The Prison-Made Queen novel Chapter 1011

"It’s stuck!"

"The exit is right here. Push together!"

Callahan let out a low grunt of exertion. With a deafening screech of metal against metal, the heavy iron grate finally gave way, leaving a gap just wide enough for a person to slip through.

Fresh, damp air rushed in, instantly reviving them.

Before climbing out, Callahan instinctively reached back to pull Leilani up. But she hadn’t forgotten his injured arm. The moment he hoisted himself up, she dodged his hand and vaulted out of the tunnel on her own.

They emerged from the drainage pipe into a dense, sunless tropical jungle.

In the distance, thick plumes of black smoke continued to billow from the factory. The sheer devastation made everyone instinctively grimace.

Their theory in the underground tunnel had been dead-on: the mysterious operative hadn't planted just one bomb, but an entire network of them. An explosion of this magnitude bordered on a full-scale terrorist attack. Whoever was behind this had a terrifyingly complex agenda.

Any fleeting sense of relief vanished. Though they were temporarily out of the woods, they couldn't drop their guard. There was no telling if their unseen enemy had left any backup traps.

Leaning against a thick tree trunk, Callahan’s sharp gaze swept the perimeter.

Leilani’s eyes, however, remained fixed on his arm. She noticed that the makeshift bandage was already soaked through with fresh blood—he had torn the wound back open during their escape.

The low, rhythmic thrum of chopper blades shattered the heavy silence of the rainforest. Within moments, several unmarked, dark green helicopters swooped low, hovering with pinpoint precision directly above their coordinates.

Heavily armed extraction operatives rappelled down the lines with lethal efficiency.

The team’s combat medic took one look at Callahan’s arm and immediately went to work.

The squad captain jogged over, giving a crisp salute. "Mr. Langley. Ms. Sloan. We tracked the target’s escape route."

Callahan’s eyes darkened, a deadly frost settling into his gaze. "Where did he go? Do we have an ID?"