Chapter 13 - The Core Inside the Ballroom
The Navy evacuation teams searched every service corridor.
The core was compact enough to fit inside a reinforced champagne case.
Dozens of identical cases had entered the gala.
Arthur’s company used them as retirement gifts for senior guests.
Eleanor had hidden the weapon in plain sight.
Admiral Thorne ordered all cases isolated.
The signal tracker showed the core moving toward the roof.
A freight elevator was ascending.
Audrey checked the service manifest.
One catering employee had no verified background file.
His photograph belonged to a man who died six years earlier.
We raced toward the upper levels.
Arthur struggled to keep pace.
His age showed for the first time.
At the roof access door, he stopped me.
“Clarissa.”
I turned.
“If Eleanor is there, she will use your need for answers.”
“I stopped needing answers from her when I learned what she did.”
“She is still your mother.”
“No. She is the woman who gave birth to me.”
The distinction wounded him.
Perhaps because it applied to him too.
We reached the roof.
Wind swept across the ocean.
A helicopter hovered beyond the helipad.
Eleanor stood beside a silver champagne case.
She wore a dark evening gown and looked exactly like an older version of Audrey.
For one second, I saw the mother from my childhood.
Then I saw the woman who ordered my death.
“Clarissa,” she said.
Audrey stepped beside me.
Eleanor barely looked at her.
That single dismissal destroyed the last illusion Audrey had carried for years.
“You told me I was protecting the family,” Audrey said.
“You were protecting it.”
“You used me.”
“I trained you.”
Audrey’s face crumpled.
Eleanor turned back to me.
“Give me the medal.”
“The core is unstable.”
“I know.”
“Then let us secure it.”
“You still speak like a Navy officer.”
“I am one.”
“You were born to lead something greater.”
Arthur emerged through the door.
“You promised no casualties.”
Eleanor smiled.
“You always needed promises.”
She opened the champagne case.
The Trident core glowed beneath a containment shield.
A timer read:
02:11.
She held a remote in one hand.
The helicopter moved closer.
“If I leave safely, I transmit the shutdown code.”
Admiral Thorne raised his weapon.
“If you move, we fire.”
Eleanor looked at me.
“He won’t risk the core. You know that.”
She was right.
So I did the one thing she did not expect.
May you like
I stepped toward her alone.
📖 Clarissa approached the unstable weapon without protection, forcing Eleanor to choose between escaping and confronting the daughter she failed to destroy. 👇
