779 The Chimera Protocol: A Dead Wife’s Secret, a Subterranean Vault, and the Race Against Time to Save a Dying Family

The sound of shattering glass mingled with Blythe’s terrified scream, cutting straight through my chest like a jagged blade.

Adrenaline surged past every limit of human endurance. I didn't wait for the operative to swing his rifle around. I lunged forward across the slick floor, slamming my shoulder directly into his side with the force of a freight train. We collided hard against the reinforced doorframe, the man’s rifle clattering loudly onto the linoleum tiles.

He swung an elbow backward, catching me square in the ribs, but I locked my forearm around his neck, twisting downward with savage leverage. With a sickening crunch of synthetic armor and bone, he crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

“Dad!” Jonah cried out from the bed, his voice weak and trembling as he stared at the shattered glass raining down around his blankets.

“I’m right here, buddy. Don't look at the door,” I commanded, my voice softening instantly as I stepped past the broken frame, keeping my weapon raised toward the hallway.

I swept the room in a second, checking the vitals monitor. The heart rates for both twins were dangerously spiked, the rhythmic beeping pulsing at a frantic tempo. Dr. Yates’s words echoed in my head: Ten days left. Their bodies are shutting down.

The mercenary had said their server had been downloaded. But as my eyes caught the flickering monitor on the nurse’s station just outside the glass, I noticed something strange. The data transfer log wasn't downloading from my network—it was uploading outward, pinging an encrypted satellite relay anchored somewhere deep within the industrial sector of downtown Chicago.

And flashing across the auxiliary terminal was a string of genetic code sequences that didn't match any known leukemia treatment. It matched the medical report Elena had brought into my office.

Project Chimera-9 wasn't a disease. It was a synthetic gene-therapy prototype engineered to rewrite human cellular immunity. And my children weren't dying of natural cancer—they were experiencing a violent biological rejection because their DNA had been artificially modified before they were even born.

Suddenly, heavy footfalls echoed up the corridor.

Prescott appeared around the corner, his tactical vest scorched, a deep gash bleeding freely down his left temple, holding his assault rifle at the ready.

“Boss! The extraction team at the front—they pulled back! They didn't want a firefight once the local grid locked down, but they took a hard drive from the security hub,” Prescott panted, leveling his weapon before lowering it when he saw me standing over the unconscious operative. “Are the kids okay?”

“They’re alive,” I said, stepping out of the quarantine room and pulling the damaged doors shut as best as I could. I looked down at the unconscious mercenary, ripping the helmet off his head.

The face staring back at us wasn't a nameless corporate thug. It was a former high-ranking operative belonging to Apex Global Solutions—the exact private intelligence firm that Genevieve had quietly investigated during the final year of her life before her alleged “accident.”

“Prescott,” I said, my voice dropping into a lethal whisper. “Get Dr. Yates back on-site immediately. Tell him to bypass all standard chemotherapy protocols and run a full spectrum analysis for synthetic retrovirus markers against the Chimera file.”

Prescott’s eyes widened slightly. “Boss... that’s black-project biotech. If the Syndicate is using your kids as living test subjects for an experimental retrovirus—”

“Then we’re going to find out who’s holding the cure,” I interrupted, stepping over the fallen mercenary and heading back toward the grand staircase.

When I reached my study, the heavy mahogany door stood slightly ajar.

I raised my Sig and pushed the door wide open.