My Milf Conqueror System

Chapter 173: War

[Jake’s POV]

Three gunboats. Matte-black, sitting low in the water, cutting through the gray chop of the East River like sharks drawn to a fresh kill.

I stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, watching them converge on the private docks at the base of Apex Tower. They didn’t slow down. They didn’t hail the harbor master. The lead boat slammed hard against the concrete pier, the impact absorbed by heavy rubber bumpers, and before the hull even settled, men in dark tactical gear were pouring over the sides.

"Nia!" I barked, turning away from the glass. "Status on the physical breach!"

"They’re through the loading dock doors!" Nia yelled, her fingers flying across her keyboards in a blur of frantic motion. The massive monitors above her workstation were flashing a violent, strobing red. "I have twelve—no, fifteen hostiles in the ground-floor lobby. They’re heavily armed, moving in tactical formation. Tier-One PMCs."

"Lock down the elevators," I ordered, striding across the room. "Cut the power to the main stairwells. Make them fight for every inch of this building."

"I’m trying!" Nia shouted, her hands shaking. "But they have a dedicated cyber-team hitting my firewalls from the outside. They’re trying to override the building’s security grid to open the doors for the assault team!"

"Keep them out," Claire said, running up to the console. She had swapped her emerald gown for a pair of dark jeans and a tactical jacket she kept in her office. "If they get control of the elevators, they’ll be on this floor in sixty seconds."

"What about the men in the lobby?" Evelyn Cross asked. She was standing near the elevator banks, a sleek, silver revolver already drawn and held at the low ready. The SEC Director of Enforcement looked entirely too comfortable holding a firearm.

"Darius and I will handle the lobby," I said.

The door to my private office swung open.

Elena Vance stepped out into the chaos of the operations room. She had hastily buttoned her silk blouse and smoothed her burgundy skirt, but her hair was still falling in wild, fragrant waves around her shoulders. She stopped, her striking green eyes taking in the flashing red lights, the blaring sirens, and the sight of Evelyn Cross holding a gun.

"Jake," Elena said, her voice remarkably steady for a woman who had just woken up in a war zone. "What is happening?"

"Isabella Vane is happening," I said, walking past her toward the hidden armory panel built into the wall behind my desk. I pressed my thumb to the biometric scanner. The panel slid open, revealing a rack of matte-black weaponry Darius had procured after our return from Europe. "She’s laying siege to the tower."

I pulled a customized, short-barreled tactical shotgun from the rack, checking the chamber and racking a slug into place with a heavy, metallic clack. I grabbed a tactical vest, throwing it over my dress shirt, and loaded the pouches with extra shells.

I turned back to Elena. She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t panicking. She was staring at me, her eyes tracking the tactical vest, the shotgun, and the cold, absolute violence radiating from my posture.

"Evelyn," I said, tossing a spare magazine to the SEC Director. "Take Elena, Claire, and Aurelia. Get down to the medical wing. Lock yourselves in with Sofia and Dr. Aris. The doors are reinforced steel. Do not open them for anyone but me or Darius."

"Understood," Evelyn said, her eyes cold and professional. She looked at Elena. "Move, Dean Vance. Now."

Elena held my gaze for one second longer, a silent promise burning in her green eyes, before she turned and followed Evelyn toward the secure wing.

"Darius!" I shouted, stepping out into the main hall.

The massive bodyguard emerged from the private elevator that led down to the holding cells. He was already wearing a heavy Kevlar vest over his suit, carrying a suppressed MP5 submachine gun. He looked completely unbothered by the blaring sirens.

"Charles is secured in the bunker," Darius rumbled, checking his weapon. "He is crying. It is very distracting."

"Leave him," I said, tossing Darius a spare radio earpiece. "We have fifteen Tier-One PMCs in the lobby. They’re trying to reach the penthouse to destroy the Ash Ledger."

"Fifteen," Darius repeated, a grim, terrifying smile touching the corners of his mouth. "The odds are improving."

"Don’t get cocky," I said, stepping into the main elevator. "These are Isabella’s men. They’re the same breed that hunted us in Vienna. They don’t make mistakes."

Darius stepped in beside me. I swiped my keycard and hit the button for the mezzanine level, which overlooked the grand lobby.

The elevator began its rapid descent. The ambient music that usually played in the cab had been cut, replaced by the harsh, rhythmic blare of the emergency klaxons.

I closed my eyes, letting the adrenaline flood my system.

There was no Oracle to guide me. No predictive paths glowing in my vision. No System prompts telling me the exact trajectory of the bullets or the weak points in the enemy’s armor. For two years, I had relied on the god in my skull to make me an apex predator. Now, it was just me, a shotgun, and the heavy, terrifying reality of my own mortality.

I gripped the shotgun tighter, feeling the cold steel against my bruised knuckles.

I didn’t need Oracle. I had survived Europe without it. I had broken Victoria Sterling without it. I had four point two billion dollars, an empire of brilliant women, and a rage that burned hotter than any algorithm.

"Nia," I said, tapping my earpiece. "Talk to me."

"They’ve secured the ground floor," Nia’s voice crackled in my ear, accompanied by the frantic, machine-gun clatter of her typing. "They’re splitting into two teams. Team Alpha is holding the lobby perimeter. Team Bravo is moving toward the main stairwells. They have heavy breaching equipment."

"They’re going for the stairs because you locked the elevators," I told Darius. "If they blow the reinforced doors to the stairwell, they have a straight shot up to the penthouse."

"Then we stop them before they reach the stairs," Darius said.

The elevator slowed, the digital display flashing M for Mezzanine.

"Nia, kill the lights in the lobby," I ordered. "Plunge the ground floor into absolute darkness."

"Killing the lights in three... two... one. Dark."

The elevator doors slid open.

We stepped out onto the mezzanine balcony. Below us, the massive, sprawling lobby of Apex Tower was pitched in absolute, suffocating blackness. The only illumination came from the faint, gray morning light filtering through the shattered glass of the loading dock doors, and the sweeping, pale green beams of the PMCs’ tactical lasers cutting through the gloom.

I crouched behind the marble balustrade, peering over the edge.

Nia was right. They were professionals. They hadn’t panicked when the lights went out. They had instantly formed a tight, 360-degree defensive perimeter, their night-vision goggles glowing with a faint, eerie green light.

"They have NVGs," Darius whispered, crouching beside me. "If we engage from here, they will light this balcony up like a firing squad."

"Then we take away their advantage," I said.

I reached into one of the tactical pouches on my vest and pulled out two heavy, cylindrical flashbang grenades. I had taken them from the armory of the mercenaries we had killed in Romania. I never thought I’d be using them in my own lobby.

I pulled the pins on both.

"Close your eyes," I whispered to Darius.

I tossed the grenades over the marble balustrade, aiming for the center of the PMC formation.

Clank. Clank.

"Grenade!" one of the mercenaries shouted, his voice echoing in the cavernous lobby.

BOOM. BOOM.

The twin detonations were deafening, shaking the marble floor beneath my boots. But the sound wasn’t the weapon. The light was.

Two million candela of blinding, searing white light erupted in the pitch-black lobby. For men wearing highly sensitive night-vision goggles, the sudden flash was absolute agony.

Screams of pain echoed from below as the mercenaries tore their goggles off, clutching their eyes, completely blinded by the sensory overload.

"Now," I growled.

Darius rose over the balustrade and opened fire.

The suppressed MP5 coughed a rapid, deadly rhythm. Pfft-pfft-pfft. Three mercenaries dropped instantly, their Kevlar vests failing to stop the armor-piercing rounds Darius had loaded.

I didn’t shoot from the balcony. I vaulted over it.

I dropped fifteen feet, bending my knees to absorb the impact as my boots hit the polished granite floor of the lobby. Pain flared in my bruised ribs, sharp and blinding, but I pushed it down. I rolled forward, coming up in the center of the blinded, chaotic PMC formation.

The nearest mercenary was stumbling backward, rubbing his eyes. I drove the stock of the tactical shotgun into his sternum, shattering his ribs, and pulled the trigger as he doubled over. The heavy slug took him off his feet, throwing him backward into the shattered glass of the reception desk.

"Contact! Contact in the center!" the squad leader roared, firing blindly into the dark.

Bullets sparked off the granite floor inches from my boots. I dove behind a massive marble pillar, racking another shell into the chamber.

Darius was laying down suppressing fire from the mezzanine, keeping the mercenaries pinned down behind the security turnstiles. But Team Bravo—the team with the breaching charges—was already moving toward the main stairwell.

"Jake!" Nia’s voice screamed in my ear. "Team Bravo is at the stairwell doors! They’re setting the charges! If they blow that door, they have direct access to the upper floors!"

"Darius, hold the lobby!" I shouted over the gunfire. "I’m going after Bravo!"

I broke from cover, sprinting across the dark lobby toward the eastern corridor. Two mercenaries stepped out from behind a marble planter, raising their rifles.

I didn’t slow down. I fired the shotgun from the hip, the blast tearing through the first man’s thigh, spinning him to the ground. The second man fired, a bullet grazing the heavy ceramic plate of my tactical vest. The impact felt like being kicked by a horse, knocking the breath from my lungs, but the armor held.

I closed the distance, dropping the shotgun and drawing the heavy combat knife strapped to my chest. I drove the blade upward, slipping it under the edge of his Kevlar vest and into his ribs. He gasped, his rifle clattering to the floor, and I shoved him aside, pulling the blade free.

I hit the eastern corridor at a full sprint.

At the far end of the hall, four mercenaries were clustered around the heavy steel doors leading up to the main stairwell. One of them was pressing blocks of C4 plastic explosive against the hinges, while another wired the detonator.

"Hey!" I roared, my voice echoing down the hall.

They spun around, raising their weapons.

I dove sideways into an open office doorway just as a hail of automatic fire shredded the drywall where I had been standing a second before.

"Charges set!" one of the mercenaries yelled. "Blow it!"

"Jake, they’re going to breach!" Nia panicked over the comms. "I can’t stop them! If they get into the stairwell, they’re going to slaughter everyone in the medical wing!"

I gritted my teeth, pulling a spare shotgun shell from my vest and slamming it into the chamber. I couldn’t reach them in time. If I stepped out into that hallway, four assault rifles would cut me in half before I took three steps.

Suddenly, a new voice crackled over the encrypted comms channel.

It wasn’t Nia. It wasn’t Claire.

It was Sofia.

"Nia," Sofia’s voice was weak, raspy, but laced with absolute, terrifying authority. "Transfer manual control of the stairwell environmental systems to my terminal in the medical wing."

"Sofia? You’re awake? I can’t, the firewalls are—"

"Do it, Nia. Now."

"Transferring control!" Nia shouted.

I pressed my back against the wall, listening to the mercenaries in the hall.

"Detonating in three... two..."

"Mr. Hart," Sofia’s voice whispered in my ear. "Cover your ears."

Deep within the bowels of Apex Tower, a massive, mechanical alarm began to shriek. It wasn’t the fire alarm. It was the catastrophic hazard warning.

HISS.

A deafening, high-pressure roar echoed from the stairwell.

"What the hell is that?" one of the mercenaries yelled in the hallway.

"I just triggered the Halon gas fire-suppression system in the stairwell," Sofia said coldly over the comms. "It displaces all oxygen in the room within six seconds to extinguish electrical fires. I also opened the ventilation shafts leading directly into the eastern corridor."

The heavy steel doors at the end of the hall didn’t explode. They blew outward, forced open by a massive, pressurized wave of thick, suffocating Halon gas.

The gas hit the four mercenaries like a tidal wave.

Halon doesn’t poison you. It simply removes the oxygen from the air. Within two seconds, the mercenaries were dropping their weapons, clutching their throats, and collapsing to the floor as their lungs desperately pulled in dead air.

I stayed pressed against the wall inside the office, holding my breath as the edge of the gas cloud rolled past the doorway.

Through the dissipating white fog, I watched the four elite PMCs twitch, convulse, and finally go completely still on the floor. They weren’t dead—Halon exposure was survivable if they got fresh air soon—but they were completely incapacitated.

"Team Bravo is down," Sofia reported, her voice trembling slightly with exhaustion. "The stairwell is secure."

"Remind me never to play chess with you," I breathed, finally stepping out into the hallway and taking a deep breath of the clean air near the office.

"You would lose," Sofia replied faintly. "Go finish it, Jake."

I picked up my shotgun and racked a fresh shell.

I walked back out into the main lobby.

The gunfire had stopped.

The emergency lights flickered on, casting a dim, yellow glow over the ruined granite floor. The lobby looked like a war zone. Shattered glass, bullet-riddled marble, and the groaning bodies of Isabella’s elite mercenaries littered the ground.

Darius was standing in the center of the carnage, his MP5 lowered. He was bleeding from a shallow cut on his cheek, but otherwise, he looked like a man who had just finished a light workout.

The squad leader—the only mercenary still conscious—was kneeling on the floor, his hands zip-tied behind his back. Darius had his heavy boot planted firmly on the man’s spine, keeping him pinned to the granite.

"Is that all of them?" I asked, walking up to Darius.

"Fifteen," Darius confirmed, his deep voice echoing in the quiet lobby. "Team Bravo?"

"Taking a nap," I said, looking down at the squad leader.

The mercenary glared up at me, his face bruised and bleeding. He didn’t look afraid. He looked defiant.

"You think you won, Hart?" the mercenary spat, blood staining his teeth. "You think stopping us changes anything?"

I knelt down, resting the barrel of the shotgun against his knee. "It changes the fact that you’re going to spend the rest of your life in a federal black site. Who gave the order? Was it Isabella directly?"

The mercenary laughed, a wet, ugly sound.

"Isabella Vane doesn’t give orders to grunts like me," he sneered. "She just signs the checks. But she told us to give you a message if we got caught."

I narrowed my eyes. "What message?"

The mercenary looked up at me, a cruel, mocking smile spreading across his bloody face.

"She said to tell you that four point two billion dollars won’t save you from a bullet," he whispered. "And that the Ash Ledger is going to burn with you."

I stood up slowly in the ruined lobby of my tower. The sirens were still blaring. The smell of cordite and blood hung heavy in the air. We had survived the siege. We had protected the Ledger. We had kept Sofia safe.

But Isabella Vane had just escalated this from a corporate hostile takeover to open, bloody warfare on American soil.

I looked at Darius. I looked at the shattered glass of my fortress.

"Darius," I said, my voice dropping to a cold, absolute whisper. "Call Evelyn. Tell her to get Elena Vance’s paperwork finalized immediately. We’re moving Vanguard into the University."

"And Isabella?" Darius asked quietly.

I racked the shotgun, the sound echoing like a death knell in the empty lobby.

"She wants a war," I said. "We’re going to give her one."