My husband put his secretary in my seat on my own private jet, then looked me in the eye and told me to remember my place

A deafening burst of suppressed automatic gunfire shattered the stale bunker air before Eleanor could finish her sentence.

From the shadows behind the server stacks, Christian materialized like a wraith. Two of Eleanor’s mercenaries collapsed instantly to the floor, their weapons clattering against the concrete. The remaining two swung their rifles toward him, returning fire and sparking furious muzzle flashes off the granite walls.

"Down!" Henry shouted, shoving me behind the reinforced steel pedestal of the main terminal as bullets ricocheted with ear-splitting whines through the operations deck.

Christian dove behind a secondary rack of cooling towers, returning precise, lethal single shots. Within three seconds, the gunfire stopped. The heavy thump of bodies hitting the floor was the only sound left, accompanied by the metallic smell of fresh cordite and ozone.

Eleanor hadn't moved an inch. Even as bullets chipped the concrete two feet from her head, she stood rigid, staring at me with pupils dilated in pure, psychotic fury.

"You think a few dead mercenaries will change the math, Claire?" Eleanor hissed, lunging forward with a sudden, vicious speed that defied her age. She reached for the terminal's manual override lever—a heavy red switch that would force-execute Key B regardless of calibration.

"Don't touch it!" Henry roared, lunging across the platform with the desperation of a man who had nothing left to lose.

He collided with Eleanor, sending both of them crashing against the massive glass display. The crystal glass of scotch shattered across the console, liquids hissing into exposed circuitry.

"Get off me, you pathetic ghost!" Eleanor screamed, clawing at Henry’s face with manicured nails that ripped open his cheek. "You were weak thirty years ago, and you are weak now! You built the machine, but you never had the stomach to wield it!"

Henry held onto her wrists with the furious strength of a dying man. "Claire! The drive! Connect Key A to port four! Reverse the polarity before the upload reaches eighty percent!"

I didn't hesitate. Ignoring the pain radiating through my battered ribs, I vaulted onto the platform. I slammed the titanium drive into the designated port. The terminal screen flared violently:

`GENESIS PROTOCOL DETECTED: KEY A MOUNTED.`

`SYSTEM CONFLICT: KEY B IN PROGRESS (76%).`

`ENTER EXECUTIVE OVERRIDE CODE.`

"You don't know the code!" Eleanor shrieked, wrenching one hand free and striking Henry across the temple with a heavy steel paperweight from the desk. Henry groaned, collapsing sideways onto the blood-slicked floor. "I changed it the day I put your father on ice! You have nothing, Claire! You are nothing without me!"

She lunged at me, her eyes bloodshot, her fingers curling into claws aiming for my throat.

I didn't flinch. I didn't step back.

I caught her wrist in mid-air, twisting it violently downward until the bone popped in its socket. Eleanor let out an agonized, strangled shriek, falling to her knees at my feet.

I bent down until my lips were inches from her ear, exactly as she had whispered to me on the tarmac when Julian stole my plane.

"You told me to remember my place, Eleanor," I whispered with deadly, absolute calm. "My place isn't in your shadow. My place is on your throat."

I reached past her writhing form and pressed my fingers against the keyboard.