The ride back to the Manor was a nightmare of silence. Kai sat next to me in the back of the SUV, his white shirt ruined, his knuckles bruised, and the scent of gunpowder clinging to his skin. He didn't touch me, but his gaze was a physical weight, anchored to the mark on my neck.
I felt the vial—the "Cure"—tucked against my skin. It was getting warmer. A faint, violet smoke was beginning to swirl inside the glass, reacting to the heat of my body. Or perhaps, reacting to the Fox blood Kai had just left inside me.
"You're quiet, Little Fox," Kai rasped, his voice sounding like broken glass. "Most women would be screaming after seeing a ghost die."
"I'm not most women, Kai. You made sure of that in the lab," I said, staring out the window at the passing shadows. "Was she really my sister?"
Kai grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were voids of obsidian. "She was a prototype. You are the final product. Don't waste your pity on a failed model."
"And when I fail? When I give you Subject Seven and my body breaks like hers did? Will you discard me too?"
Kai's grip tightened, his thumb pressing into the soft skin of my throat. He leaned in until our foreheads touched. "You won't fail. Because I won't let you. I've invested too much in you, Amara. Not just money... but a part of my own darkness."
The car pulled into the Manor, but something was wrong. The front gates were wide open. The guards were missing from their posts.
Kai was out of the car before it even stopped, his gun drawn. "Stay in the car!"
"No!" I scrambled out after him. I wasn't the prey anymore; I was part of the hunt.
We burst into the foyer. The grand chandelier was flickering. And there, standing in the middle of the marble floor, was Elena. She wasn't in her maid uniform. She was wearing a tactical vest, and she was holding a tablet that displayed the Manor's security feed.
"Mr. Fox," she said, her voice devoid of its usual robotic calm. "We have a breach. Not from the outside. From the basement."
"The lab?" Kai's voice was a low growl.
"Subject Seven's crib," Elena whispered. "It's gone."
Kai let out a roar of pure, unadulterated rage. He smashed a Ming vase against the wall, the shards flying everywhere. Someone had stolen the future of his empire before it was even conceived.
But I wasn't looking at Kai. I was looking at the tablet in Elena's hand. The security footage showed a man in a black hoodie carrying the glowing blue crib toward the service tunnels.
The man paused and looked directly into the camera. He pulled back his hood.
It wasn't Marcus. It wasn't my father.
It was Kai's younger brother, Lucian Fox—the "Black Sheep" of the family who everyone thought had died in a plane crash five years ago. He winked at the camera and mouthed three words:
"Check her blood."
Suddenly, the vial against my chest turned scalding hot. I gasped, pulling it out. The violet liquid wasn't just smoking anymore; it was turning black.
Kai spun around, his eyes locking onto the vial in my hand. He saw the black liquid. He saw the smoke.
"Where did you get that?" he hissed, stepping toward me with a look of such raw betrayal it felt like a physical blow.
"Kai, I—"
"GIVE IT TO ME!"
He lunged for me, but as his fingers touched the glass, the vial shattered. The black liquid didn't fall to the floor. It defied gravity, turning into a fine mist that was instantly sucked into my nose and mouth.
I fell to my knees, my lungs screaming, my vision turning into a kaleidoscope of violet and black. I could feel it—the "Cure"—racing through my veins, searching for the Fox DNA Kai had planted inside me.
And then, a sound erupted from the Manor's speakers. A recording of my mother's voice, clear and cold:
"Project Six is not a vessel, Kai. She is a bomb. And you just triggered the countdown."
I looked up at Kai. For the first time since I met him, the most powerful man in the world looked afraid.