My Milf Conqueror System novel Chapter 180

Chapter 180: The Blood Price

[Jake’s POV]

The upper levels of Isabella Vane’s mountain fortress were a war zone.

When Darius and I kicked open the heavy steel door leading out of the elevator shaft, the pristine, sterile white corridors we had seen in the sub-levels were gone. The air was thick with gray smoke, the smell of pulverized concrete, and the deafening, rhythmic thud-thud-thud of heavy artillery impacting the exterior walls.

Katarina Volkov wasn’t just creating a distraction. She was trying to level the mountain.

"Status!" I barked into my earpiece, praying the lead lining in the lower walls hadn’t permanently fried the comms.

Static hissed for a terrifying second before Claire’s voice broke through, tight and frantic.

"Jake! Thank God. We lost your signal when the vault went into lockdown. Are you clear?"

"We’re clear," I said, moving down the smoke-filled corridor, my assault rifle raised. "The physical ledgers are ash. But Isabella wasn’t in the compound. She set a trap. We’re fighting our way to the surface now."

"You need to move faster," Sofia’s voice cut in, cold and authoritative. "Katarina’s assault team is taking heavy casualties. Isabella’s garrison has deployed automated heavy machine-gun turrets on the roof, and they have a secondary PMC quick-reaction force moving up the mountain road. If you don’t extract in the next five minutes, you will be trapped inside the perimeter."

"Understood," I said. "Where is the extraction point?"

"North courtyard," Claire said rapidly. "Katarina blew a hole in the outer wall with an RPG. Her armored G-Wagon is waiting right outside the breach. But the courtyard is a kill box, Jake. Isabella’s men have it locked down from the second-floor balconies."

"We’ll clear a path," I promised.

I cut the comms. I looked at Darius. He was bleeding from a shrapnel cut above his left eye, his suit was ruined, and he was down to his last two magazines. He looked like a man who was just getting warmed up.

"North courtyard," I said. "We have to push through the main atrium."

We moved fast, abandoning stealth for pure, aggressive momentum. We didn’t have Oracle to predict the enemy patrols, but the chaos of Katarina’s assault had thrown Isabella’s garrison into disarray. We encountered two small squads of mercenaries in the corridors, but they were looking outward, expecting a breach from the snow, not an attack from their own basement.

We dropped them before they could even raise their rifles, moving over their bodies without breaking stride.

We reached the heavy double doors leading into the main atrium.

I kicked the doors open.

The atrium was massive, a sprawling, multi-level space with a glass ceiling that had been completely shattered by Katarina’s artillery. Snow was falling through the ruined skylight, mixing with the thick gray smoke of the battle.

At the far end of the atrium were the massive glass doors leading out to the north courtyard.

But standing between us and the exit were a dozen of Isabella’s elite PMCs, using overturned marble tables and decorative pillars for cover. They were laying down a withering barrage of fire into the courtyard, keeping Katarina’s extraction vehicle pinned down.

"They have the high ground on the balconies," Darius noted, ducking back behind the doorframe as a hail of bullets chewed through the drywall next to his head. "If we run across the open floor, they will cut us to pieces."

"Then we don’t run across the floor," I said, my eyes scanning the ruined atrium.

I looked up. A massive, ornate crystal chandelier hung from the center of the ceiling, suspended by a thick steel cable. It was positioned directly over the primary cluster of mercenaries using the marble tables for cover.

"Darius," I said, pointing up at the ceiling. "Can you hit that cable?"

Darius looked up, his eyes narrowing as he calculated the angle, the distance, and the wind whipping through the shattered skylight.

"I have one armor-piercing round left in this magazine," Darius rumbled. "It will be enough."

"Do it on my mark," I said, pulling the last flashbang from my tactical vest. "I’ll draw their fire. When they look at me, you drop the sky on them."

I didn’t wait for him to argue. I pulled the pin on the flashbang, took a deep breath, and dove out from behind the doorframe, sliding across the polished marble floor of the atrium.

"Contact rear!" one of the mercenaries screamed, spinning away from the courtyard doors and raising his rifle toward me.

I hurled the flashbang directly at his feet and rolled behind a shattered stone pillar just as the entire PMC squad opened fire on my position. Bullets chipped away at the stone, showering me in razor-sharp fragments.

BOOM.

The flashbang detonated, blinding the mercenaries on the ground floor.

"Mark!" I roared.

Darius stepped out from cover, raised his MP5, and fired a single, perfect shot.

The armor-piercing round struck the heavy steel cable suspending the chandelier. The cable snapped with a sound like a cracking whip.

Two tons of crystal, steel, and wiring plummeted from the ceiling.

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