Chapter 81 Stockpile's Heart
CHAPTER EIGHTY ONE
Gregor’s POV~
I was in the central part of my Lazareth bunker. The machines around me hissed and clicked, and vials of serum flowed from them. My heritage, my rifle, my will—compressed and packed, a row of chemical peace perfected.
A smile played at the corner of my mouth while the vials rolled off the line. “Valenticia’s just a waste of life,” I muttered low, my voice nearly drowned out by the buzzing. I was wearing gray today.
Vallentcia Clawford had thought she could unravel me with her shabby little leak—board contacts, buyers lists, and financials she could barely read. It was the last thing she knew she was doing.
But then her voice came crackling over the command center speakers. Another episode of Galden Exposed appeared on the screen. She was broadcasting again. Loud, smugly and infuriatingly familiar.
Her language made me think of Eleanor, not my friend, but my aunt. The woman who had blocked me back then, with shaking hands. “You’re a monster, Gregor,” she’d said.
I’d buried her voice years ago, but rage still surged up. I silenced Eleanor, burned her records, and shattered her rebellion before it could take root. And now her daughter had come back to haunt me.
Natasha Anderson was no better. Too ambitious by half, running her serum leaks, her black market deals, that spark of insubordination that made her dangerous. I didn’t fear her. But I questioned her loyalty. And that was enough to render her a liability.
All around me, scientists in lab coats raced to and fro, tweaking the serum, designing weapons with cold-hearted efficiency. I looked at their diagrams, their projections, and their formulas. This machine was my empire, my construct. Power ran in my veins, in the needles, in every dose mixed in the vault.
And still, Valenticia punched holes in the walls.
Her leaks disrupted deals. Buyers hesitated. Board members wavered. Was she Eleanor’s match? The thought unsettled me.
Eleanor was probably the one who came closest to getting me with some good old-fashioned sonic whistleblowing in ’99. Exposed my early trials. Dared to discomfit me in front of the board. I'd shut her up, beat her into submission before another living soul could savor her truths. But here was Valenticia coming at me like her mother, meaner, louder and harder to kill.
I made the call.
"Kill her friends," I commanded coldly. My enforcer bowed and departed without replying. Still, unease lingered.
The walls in front of me heaved with holographic live feeds from fifty sectors across the empire—Seryne’s wharves, Lazareth’s growing stockpiles, encrypted warehouse transactions. Natasha’s black market batch remained in rotation, her serum bleeding through the underground. Did she think she could upstage me?
Her final ciphered message had said Valenticia was surrounded. But my sources said something different — Ravi Patel was hedging his bets. Natasha was losing hold of him. She was either losing control or going out of her mind.
I tapped my fingers on the console, growing frustrated. And then I remembered Eleanor at that family summit, fire in her eyes, screaming across the room.
You’ll fall, Gregor.
I’d destroyed her. I would destroy her daughter.
My tablet pinged, derailing my train of thought.
Clawford’s leaks—buyers are fleeing.
Message from one of my senior board members.
I gnashed my teeth, hot rage flickering through me. She was poisoning everything. The market. The media. My reputation.
On the monitor, Valenticia’s report repeated, name-calling, and secret spilling. Ravi’s betrayal. Stefan Voss. Warhead movements.
How did she have all the answers to this shit?
I had Voss under control. Now, my sources were telling me that he had spiked Natasha’s shipment. Another string unraveling. Another traitor.
“Kill him,” I said coldly. “Make it quick.”
The bunker hummed, synthetic life murmuring in ripples through steel. Warheads were being assembled. The summit was days away. The fate of the world waited at the tips of my fingers.
But Valenticia was breaking through. Rosanna, Marcus, Patel — striking with savage precision. They were pinpointing my vulnerabilities. I felt it. She wasn’t guessing anymore.
She knew.
And Natasha — her Middlebury ambition was a no, now an asset. She was scheming to get herself shot upward. I had seen the messages. Secret buyers. Encrypted deals. Betrayal lies in every sentence. I accessed her comms. And I saw it. Double-crossing me.
“She’s gone rogue,” I said through gritted teeth. “Kill her, too.”
A pointed memory sliced through—Eleanor turning files at her old office, her notes, her observations, her notes on my serum trials. She’d almost had it, she’d almost had me. I had burned them all. Valenticia wasn’t Eleanor. But she might be worse. My enforcer returned. “Strike’s ready. Special safehouses in Seryne will go dark.”
I nodded, a slow, calculating grin stretching across my face. “She’ll crack.”
But even as I spoke, the alerts began flooding my inbox: more leaks. Valenticia, too, was being picked up and broadcast in a blaze of notoriety. Her story had made international news. Buyers were bailing. Markets panicked. Chaos brewed. I tightened security.
“Do not make any mistakes,” I told my lieutenants. “None.” Then everything changed.
A key screen blinked out for an instant. Static buzzed. Before we knew it, a fresh hacked feed was forced through. A stockpile. One of mine. Up in flames.
My serum—crates and crates—burning. Exploding. Valenticia had struck. My hands danced across the console, rerouting enforcers, signaling battle teams, but I could read the truth. She was too close. A comm buzzed again. A new buyer. Anonymous. Rogue.
“Ed Anderson’s nothing but a two-timing son of a bitch,” the voice said. “I’ve got access. Make me an offer.” I retracted my body away slowly, a sadistic smile growing on my face. That was one less threat if Natasha had gone down. Or one more opportunity. But Valenticia remained on the loose. And now she had fire in her hands. Because I, for the first time in a very long time … I felt the cold hand of uncertainty.