Claire's parents had both been classified, top-tier assets, which meant her value was far beyond that of a standard genius.
Of course, if Claire was willing to defect to Sundara, they might let her live a little longer.
As long as her intellect could still be exploited, no one would rush to chop her up for experimental projects.
Tycho actually felt a twinge of pity, an emotion Claire somehow managed to read in
his eyes.
"Are you satisfied with my performance so far?"
Claire spoke up suddenly. There was no tremor in her voice, just a calm, detached inquiry.
She spoke as though she were the one dictating the terms, not a hostage.
Tycho glanced at Felicity in the passenger seat. As an operative, Felicity was leagues beneath the girl sitting next to him.
Felicity caught the look and twisted around, glaring venomously at Tycho. "Don't think I don't know what kind of garbage is floating around in your head!"
"Did I say anything?" Tycho scoffed. "If you hadn't been such a catastrophic idiot back there, we would've extracted cleanly. We wouldn't have even needed Quinton to bail us out!"
Felicity absolutely loathed Howard. She had to use her looks to seduce the guy, and she despised having to play the submissive girlfriend.
"Don't act like you weren't just settling a personal grudge! If we don't make it out of here, I'll put a bullet in you myself!"
The only thing Tycho cared about in this world was his sister.
He knew that if he died, his sister's funding vanished, and she would die too.
He would absolutely slaughter anyone who dragged him down!
Otherwise, how could he face his innocent sister in the afterlife?
"So what if I was? You had the chance to extract her first. Why didn't you?" Felicity outright refused to take the blame.
The two of them began screaming at each other in the confined space.
Behind the wheel, Quinton's expression darkened by the second.
"Enough!"
The moment he snapped, the car went dead silent.
Normally, neither of them respected Quinton's leadership, but he had literally just saved their lives.
Without Quinton, they would have never broken through the campus perimeter with Claire.
Even if they had managed to break out, there was no guarantee Claire would have survived the crossfire.
"Your unauthorized improvisation just caused massive operational damage and put the entire mission at risk."
"Command has already relayed that even if we complete the extraction, your payouts are being docked by eighty percent."
"If we fail, you both know exactly what's waiting for you."
"Instead of pointing fingers, you need to conserve your energy."
Quinton drove with terrifying precision.
Even with police cruisers aggressively tailing them, he didn't show a hint of panic.
He had set up the extraction perfectly. Losing the cops was barely an inconvenience.
Once they cleared the university
gates, heavy transport trucks systematically blocked intersections, creating 'accidental traffic jams that perfectly shielded their escape route.
Claire had no idea how Quinton had orchestrated it all, but looking out the back window she watched the police cruisers get funneled away behind the barricades. Content S
This man was undeniably a master tactician. He had deployed severa identical decoy vehicles to shatter the police's visual tracking.
Before long, they pulled into a sprawling industrial warehouse and immediately swapped vehicles.
Only Hillary Harding had managed to tail the correct car.
But the second she breached the warehouse, she lost visual on Claire's vehicle entirely.
As for the GPS tracker embedded in Claire's jewelry, the signal had flatlined.
Their tech was state-of-the-art; they had deployed military-grade signal jammers the moment she was in the car.
They didn't even bother patting Claire down for bugs.
Claire had subtly tried to snap her bracelet to leave a physical breadcrumb, but
Tycho had caught her wrist instantly.
"Ms. James, I strongly advise against doing anything foolish."
Tycho squeezed her wrist, a glint of genuine amusement dancing in his eyes.