Badass in Disguise Chapter 274

Author's POV:

A flash of steel caught Jade's eye as another knife hurled toward them with lethal precision. She reacted instantly, her short blade clashing against the assassin's weapon with a metallic ring that echoed through the hall.

But it was a feint. The assassin produced another blade from his sleeve, driving it toward his true target—Zach. Too fast. Jade's knife was still locked with his first weapon, unable to counter in time.

Without hesitation, she thrust her arm into the blade's path. White-hot pain exploded through her forearm as the knife tore through flesh and muscle, stopping just two inches from Zach's eye. Blood splattered across his face, crimson droplets shocking him from his daze.

"Fuck!" She ripped a strip from her shirt, quickly binding the wound. "Don't freeze up!"

Zach's expression transformed from shock to unbridled fury. With a primal roar, he tackled the assassin, driving him to the floor and delivering a crushing blow to the man's throat. The assassin gargled on his own blood before going still.

The grand hall had become a battlefield. Wraith and Selene fought with desperate precision against Shadow Organization's elite killers. All four of them were bleeding from multiple wounds, breathing hard, their strength fading with each passing minute. Zach was barely standing, and SPECTER still had nearly half his death squad intact.

"This isn't working," Selene called out between ragged breaths, wiping blood from a deep gash across her shoulder. "If we don't die on their blades, they'll wear us down until there's nothing left."

Wraith wiped blood from his brow. "Looks like we're all going to die here today."

Selene glanced at him, a strange softness momentarily replacing the killer's edge in her eyes. "I won't let you die."

"I'm not afraid," Wraith replied simply, his expression unchanged.

Selene looked upward briefly, her blonde hair matted with blood and sweat. "I wonder how Void and Onyx are doing."

They hadn't escaped. Instead, they'd headed for the fortress control center, facing their own gauntlet of dangers. Shadow Organization assassins and operatives filled this place—one word from SPECTER would bring them all running with loaded weapons, crushing them like ants.

Selene had told Void and Onyx that escape was the priority if things went south.

SPECTER received a report from one of his men, then turned to Selene with a cold smile that never reached his mismatched eyes. "Want to know how they're doing?"

He swiveled a monitor toward them. On screen, Void lay motionless in a spreading pool of blood, surrounded by Shadow Organization operatives. His fate unclear.

"I've grown tired of this game," SPECTER declared. He nodded to Milo. "Call in the reinforcements. End this."

Jade mentally calculated the timing, feeling the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. "Getting close to you isn't difficult," she said calmly. "I just needed to buy some time."

Wraith caught her meaning, the corner of his mouth twitching upward. "Your people should be here by now, right?"

"Of course," she confirmed.

As if on cue, Milo's earpiece buzzed with an urgent transmission. His face drained of color as he listened, eyes widening in alarm.

"Sir," Milo reported, his voice strained, "radar has detected a large formation of armed helicopters approaching our position."

The earpiece continued to crackle with panicked updates. SPECTER snatched it from Milo's ear just in time to hear the control center door being breached, followed by a technician's death gurgle—Onyx's handiwork. The sound of slicing metal and screams filled the brief silence.

The monitors switched to external cameras. The sky had darkened with an armada of black helicopters bearing down on the fortress like a mechanical plague. The thunderous roar of rotors drowned out even the crashing waves below. Each chopper bore the unmistakable insignia of the Transcendent Military Alliance.

Aboard the lead helicopter, Maxi confirmed coordinates to the man beside him—Ethan Haxton, who should have been halfway across the world in Poland. His face was a mask of controlled tension, eyes never leaving the fortress below.

"Unable to pinpoint master's exact location," Maxi reported, metallic voice somehow conveying urgency. "Full bombardment risks harming her. Your orders?"

Ethan's jaw tightened as he studied the fortress. The tracking device in Jade's body emitted only the faintest signal, insufficient for precise targeting. He silently prayed that her plan would work—that she'd be safe in the underground structure while the surface was obliterated.

"Proceed as planned," he commanded without hesitation.

Ethan had never gone to Poland. Connor had taken his place, deceiving Shadow Organization's surveillance while Ethan secretly returned. Jade had instructed him to arrive at the appointed time with overwhelming firepower and obliterate the fortress.

"Target locked," Maxi relayed. "Preparing to fire."

The first missiles streaked toward the fortress, trailing smoke across the sky before obliterating one corner in a spectacular explosion. The underground complex shuddered violently, dust raining from the ceiling as chunks of concrete fell around them. The assassins momentarily lost their footing, giving Jade and her allies precious seconds.

Facing the helicopter armada and its overwhelming firepower, SPECTER's face betrayed a flash of fury before settling into cold calculation.

"Stay behind and kill her at all costs," he ordered his remaining assassins. He gestured sharply to his personal guard to follow him. He turned to Milo. "Tell everyone on the surface to evacuate immediately."

He wouldn't sacrifice his entire organization in this fortress. As a second explosion rocked the building, he strode purposefully toward a hidden exit.

Jade tried to pursue SPECTER as he fled, but his assassins blocked her path with suicidal determination, their eyes empty of fear. One lunged at her with twin blades, while another fired shots that narrowly missed her head. She ducked and spun, feeling the air displaced by bullets whizzing past her ear.

Before joining the chase, she tossed a small box to Wraith. "Wraith."

He caught it, opened it, and found two custom ammunition rounds that fit perfectly into his mechanical arm. Though hastily manufactured, they were functional—something Jade had prepared during those nights she claimed to be making bombs. Wraith's specialized ammunition was notoriously expensive and difficult to craft, each round easily exceeding a million dollars.

His eyes widened slightly—the closest thing to surprise Jade had ever seen from him. He examined the rounds briefly before loading one into his mechanical forearm, the mechanisms clicking satisfyingly into place.

With Selene and Wraith's covering fire, Jade carved a bloody path forward, determined not to let SPECTER escape. Thanks to knowledge from her previous life, Jade knew about secret passages unknown even to Shadow Organization's leadership.

Outside, half the fortress lay in ruins as assassins scattered into the surrounding forest, disappearing into the dense vegetation. Some fell to sniper fire from the helicopters, their bodies crumpling mid-stride. Others made it to the treeline, vanishing like ghosts.

Ethan directed all helicopters to land, his voice steady despite the chaos around him. "Ryan, take the east side. Xavier, west. Miguel, secure the perimeter." His eyes never stopped scanning the devastation, searching for any sign of Jade, silently hoping she'd found safety underground as planned.

Underground, Selene engaged three assassins at once, her movements fluid despite her injuries. Blood ran down her temple, but her eyes remained clear and focused. She ducked under a wild swing, stabbed upward with preternatural speed, and kicked another attacker into the wall with bone-crushing force.

"Wraith," she called over the chaos, her breath coming in short bursts, "go after her. I've got this."

Wraith loaded one of the custom rounds into his mechanical arm, took aim at the cluster of assassins surrounding Selene, and fired. The specialized explosive round detonated with devastating force, throwing bodies across the hall. The survivors staggered, disoriented by the blast.

Selene nodded to him, somehow untouched by the explosion. He exchanged a meaningful look with her, something unspoken passing between them, then sprinted after Jade into the darkened corridor.