Chapter 220 The... the Vault
Ir was Fennigan.
The Alpha stood directly behind him, an immovable, towering wall of muscle and absolute, remorseless fury.
"Did you really think," Fennigan growled, his voice a guttural, demonic rumble that vibrated straight through Miller's chest, "that my Beta would let you run an encrypted line out of my packhouse without holding the master key?"
"Alpha, please," Miller choked out, tears of sheer terror spilling down his cheeks. He threw his hands up in a pathetic gesture of surrender. "Please, I didn't know the full extent of it! I swear to the Goddess! Damon just paid me to mask the power grid and hide the construction logs! I never went down into the lab! I didn't know about the... the replicas!"
Fennigan’s massive hand shot out like lightning. He clamped his thick fingers around the back of Miller's neck, gripping him with enough terrifying force to completely paralyze the tech, but stopping just short of snapping his spine.
He effortlessly hauled Miller out of the chair by his neck, dragging him to his feet so they were eye-to-eye.
"You knew enough to hide the power surges that kept those tanks running," Fennigan whispered, the sheer violence in his tone freezing the blood in the traitor's veins. "You knew enough to hide the blood money. And right now, you are the only one in this room who knows who else is hiding in my house."
Fennigan leaned in, his glowing silver eyes burning with a predatory fire so intense it was blinding.
"I am going to ask you this once, Miller," Fennigan promised. "Who else in this pack is working with Vane and my father?"
Miller’s toes barely scraped the cold linoleum floor. He clawed uselessly at Fennigan’s massive, soot-stained forearm, his face rapidly turning a mottled, suffocating shade of purple as the Alpha held him suspended by the neck.
"Alpha... please..." Miller choked out, his voice a wet, desperate wheeze. "I have... I have information. Things only I can give you! Just... just spare me!"
Fennigan didn’t drop him. Instead, a laugh scraped its way out of the Alpha’s chest.
It wasn’t a sound of amusement. It was a dark, guttural, bone-chilling sound that vibrated with pure, unadulterated violence. The laugh echoed off the freezing walls of the tech hub, carrying the heavy, shattered sanity of a son who had just seen his father's true face.
"Spare you?" Fennigan mocked, his voice dropping into a demonic, vibrating whisper as his glowing silver eyes burned right through Miller’s soul. "You helped build a slaughterhouse under my home. You hid the power grid that kept my children's replicas floating in tubes while you smiled at my mate in the hallways. Why in the name of the Goddess would I ever spare you?"
Tears of sheer panic streamed down Miller’s face, cutting through his cold sweat. He looked wildly between the Alpha's feral eyes and Jax's dead, emotionless stare, desperately searching for a lifeline.
"Because... because of the rest of it!" Miller gasped, his lungs violently burning for air. He squeezed his eyes shut, trembling uncontrollably. "Alpha, listen to me! There’s things you should know... and things no one should ever know or have to know!"
The cryptic, agonizing words hung in the freezing, blue-lit air, heavy and saturated with a sickening, ominous promise.
Jax’s jaw locked, a muscle ticking rapidly in his cheek. The Beta stepped forward out of the shadows, closing the distance until his massive frame was right beside his brother. The cold, calculating logic in Jax's eyes was somehow infinitely more terrifying than Fennigan's explosive rage.
"What things, Miller?" Jax demanded softly, his voice as sharp as a razor blade. "Are you talking about the names of Vane's disciples living in this house? Or are you talking about the lab?"
Miller sobbed, opening his eyes to look at the Beta. "The sub-level," he whimpered, the confession tearing out of him like broken glass. "Alpha Damon's private sector. Not the main lab. Not the suspension tanks. The... the Vault."
Fennigan’s grip went completely, terrifyingly rigid. He and Jax had blown up the bunker. They had seen the tanks. There wasn't supposed to be anything deeper.
"The Weaver can't access it," Miller wheezed, practically hanging dead weight from Fennigan's hand. "It's entirely off-grid. Analog locks. Titanium core. Only I know the override sequences. If you kill me... the security grid completely seals it permanently. And whatever Vane and your father locked inside that Vault... you'll never be able to reach it."
Fennigan slowly turned his head, his glowing silver eyes locking onto his brother. The horrifying realization passed silently between them: they hadn't found the bottom of the nightmare yet.
Fennigan stared into Miller’s terrified, weeping eyes for a long, heavy moment. The Alpha’s muscles were coiled so tight they trembled, every feral instinct screaming at him to snap the traitor's neck right here in the tech hub and be done with it.
But then, slowly, the blinding, violent glow in his silver eyes dimmed just a fraction. Fennigan suddenly released his grip.
Miller collapsed to the cold linoleum floor in a pathetic, gasping heap, clutching his bruised throat as he desperately sucked in the freezing air.
Fennigan didn't even look down at him. He turned to his brother, the lethal Alpha instantly shifting back into a fiercely protective older sibling.
"Throw him in one of the lined holding cells," Fennigan ordered, his voice an exhausted, gravelly rumble. He stepped back, running a heavy hand through his soot-stained hair. "Leave him to rot in the dark. We will deal with him and this 'Vault' later. Right now, you need to go take a breather, Jax. Go back to the office, kiss your mate, and properly welcome your newborn son into the world. You haven't had a single second of peace since Iggy took his first breath."
Jax gave a stiff, solemn nod. He reached down, effortlessly hauling Miller off the floor by the scruff of his collar like a misbehaving pup.