Chapter 474: Your Home Court, My Hunting Ground
Chapter 474: Your Home Court, My Hunting Ground
That door wasn't pushed open—it was blown open.
The explosion and flying wood splinters mixed with a blast of air, slamming hard into the secret room.
Yasmin's hand, reaching for the jade pendant, froze in midair. Her face, twisted with fanaticism, seemed to crack open from the shock, leaving only blankness and terror.
At the doorway, Nicholas's figure blocked out all the light.
He didn't even step inside, just stood there, and the oppressive don't-come-near-me aura radiating from him crushed the carefully crafted fake warmth of the room to pieces.
"Time to change up the game." His voice wasn't loud, but it pierced clearly through Yasmin's eardrums.
Sophia's reaction was only half a second slower than the explosion.
While Yasmin was still frozen, Sophia flipped her wrist and snatched the half jade pendant from the coffee table back into her palm, moving so fast there wasn't a single wasted motion.
"Lost your cool already?" Yasmin snapped back to reality. The commotion outside wasn't from panicking guests at all. What was it?
"What did you do?" Her voice completely changed pitch, sharp enough to hurt the ears.
Sophia didn't answer.
The answer was already echoing throughout the entire art center.
In the main exhibition hall, the elegant piano music stopped abruptly. All the lights, including the decorative ambient lighting on the walls, went out with a snap.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Before the guests' suppressed gasps could spread, the top-tier speakers positioned in every corner of the hall suddenly erupted with a roar loud enough to blow off the top of your skull!
Not piano music, not some symphony.
It was tractor engine sounds, rough male shouting, and heavy electronic drum beats mixed together—agricultural heavy metal.
Screams broke out everywhere.
Women in fancy dresses clutched their jewelry while men frantically searched for exits in the darkness. In the chaos, several men disguised as guests and waiters turned pale, their hands just reaching behind their waists when several shadows instantly pinned them down.
Cold restraints locked around their wrists.
The Martinez Group's Team A security moved through the darkness like ghosts, precisely taking down every target with clean, efficient movements that didn't make a single unnecessary sound.
The whole thing took maybe thirty seconds.
By the time the backup emergency lights came on, the exhibition hall was already a mess.
And Nicholas, who had been standing by the painting earlier pretending to be a bored companion, was long gone.
Inside the lounge, Yasmin's body trembled slightly.
The trap she'd designed, the home court advantage she was so proud of, had become a giant joke.
That mentally polluting music outside slapped her in the face with every beat.
"Sophia!" She finally realized she'd fallen into the other woman's trap. Humiliated rage consumed her completely. "You dare!"
"You set up the stage, I couldn't not come up and perform. That would be so disrespectful to you." Sophia held Olivia and stepped back, creating a safe distance.
She calmly hung the jade pendant back around her neck and tucked it under her collar.
"Did Graham send you?"
"And what's your relationship with Gordon?"
Two questions, both cutting deep.
The name Graham clearly hit Yasmin harder. She stared at Sophia, her beautiful face no longer showing a trace of gentleness, only poisonous hatred.
"You want to know?" She suddenly laughed, the sound sharp and crazed. "You'll never know now! You all deserve to die!"
Before the words finished, she lunged like a crazed animal, fingers curved into claws—not to grab, but to gouge—straight for Olivia's eyes!
Attacking a mother's softest spot was her final act of malice.
But Sophia was ready.
Holding Olivia, her body shifted like a leaf blown by wind, lightly pivoting half a step to dodge the deadly strike while lifting her leg, her knee hitting Yasmin's lower abdomen at a sharp angle with full force.
Yasmin let out a muffled grunt, her whole body curling up like a cooked shrimp. She lost her balance and stumbled into the nearby sofa.
She hadn't expected Sophia to be so skilled.
With her plan exposed, escape was the only option.
As she crashed into the sofa, her body curling, she suddenly pulled a small round object from a hidden pocket in her skirt and slammed it hard on the floor!
The ball exploded, releasing a cloud of acrid white smoke that instantly flooded the entire lounge.
Nothing was visible anymore.
"Mommy!" Olivia coughed from the thick smoke, her small hands gripping Sophia's clothes tightly.
"Don't be scared, close your eyes, cover your nose." Sophia pressed her daughter's head against her chest, using her back to block most of the smoke while holding her own breath.
The smoke was extremely irritating—a specially made escape smoke bomb.
In the chaos, hurried footsteps were fading away.
Yasmin was running.
Right then, another set of steady, powerful footsteps entered from the doorway.
Through the smoke, a tall dark figure charged in without hesitation, moving with the precision of a cruise missile toward its target.
"Sophia!"
"I'm here!" Sophia responded immediately.
The next second, a strong arm cut through the smoke with frightening accuracy, grabbed her wrist, and pulled her and Olivia together into a solid embrace.
That familiar, reassuring presence surrounded them.
"Lost her!" Big Cat's frustrated voice came through Nicholas's tactical earpiece. "Someone stuck gum over the stairwell security camera! So sneaky!"
Nicholas shielded his wife and daughter as they quickly exited the room filled with the stinging smell.
The hallway had already returned to calm. The music in the exhibition hall had stopped, leaving only the shaken guests' murmuring and security personnel maintaining order.
Smoke slowly drifted out from the doorway.
Yasmin was gone.
Sophia gently patted Olivia's back, soothing her frightened daughter.
Nicholas's gaze swept across the now-empty lounge and finally stopped near the sofa where Yasmin had fallen.
On the carpet lay two things.
A broken silver bracelet with a small white orchid charm.
Next to the pendant lay something black, barely bigger than a fingernail.
A micro USB drive.
Sophia saw it too.
She handed Olivia to Nicholas, walked over quickly, bent down, and picked up the USB drive.
The casing was matte, cold to the touch.
Yasmin had dropped it in her struggle and panicked escape.
Holding the object in her palm, the frustration of letting the enemy escape was replaced by a stronger excitement.
Yasmin had gotten away.
But she'd left behind something more important than herself.
Nicholas looked at what she was holding and asked quietly, "What is that?"
Sophia spun the USB drive between her fingertips, looked up at him, light flashing in her eyes.
"Her lifeline."