Chapter 162 - The Sovereign Matriarch
The digital digits on the conning tower of the nuclear vessel blazed in venomous amber: *00:58... 00:57... 00:56...*
Vincent Moretti did not drop his weapon, but the barrel trembled with an intensity Emma had never seen in him. His knuckles turned bone-white. The woman standing atop the gangway looked barely fifty, preserved by wealth, science, and cold ambition, though Vincent had buried an empty casket bearing her name nearly thirty years ago.
"Helena," Vincent said, his voice dropping into a register that shook the damp air of the cavern. "You died in the crash off the Mackinac Straits. I saw the wreckage. Father mourned you until his heart stopped."
Helena Moretti smiled, a gesture bereft of maternal warmth. It was the precise, calculating smirk that Vincent had inherited, perfected over generations of ruthless dominance. Her pristine black naval uniform was devoid of insignias, save for an embroidered ouroboros circling a fractured crown—the sigil of the True Sovereign.
"Your father was a tradesman playing at nobility, Vincent," Helena replied, her voice echoing smoothly across the subterranean basin. "He thought the Moretti empire was built on concrete, steel, and shipping docks. He never understood that the true foundation of Chicago lies beneath the water. When the old world cracked during the Cold War, your grandfather and the Ward family built this sanctuary to survive the fire. I merely took control of what was mine."
Her cold eyes shifted from Vincent to Emma. The gaze felt like an icy needle sliding under Emma’s skin.
"And now, the bloodline is complete," Helena continued, descending the gangway with effortless grace, flanked by six operators armed with suppressed submachine guns. "The Wards were the biological architects of the Aegis protocol. Without their genetic sequence, the reactor of the *Tartarus* remains dormant. Arthur Sterling was an arrogant pawn sent to flush you out. You played your part brilliantly, my dear Emma."
"I am not your pawn," Emma said, stepping in front of Vincent, her pistol aimed directly at Helena’s chest. "And I don't care what blood runs in my veins. You destroyed families, tore this city apart, and used your own son as bait."
"Sentimentality," Helena sighed, checking the chronometer on her wrist as the timer dipped below thirty seconds. "Such a pedestrian flaw. Do you think that timer represents a bomb, Vincent? Look closely at the sluice valves."
Vincent’s gaze snapped to the massive perimeter walls of the subterranean dry dock. Gigantic hydraulic pistons were grinding in reverse. High above them, the concrete bed separating the silo from the crushing pressure of Lake Michigan was groaning.
"The timer isn't a detonation," Vincent snarled, realizing the trap. "It’s the flood cycle."
May you like
"The *Tartarus* requires water to breathe," Helena said coldly. "And only those on board will survive the deluge. Lower your weapons, or drown in the dark."
***
