Chapter 67 The hunt begins
Rafael
The moment I pressed the detonator, everything changed.
Kask's face went white. "What did you do?"
"Planted explosives throughout your facility," I said calmly. "In about fifty-five seconds, this entire laboratory is going to be destroyed."
"You're bluffing," Sophia said, but her hand trembled.
"Check your security feeds," I said.
Kask pulled out his phone. His fingers flew across the screen. His expression shifted to horror. "You placed charges."
"Four of them," Flora confirmed. "All synced to Rafael's detonator. About to blow."
"Forty-five seconds," I announced.
"Shut it down!" Kask shouted. "Now!"
"No," I said simply.
Sophia pointed the gun at my head. "Shut it down or I shoot."
"Then shoot," I said. "The charges still detonate. All your research, equipment, and experiments will be destroyed."
"The children will die!" Flora said, gesturing to the artificial wombs. "Is that what you want?"
I saw Kask weighing his options.
"Thirty seconds," I said.
"There has to be a way to disarm them," Kask said desperately.
"There is," I admitted. "But why would I tell you?"
"Because those are innocent children," Sophia said. "You would murder them?"
Flora stepped forward. "We don't want them to die. So here's the deal. Let us walk out with the embryos. And I'll disarm the charges."
"That's robbery," Kask said.
"Twenty seconds."
"Fine!" Kask shouted. "Take them! Just stop the countdown!"
"First, the embryos," Flora said. "Now."
Kask barked orders. Medical staff rushed in, transferring the tiny forms into portable units.
"Fifteen seconds."
"How do we disarm them?" Sophia demanded.
"The charges have a kill switch," Flora said. "Requires my fingerprint. I need to touch each one."
"Then go!" Kask said.
"Not until the embryos are secure," Flora said.
The staff worked frantically. Six portable incubators loaded onto gurneys.
"Ten seconds."
"They're ready!" a technician shouted.
We moved toward the door. Staff pushed the gurneys. Sophia and Kask followed.
"Five seconds."
We reached the corridor. Flora ran to the first charge near the server room and pressed her thumb.
"Disarmed."
"Four seconds."
She disarmed the second charge.
"Three seconds."
She disarmed the third charge.
"Two seconds." I said.
The fourth charge was Kask's office.
Flora ran faster than I'd ever seen.
"Disarmed!" She shouted.
I stopped the countdown at one second.
Everyone exhaled. Except me.
Because Flora had disarmed the fake charges.
The real charges were hidden by Catherine in places Kask didn't know existed, and were still active.
Set to blow in two minutes.
We had to leave now.
"We made a deal," Flora said. "We stopped the countdown. Now let us leave."
"I don't think so," Sophia said, raising the gun. "You've seen too much. Father, we can't let them go."
"We have to," Kask said. "They kept their bargain."
"Did they?" Sophia pulled out her phone. "Security found more charges."
My blood ran cold.
Shit!
"Those charges are still active," Sophia said. "Aren't they?"
Flora looked at me. I saw the decision in her eyes.
"Run," she said.
We ran.
We grabbed two gurneys with incubators and sprinted. Gunfire erupted behind us.
"This way!" Flora shouted.
We burst through a door into a loading bay. Vittorio's man was waiting with a van.
"Get in!" He shouted.
We loaded the incubators. I jumped in the driver's seat. Flora beside me.
"What about the other four?" Flora asked.
"Catherine's team has them," the man said. "East exit."
"Go!" I shouted.
The van peeled out as Kask's security reached us.
More gunfire erupted. The back window shattered.
I drove faster, heading for the main gate.
"How long until the charges blow?" Flora asked.
I checked the backup detonator. "Ninety seconds."
"We won't make it out in time," Flora said.
"Yes, we will," I said, pressing the accelerator.
The main gate was closing. Security trying to trap us.
"Hold on!" I shouted.
I aimed at the gate. Swerved at the last second, hitting it at an angle. The gate buckled. We crashed through.
We were on the mountain road.
"Sixty seconds," Flora said.
Behind us, vehicles were pursuing.
"Faster!" Vittorio's man shouted.
The road twisted dangerously. I took curves too fast, the van sliding.
"Thirty seconds."
"We need to get farther away," I said. "The blast radius…"
"Just drive!" Flora interrupted.
We had fifteen seconds.
Ten.
Five.
The explosion lit up the sky behind us.
Kask's estate erupted in flames. The medical wing collapsed. Fire spread everywhere.
"Did we kill anyone?" Flora asked quietly.
"Catherine confirmed all non-essential personnel evacuated," Vittorio's man said. "Only Kask and his guards were inside."
"And Sophia," Flora whispered.
I took her hand. "You gave them a chance. More than they gave us."
We drove for an hour, meeting Catherine and Marco at a safe house.
The other four embryos were safe. All six alive. Stable.
"What happens now?" Flora asked, looking at the tiny lives we'd saved.
"Now we find them real homes," Catherine said. "Real families."
"And Kask?" I asked.
"No body recovered yet," Marco said. "But with that damage, unlikely anyone survived."
"So it's over," Flora said.
"Maybe," I said. "Or—"
My phone rang. Unknown number.
I answered. "Hello?"
Static. Then a voice. Distorted. Mechanical.
"You destroyed my life's work," the voice said. "You murdered my daughter. You stole my property."
"Kask," I breathed. "You're alive."
"Barely," the voice said. "But alive enough to make you pay. To take back what's mine."
"The embryos aren't property," Flora said. "They're children. And they're safe now."
"For now," Kask said. "But I will find them. I will find you. And when I do, you'll watch as I take them back. One by one."
"We'll be ready," I said.
"Will you?" Kask asked. "I have resources you can't imagine. Connections you don't know about. And something else. Something you didn't plan for."
"What?" Flora demanded.
"Insurance," Kask said. "Those six embryos aren't the only ones. I have backups. Genetic samples in facilities around the world. You destroyed one laboratory. I have twelve more."
My heart sank.
"You can't stop this," Kask continued. "Project Genesis will continue. With or without those six. With or without you."
"We'll find those facilities," I said. "Destroy them all."
"Try," Kask said. "But while you're searching, I'll be hunting you. And when I catch you, I'm going to take everything you love and burn it to the ground."
The line went dead.
We stood in shocked silence.
"He has backup facilities," Catherine said. "We need to find them."
"How?" Marco asked. "We barely found this one."
"We use Kask's files," Vittorio said. "Everything we recovered before the explosion."
"That could take months," I said.
"Then we have months of work," Flora said, looking at the six incubators. "But we're not giving up."
My phone buzzed. A text. Unknown number.
A photo. A sonogram.
Message beneath: You took six. I still have seventeen. The hunt begins now.
I showed Flora. Color drained from her face.
"Seventeen more," she whispered. "There are seventeen more out there."
"Then we find them," I said. "All of them. We don't stop until every child is safe."
"And if we can't?" Flora asked.
I didn't answer.
Because Victor Kask was right.
We'd won a battle.
But the war was far from over.