?Chapter 1011:


    To Jeffry, that silence said everything he didn’t want to hear. His voice took on a more serious tone. “Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”


    Without missing a beat, Ellis responded, “I won’t regret it.”


    Charlette remained unaware that Ellis had already made up his mind to marry her. At that moment, she was sitting in a bar when a man approached her with interest.


    “Hey there, gorgeous, how about I buy you a drink?” he asked, wearing a bold grin.


    A spark lit up in Charlette’s eyes as she shed a teasing, rxed smile. “Why not?”


    That simple gesture had him hooked. But just as he leaned in to ce his hand on her waist, she pushed him away—hard. Caught off guard, the man stumbled back, stunned. Charlette’s smile didn’t waver, but the light in her eyes turned to frost.


    “I came here to drink, not to entertain creeps. Understand?”


    His face flushed with anger. “You messing with me?”


    Charlette let out a dryugh and stared him down. “And what if I am?”


    Beneath the low-hanging lights, her beauty looked almost unreal—dangerously alluring with a sharp, untouchable presence.


    Sensing trouble, the man backed away.


    Charlette kept drinking, pouring more into her ss, using the alcohol to blur the edges of everything she didn’t want to feel.


    In less than seventy-two hours, Avo had managed to track Elena’s mentor down in Tauledo.


    In the Dead Zone of Tauledo, d head to toe in ck, Avo navigated the desert’s barren expanse, his gaze fixed on the tracker in his palm.


    By noon, the air shimmered with heat, the temperature soaring to one hundred and four degrees. Rolling dunes stretched to the horizon, while the blistering sun soaked his back in sweat, his shirt clinging to him ufortably. After days spent scouring Tauledo, a promising signal finally appeared. Without a second thought, Avo sprinted in its direction—only for the trail to fade halfway. Relying on instincts honed by years in special ops, he made a split-second decision and forged ahead in the most likely direction.


    The blinding sun warped the desert into a maze of shifting illusions. His lips cracked with dryness, breathing quick and shallow. After two relentless hours, a military base finally came into view, rising from the waves of sand. He hadn’t been wrong.


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    But just as he closed in, a squad of desert-camougedmandos emerged, weapons trained on him from the dunes.


    Reacting instantly, Avo hurled himself behind a sandbank. Gunfire erupted, bullets slicing through the space he had just abandoned. Any hesitation would have meant certain death. Unfazed, he assessed the threat: six to his left, five fanned out to the right, and four straight ahead.


    Avo quickly detached the reflector from his signal device and angled it skyward. A sharp re of sunlight bounced off, forcing the soldiers on the left to squint and cover their faces.


    That single split second was all the advantage Avo needed. He darted through the exposed nk, bullets crackling in his wake. All hell broke loose, rms ring as the base snapped into high alert.


    A lone figure emerged from thepound—Laurence Rayne. One look, and Avo was certain: this was the mentor Elena had spoken of.


    Raising his voice, Avo called out, “I’m not your enemy! I came for Laurence Rayne!”


    With a calm gesture, Laurence motioned for his squad to stand down, halting the barrage of gunfire.


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