The Divorced Military Queen Awakens (by Sadie Baxter) novel Chapter 637

Chapter 637 Bombs Disarmed

Chapter 637 Bombs Disarmed

Both Julius and Joaquin froze, stunned speechless by her revelation.

“All of them?” Joaquin asked, disbelief cracking through his composure.

“What else did you expect, Joaquin? Leave them there as holiday décor?” Quinn shot back.

The clatter of combat in the hallway faded at last. Moments later, a half–dozen soldiers in matching camouflage streamed through the doorway, sweeping the space with practiced precision as though the entire villa were nothing more than a live–fire exercise.

“Captain, is this your father–in–law?” one of them asked, helmet tilting toward the man on his knees in the center of the room.

“Can you believe he packed the place with so many explosives?” another grumbled. “I nearly blew a lung defusing the last batch.”

“We cut three charges just outside this door,” a third reported, wiping sweat from his brow. “Odds are the room itself is wired, too.”

“Spread out–find them,” the squad leader barked, and the soldiers fanned through the shadows without hesitation.

Each casually tossed remark drove the color from Joaquin’s face, leaving his expression a mask of hardening fury.

The team moved fast. Within seconds, they unearthed two palm–sized demolition devices hidden behind a false baseboard–prizes that made Joaquin’s jaw clench so tight the veins in his neck stood out.

Working in seamless tandem, the soldiers separated the housings, traced the leads, and snipped the detonator wires with a confidence born of endless drills.

Earlier, a drone had shattered the windowpane, scattering glass like ice shards across the floor.

Quinn had timed the impact perfectly, using the thunderous collision to jolt Joaquin’s hypnotic hold on Laura and give Julius the split–second he needed to rip the pistol from her

grasp.

Julius had done exactly what Quinn had hoped he would. The moment Quinn shouted, “Down!” he hit the parquet without a thought–because somewhere deep in his bones, trusting her was as instinctive as drawing breath.

Now, another drone skimmed through the jagged frame, rotors humming like angry hornets in the dusk–lit air.

The soldiers strapped the disarmed charges to the drone’s cargo hooks, then waved it back out into the night to dispose of the deadly cargo far from the villa walls.

Watching the operation unfold, Joaquin clenched his jaw so hard that a faint click echoed in

his ears.

“Ray, my friend’s still under,” Quinn said. She holstered nothing–her free hand flicked an earplug case toward Raymond while the muzzle of her sidearm never drifted from the soft spot at the back of Joaquin’s skull.

Her trigger finger rested steady, a silent promise that any movement from Joaquin would end in darkness.

“On it,” Raymond replied. He slid foam plugs into Laura’s ears, then wrapped a strip of cloth across her eyes. Sight gone, sound gone–no channel left for hypnotic commands to slip through.

“Joaquin Whitethorn,” Quinn said, voice low and cold, “my friend’s life isn’t your bargaining chip. This isn’t some twisted game where you make the rules. You offer me choices, I flip the entire table instead.”

“I underestimated you,” Joaquin murmured, lashes lowered. “But disarming a few explosives won’t keep you safe forever.”

“We know,” Quinn answered. “Your hidden gunmen and snipers are next on the list—and if my guess is right, their time’s almost up.”

Roars and sharp commands drifted in from the estate grounds. Police cruisers and military transports had converged, turning the manicured lawn into an active combat zone.

“The only place you’re headed,” Quinn continued, “is back behind bars–whether that ends in life without parole or a needle in the arm depends on the judge.”

“Unfortunately for you,” Joaquin said, a faint smile curling, “I’ve no intention of seeing another prison door.”

The sentence had barely left his lips when the floor beneath Quinn buckled–panels dropping away like trapdoors. Gravity punched her gut and the world pitched downward.

“Quinn!” Julius shouted, his voice cracking through the rush of air.

As she plunged, the edge of her vision caught Julius sprinting toward the void, arms

:

outstretched, determination carved into every line of his face.

It happened in the space of a lightning flash. One heartbeat, no more.

Their bodies did not plunge in a clean vertical fall.

Instead, they slipped downward as if swallowed by a hidden chute that skimmed the villa’s bones.

Quinn pressed her spine flat against the wall of the shaft. The angle helped her remain balanced and, more crucially, cushioned the jarring force that might bruise the small life growing inside her.

At last, the darkness broke. She skidded onto the floor of a windowless chamber that felt more like a vault than a room.

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