Page 144 of Ruthless God

My breath catches. What the hell is this place?

I run my fingers along the nearest door. Cool metal. Thick. Reinforced. A prison. Not just any prison. One that’s been here a long time.

And then I see it. The carvings. Scratched into the metal. Some are faint, old. But one stands out. It’s fresh, deep, and deliberate.

I crouch, my fingers hovering over the etched letters.

Gabriel.

My pulse spikes. Gabriel was here. I trace the letters, my mind racing. This isn’t just a basement. It’s a holding cell. A place where someone was kept. Where Gabriel was kept. By who? Claudius? Blanc? Someone else?

I step back, my head spinning. But then I see something else. Something that has me moving.

A room full of monitors with live-streaming feeds. My breath catches and I can’t tear my eyes away. The screens stretch before me, flickering with moments no one should be seeing. Everywhere. Every corner of this house. And beyond.

The feeds cycle, shifting between locations and faces.

My mother and Blanc, too close, too familiar. Bonnie and Alyssa, laughing like they don’t have a care in the world. Mrs. Blanc, crying alone in a dimly lit room. Agnes. Leyla. Rose. Millie. Polina. More women I’ve never seen.

Then beyond the house. Lili. My heart lurches. Lili and Dimitri, playing with the kids. Harvey sits on the couch, laughing with them. They’re safe. For now. But they’re being watched. Every moment monitored.

The next feed shifts and my stomach twists violently. President Grant Carter and his wife. In the White House. How?

Brooks Henderson, the ex-wrestler, now a beloved actor, rocking a baby next to a beautiful woman.

A man and a woman I don’t recognize walking along the Vegas Strip.

But my gut knows. I don’t need names. I already know who they are.

The other Elite Members.

A web of power, woven together in secrecy. And someone in this house has been watching all of them. Tracking them. Recording them.

My pulse thrums and I reach out, fingers hovering over the controls. There has to be more. A way to trace this back to whoever is pulling the strings. I glance at the monitors again, my heart pounding. Whoever set this up is expecting someone to find it. And I just did.

30

Cecely

I glance over my shoulder, pulse hammering. I don’t have much time. If this room exists, someone is going to come looking for it. For me.

I turn back to the screens. There has to be more than just live feeds. Files. Recordings. Logs. Something that tells me who is behind this.

I grab the nearest keyboard, typing quickly. A snort leaves my lips before I can stop it. Looks like Professor Quinn was wrong when she said we’d never have to use our cybersecurity skills in our own lives. That we’d only need to use them to take down criminals.

A menu pops up.

SECURITY ARCHIVE – ACCESS RESTRICTED

I bite my lip, fingers flying over the keys. If this is restricted, it means something’s hidden here, but people get sloppy and maybe there will be some kind of digital trail.

A few keystrokes later, a list appears. Hundreds of files. Names. Dates. Locations. I scroll down fast, scanning. Until I see it.

Gabriel Irons – FILE ENCRYPTED

My heart stops. He was being watched. Tracked. Logged. There’s another file.

Claudius Irons – STATUS: ACTIVE SURVEILLANCE

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