Strike Like Thunder

The silence before the strike had passed.

Now came the thunder.

The night sky over the city cracked with lightning—not from storms, but from explosions.

The first blast hit Lansing's financial satellite hub in Zurich. At precisely 02:12 a.m., the building's core server room erupted, flames tearing through steel and concrete. The system that held twenty years of offshore secrets went dark in under sixty seconds.

Simultaneously, across six different countries, encrypted drives were dumped onto the dark web.

Richard Lansing's paper trail—now public.

Gina stood in the middle of her underground war room, a phone pressed to her ear as the reports came in like a rising tide.

"Zurich, successful. Cape Town, breached. Dubai, clean sweep. Geneva… still active."

She turned to Nuel's holographic projection. His expression was steel.

"I'll handle Geneva personally," he said. "He still has something there. Something big."

Gina nodded. "And Marianne?"

"Safe. For now. But if he gets desperate…"

"He's already desperate."

A pause.

"I'm going to destroy him, Nuel," she whispered.

"And I'll hold the door open."

---

At the Lansing estate, alarms blared.

Richard stormed into his secure bunker, shouting orders to men already panicking.

"Shut down all digital links. We're bleeding."

A young tech specialist stammered, "We can't. She has root access—she's inside our backbone."

Richard's eyes blazed. "How?"

"Sir... she's not working alone."

The screen flashed red. Then black.

"Get me to the vault. Now."

---

Meanwhile, Davina's safehouse was under heavy surveillance—but not from Gina's side.

A team of mercenaries, faces masked, crept through the outskirts of the compound. Lansing's elite retrieval unit. Their mission: retrieve the girl. Alive.

But Davina wasn't helpless.

She had read the signs, decoded the protocols, and activated Protocol B7: Defensive Containment.

Gas released into the perimeter.

Silent alarms sent encrypted signals to Houna.

By the time the intruders stepped foot into the hallway, they were blind and staggering.

Davina stood at the top of the stairs. Calm. Holding her mother's custom firearm.

"I suggest you leave," she said.

They didn't.

Two warning shots to the wall changed their minds.

By the time Houna's security swept in, the invaders were bound and weeping.

Davina descended the stairs.

"Tell Richard Lansing," she said coldly, "he's not the only one who knows how to start a war."

---

Hours later, Dave arrived back from Geneva.

He had found proof.

Contracts. Threats. Signatures from Richard's early career—blackmail letters to the Michaels family. Photos of Gina's father beaten, bleeding.

He dropped the file on Gina's table.

"You were right."

Gina didn't even flinch. "Of course I was."

He looked at her, breathing heavily.

"He killed your family."

"I know."

He stepped closer. "Gina… this isn't just business anymore. This is blood."

She met his eyes. "It always has been."

---

Richard Lansing, now cornered, made his final call that night.

"Activate Asset 9."

There was a pause on the other end.

"Sir… are you sure? She's unpredictable."

"Unleash her. I want the Michaels girl brought to me. Alive or dying, I don't care."

The voice replied, "It's done."

In the shadows of a crumbling foreign embassy, a woman opened her eyes.

Scarred. Deadly.

Trained by Richard.

Her name: Elara.

And her mission had just begun.