?Chapter 1578:


    “Mr. Cooper.” Her words came fast, as if she could see his hesitation through the phone. “Save the excuses. I’m watching this unfold from the roadside right now. This isn’t a simple traffic stop—it’s a mess, and a dangerous one. I need to understand The Mask’s objective here. You don’t deploy assets to interceptw enforcement without a critical reason.”


    She let that hang for a fraction of a second, her next words dropping with absolute conviction. “You’re extracting someone. Who is in that police transport? And who exactly are you willing to start a war in the streets to save?”


    Chris’s grip tightened until his knuckles ached. That feeling again—the unnerving certainty that she could see straight through every wall he’d ever built.


    He exhaled once, short and defeated. “Kolton Cooper,” he said quietly.


    He found he couldn’t lie to her. More than that, he realized he no longer wanted to.


    Maia’s breath caught. “Kolton Cooper?” Her voice rose, incredulous. “You’re risking everything to save him?”


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    It made no sense. Kolton was the architect of horrors. He was suspected of murdering Chris’s father, Kyle, and had kept Chris’s grandfather, Laurence, imprisoned and broken for years. Chris should have wanted him dead—should have wanted it with every fiber of his being. Yet here he was, mobilizing armed teams in the dead of night to pull the man out of custody.


    Maia’s mind raced, piecing together the earlier clues. The police cruiser driving the wrong way, lights off, bursting from a forgotten side road as though fleeing something worse than thew.


    A cold understanding settled in her gut.


    “Chris.” She gripped the phone harder, her voice dropping. “There’s something wrong with that police car, isn’t there? They’re not taking him into protective custody. They’re taking him somewhere to disappear.”


    A long exhale on the other end. “Yes,” Chris confirmed, his tone t and lethal. “He’s ready to talk—to blow the whole thing open. But the people behind him intend to make sure he never reaches sunrise.”


    The confirmationnded like a stone. Maia closed her eyes for a second, steadying herself.


    Before she could respond, Chris spoke again—faster this time, urgent. “We’ll handle it. Please… stay out of this. It’s going to get ugly. Very dangerous.”


    He stopped abruptly, as though startled by his own words. That protective instinct had slipped out again—raw, unfiltered, impossible to pull back.


    On the other end, a strange and tender ache bloomed deep within Maia, catching herpletely off guard. Was this memory bleeding through? Or was it simply who he had always been underneath his memory issues? Either way, it felt unexpectedly good to be worried about. A small, reluctant smile touched her lips.


    “Mr. Cooper,” she said, letting a trace of teasing lighten her tone, “are you actually concerned for my safety? Or are you just afraid I’ll ruin your carefullyid ns? Rx. I’m not nning to—”


    Suddenly, her words were severed by a deafening roar that tore through the night.


    A violent tremor rocked the very earth beneath the sedan. Maia’s head snapped up.


    Through the ss, her eyes widened in disbelief. Half a mile distant, where the tunnel mouth should have been, a monstrous column of smoke and fire vomited into the sky, churning with angry, glowing embers.


    An explosion.


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