied to the central mainframe," I said, looking at the heavy keypad and retinal scanner. "Nia can’t hack it from New York."

"I brought the keys," Darius said, pulling a block of specialized, high-yield C4 from his tactical bag. He began molding the explosive putty directly into the seams of the heavy locking bolts. "Stand back. This is going to be loud."

I retreated down the hallway, taking cover behind the steel supply crate.

Darius set the detonator, jogged back to my position, and pressed the trigger.

The explosion was deafening. The shockwave rattled my teeth and sent a cloud of thick, acrid gray smoke rolling down the pristine corridor. The heavy chrome vault door didn’t blow outward; the locking bolts simply shattered, the sheer kinetic force warping the steel frame.

Darius stepped out of cover, grabbed the edge of the massive door, and hauled it open with a terrifying display of raw physical strength.

We stepped into the vault.

It wasn’t a room filled with gold bars. It was a library. Rows of polished mahogany shelves stretched out into the massive room, lined with thousands of identical, black leather-bound dossiers.

I walked slowly down the center aisle, pulling one of the dossiers from the shelf at random. I opened it.

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