Chapter 3 - The Setup
The rain hammered heavily against the windshield of the speeding sedan.
Claire touched her bruised cheek, her fingers trembling violently.
She whispered that Daniel had slapped her during an argument about the wedding seating chart.
It had seemed completely out of character for the gentle man she thought she loved.
Richard kept his eyes on the dark road, weaving recklessly through the city traffic.
He explained that Daniel was never the man she thought he was.
The entire relationship, the sudden proposal, the lavish gala, it was all a trap.
Daniel's family had spent decades searching for the last survivor of the royal bloodline.
They needed absolute confirmation of her identity before they made their move.
The slap was a test to activate the dormant biometric tracker in her cheek.
Claire felt completely sick to her stomach.
Three years of her life had been a carefully constructed lie.
She asked Richard who she really was and where they were going.
Richard told her they were heading to a safe house he had maintained for twenty years.
He promised to explain everything once they were safely behind reinforced steel doors.
They left the city limits and drove into a heavily wooded area in the mountains.
Richard pulled the car off the main road and down a hidden dirt path.
They stopped in front of a small, dilapidated cabin that looked completely abandoned.
Richard ushered her inside and pulled a hidden lever inside the old fireplace.
The floorboards creaked and slowly lowered them into a brightly lit subterranean bunker.
The concrete walls were lined with advanced computer servers and racks of heavy weaponry.
Claire stared at the arsenal, realizing she never actually knew the man who raised her.
Richard walked over to a metal table and began loading magazines with ammunition.
He finally looked at Claire with a soft, apologetic expression.
He told her that he was not her biological father.
He was the former head of her real family's elite royal guard.
Her true parents had been murdered in a coordinated coup when she was only a year old.
He had smuggled her out of the country and raised her in hiding to keep her safe.
Suddenly, a blaring red alarm echoed through the underground bunker.
One of the security monitors on the wall flashed a warning of a perimeter breach.
Richard cursed loudly and grabbed a tactical rifle from the rack.
He said the Phoenix Vanguard shouldn't have been able to track them here this fast.
Claire looked at the security feed and her blood ran completely cold.
The armed men swarming the woods outside were not wearing dark suits.
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They were heavily armored mercenaries wearing military tactical gear.
And leading them through the rain was Daniel Prescott, holding a suppressed submachine gun.
