Chapter 105 — Blind Spots
Reggy
The rain had stopped sometime after midnight, but the air still clung thick and heavy to the walls of Liam’s house. The place felt less like a home tonight and more like a waiting room before war — maps spread across the kitchen table, three laptops open, cords tangled like veins. Empty coffee cups lined the counter, and the only light came from the monitors’ glow bouncing off the metal of Liam’s gun.
Reggy sat hunched forward, typing with precision, the screen painting blue light over his face. His fingers didn’t move fast; they moved exact. Across the table, Ricky leaned back in his chair, rolling his shoulders like he’d been sitting too long. Clause stood by the window, arms crossed, the kind of stillness that never really was — his eyes tracked movement that wasn’t there, thoughts too fast for his mouth to keep up with.
“I’ve cross-checked the address,” Reggy muttered. “Property sits just outside L.A. — registered to a dummy company, but the blueprints are clean enough to trace. He’s got motion sensors on all main floors. Two blind corners in the west garden and one tunnel under the retaining wall.”
Liam leaned over the table, studying the screen. He hadn’t said much all night. When he did, it landed heavy. “That’s the fortress.”
Reggy nodded. “Killian’s home base. But there’s something off. Look here—” He zoomed in on the aerial photo. “That line — right there. See how the soil dips by a few inches? It’s not landscaping. It’s airflow. Some kind of underground passage leading into the west garden.”
Clause stepped closer, eyes narrowing. “Maintenance tunnel.”
“Exactly,” Reggy said. “And if I can line up his power feed with the outdoor cameras, I can drop their circuit for a few minutes. Maybe five, if we’re lucky.”
Ricky grunted. “Five minutes to walk into the lion’s den.”
Liam didn’t look up from the table. “Five minutes is all we’ll need.”
The room fell quiet again, only the soft tap of Reggy’s keys filling the space. It wasn’t like the silence before a gunfight; it was heavier, more personal. They were all thinking the same thing — that somewhere behind those walls, Amara was living each second like it could be her last.
Clause rubbed the scar above his brow. “If we go in through the tunnel, we’ll need to know what’s above it. Weight load, support beams — anything that can get us trapped.”
Reggy flipped to another file, pulling up contractor permits from a buried county record. “The structure’s reinforced with steel. It’s clean, built to last. He wasn’t hiding a remodel; he was building a cage.”
Ricky snorted. “That’s Killian. Always hiding monsters behind fancy walls.”
Reggy’s jaw tightened. “Then let’s open the door.”
He ran another trace through the fortress security server. For a moment, static flickered across the screen, then cleared. A list of feeds appeared — all labeled with timestamps and camera numbers. He clicked on one at random. The view was sterile, bright — hallways too clean, too quiet. He clicked again. A different room blinked to life.
It was a bedroom.
Not just any bedroom.
Clause leaned in. “That’s her room.”
Reggy adjusted the angle. The image sharpened — ivory walls, soft lamp light, a black gown hung across a mannequin by the window. It looked like smoke and steel had been sewn into the fabric itself.
“That’s no wedding dress,” Ricky murmured.
Liam’s eyes fixed on the screen, unblinking. “No. That’s armor.”
They watched as Amara stepped into frame. Her reflection glowed in the mirror, skin pale against the black silk. The dress hugged her like a second skin, each seam alive with the faint shimmer of red threading — blades hidden in beauty. She didn’t look afraid. She looked ready.
Clause whispered, almost to himself, “She’s not waiting.”
Reggy swallowed, his fingers frozen above the keys. “No. She’s preparing.”
The feed focused on her hands. She reached for something off-screen, then slipped her fingers into the side seam of the dress. A flash of silver caught the light — a knife, small but deliberate. She tucked it into the slit she’d stitched along her thigh, pressing her palm over the seam to test its fit.
“She sewed a pocket for it,” Clause said, voice low.
Reggy nodded, almost reverent. “Custom-made. Smart girl.”
Ricky shifted forward, jaw tight. “If Thomas’s still alive in that place, she’s buying him time.”
Liam’s gaze didn’t leave the screen. His jaw flexed once, the weight of the world pressing through it. “He’s alive,” he said quietly. “And she’s not waiting to be saved.”
He leaned in slightly, pride cutting through the exhaustion. “That’s my girl.”
The room went still. Nobody dared touch the keyboard. Nobody moved.
The feed flickered once, then twice, static crawling across the screen. Reggy’s chest tightened.
“Hold on,” he said, fingers racing. “System’s trying to trace the feed.”
“Cut it,” Clause warned.
“I’m trying,” Reggy hissed, lines of code scrolling faster. “He’s got eyes on the network. He knows someone’s looking.”
Liam’s voice stayed calm, a strange calm born of clarity. “Then we’ve seen enough.”
Reggy killed the connection. The screen went black.
The sudden quiet hit like a gunshot. Only the faint hum of the refrigerator filled the room now. The rain started again outside, steady and rhythmic against the windows — the kind of sound that felt like a countdown.
Clause ran a hand over his face. “We can’t wait much longer.”
Ricky leaned forward. “Then when?”
Reggy exhaled, dragging the map back up. “Soon. Once I time the camera resets, we move. We’ll have one window — four minutes at best. The west garden tunnel feeds straight to the east wing, third window from the balcony. That’s where she is.”
Liam nodded, memorizing every word, every point on the screen like a blueprint burned into his mind. He didn’t ask questions. He didn’t need to.
“Four minutes,” Clause said again, testing the sound of it.
“It’s enough,” Liam replied.
Ricky chuckled dryly. “You sound damn sure for someone walking into hell.”
“I’ve already been there,” Liam said, pushing back his chair. “This time I’m not leaving anyone behind.”
Reggy looked at him, then back at the blank monitor, still reflecting their faces. “Then we better be ready when the lights go out.”
Liam reached across the table, tapping the screen where the garden tunnel sat marked in white. “We will be.”
The rain thickened against the glass, blurring the world outside. For a moment, the reflection of the house lights flickered in the dark — four figures staring at the screen, each carrying their own ghosts. None of them said what they all felt: fear, hope, anger, love — all of it tied to the same woman who, somewhere beyond that storm, was sewing her own blade into her wedding dress.
Reggy leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll find the gap. He can’t watch everything forever.”
Clause nodded. “And when you do?”
Liam answered before Reggy could.
“We move.”
No one argued. They didn’t need to.
Outside, lightning lit up the sky, casting the room in brief flashes of white before everything sank back into shadow.
Inside, the only sound left was the soft hum of the computers rebooting and the rain whispering against the window — a slow, deliberate rhythm. The sound of time running out.