Her Mother Humiliated Her in Front of 200 Veterans and Called Her “The Greatest Shame of My Life”—Then a Decorated Navy SEAL Saw One Insignia on Claire’s Uniform and Saluted Her. But when he whispered, “Ma’am… you’re the One-Eighty-Seven?” the entire ballroom stood up—and Margaret finally realized who her daughter really was. / Chapter 75 / 100

Chapter 75 - Breaching the Citadel

The mansion erupted into chaos.

Inside the sprawling marble foyer, emergency backup generators hummed to life, bathing the opulent halls in the eerie, amber glow of low-power auxiliary lighting.

"Perimeter breach! Sector Four is dark!" the radio squawked through the earpieces of twenty Blackthorn mercenaries gathered in the great hall. "I have lost contact with Alpha team! Repeat, Alpha is dark!"

At the top of the grand double staircase, Margaret Montgomery stood behind three layers of armored bodyguards, her face twisted in a mask of paranoid fury. She held a heavy gold-plated revolver in her trembling hand, her knuckles white.

"She's inside," Margaret hissed. "Find her and kill her! I don't care if you blow this house to pieces! Put her down!"

Suddenly, the massive stained-glass skylight directly above the grand chandelier shattered with a concussive roar.

A heavy breaching charge detonated, raining shards of razor-sharp colored glass down upon the mercenaries below. Before the smoke could clear, two high-yield flashbangs slammed onto the marble floor, detonating in a blinding, deafening symphony of white light and ear-shattering concussions.

Screams of disorientation echoed through the hall. Mercenaries fired blindly into the rafters, muzzle flashes illuminating the swirling cordite smoke.

Then came the reaper.

Claire dropped through the opening, rappelling down a tactical cable with blinding speed. She unhooked before her boots touched the marble, her suppressed rifle barking in rapid, rhythmic double-taps:

*Thwip-thwip. Thwip-thwip. Thwip-thwip.*

Three contractors collapsed instantly, perfect center-mass and head shots dropping them before their weapons could find her. Claire rolled behind a solid marble pillar as a wall of automatic rifle fire chewed into the stone, sending chips of plaster and marble flying like shrapnel.

"Suppressing fire! Flank her!" the mercenary captain screamed, advancing with a ballistic shield.

Claire reached into her vest, pulled an incendiary thermite disk, and slapped it against the reverse side of the pillar. She waited two seconds, then kicked the burning block directly into the path of the advancing shield-bearer.

The thermite ignited at four thousand degrees, melting through the composite shield and igniting the contractor's vest in an instant. The man shrieked, dropping the shield as he collapsed into a ball of white-hot fire.

Taking advantage of the panic, Claire broke cover. Moving with terrifying fluidity, she swept through the lower level like a scythe through wheat. Every movement was economic, brutally efficient, honed by a decade of black-ops warfare. A strike to the throat, a redirected muzzle, a point-blank trigger pull—she neutralized five more men in less than fifteen seconds.

She discarded her empty rifle, smoothly drawing her twin sidearms as she reached the foot of the grand staircase.

Above her, Margaret backed away into the master corridor, her eyes wild with terror.

"Shoot her! Shoot her, you useless cowards!" Margaret screamed at her remaining personal guards.

The two bodyguards raised their submachine guns, but before they could squeeze their triggers, the heavy oak double doors at the front entrance of the mansion didn't just open—they exploded inward with the force of an anti-tank missile.

A concussive shockwave blew the doors off their hinges, flattening the remaining mercenaries into bloody pulps against the far wall.

Claire dropped to one knee, bringing her pistols up, aiming into the swirling dust and rain blowing through the shattered entrance.

Through the fog stepped a single, hulking figure.

Exoskeleton armor. Retracted jump-wings. The obsidian falcon gleaming on his chest.

Julian.

He stepped over the twisted wreckage of the steel hinges, his heavy carbine resting casually against his thigh. He looked at the bodies littering the floor, then raised his gaze to Claire, and finally to the woman trembling at the top of the stairs.