Chapter 12 - The Red Protocol
Emma rushed into the study moments later, her face pale with panic as she saw the unconscious assassin bleeding on the Persian rug.
Adrian quickly locked the doors and pulled the heavy velvet curtains shut, plunging the room into complete darkness.
He turned to Emma, his voice trembling for the first time in years as he explained the devastating contents of the photograph and the note.
Emma covered her mouth in sheer horror, unable to comprehend how a mother could orchestrate such a monstrous betrayal against her own flesh and blood.
Adrian grabbed Emma’s shoulders, his grip tight and desperate, making her promise that she would never let Caroline take Lily.
Emma looked him dead in the eye and swore that she would burn the world down before she let anyone touch her children.
Adrian nodded, his eyes hardening into twin pools of black ice as he walked over to a hidden wall safe behind a classic painting.
He entered a complex twelve-digit code and pressed his thumb against a biometric scanner, swinging the heavy steel door open.
Inside the safe were pristine passports, stacks of untraceable European currency, and a single, archaic red telephone.
Adrian picked up the receiver, making a call he had sworn to himself he would never make again when he left the criminal underworld.
He spoke only three words to the operator on the other end of the encrypted line: Initiate Red Protocol.
Across the city, dozens of Adrian’s most ruthless, deeply embedded operatives received the activation signal simultaneously.
These were not standard security guards like Marcus’s men; these were phantoms, ex-military specialists who owed their lives to the Wolf.
Adrian turned back to Emma, instructing her to wake the children and pack only their most vital necessities in absolute silence.
They had less than twenty minutes before Julian Vance’s strike teams realized Silas had failed to check in and descended upon the mansion.
Emma ran to the master suite, her heart pounding against her ribs as she gently shook Noah and Lily awake.
She did not explain the terrifying truth about Caroline, simply telling the children that they were playing a high-stakes game of hide and seek.
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As they hurried down the secret servant’s staircase to the underground garage, Adrian met them holding a pair of heavy tactical bags.
He handed Emma a loaded pistol and a bulletproof vest, his expression utterly stripped of any remaining mercy.
