All Chapters of Broken Illusions: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

Lena Thompson had never been afraid of power.She had fought against men with billions at their disposal, against politicians who could erase lives with a single call, against killers who had left behind nothing but whispers.And yet, as she stared at the file Mercer had thrown at her feet, a feeling crept into her chest that she hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge in years.Doubt.Because the names inside weren’t just more corrupt businessmen, more politicians, more mercenaries working in the shadows.These were the architects of the world itself.People whose decisions had shaped nations.And Mercer—the same Mercer she had spent months trying to destroy—was standing in front of her, arms crossed, wearing the smirk of a man who knew he had just flipped the board upside down.“You don’t look surprised,” Mercer mused.Lena forced herself to breathe evenly. She wouldn’t let him see the cracks.Michael, however, had no such restraint. “Oh, come on. This is bullshit.” He glanced at Lena

Lena had spent her career exposing the truth.But now?Now she wasn’t exposing the truth.She was hunting it.Because truth didn’t matter anymore. Justice didn’t matter anymore.Not when the people at the top—the real power, the ones who never left a trace, the ones who killed in silence and ruled from the shadows—had just put a target on her back.And Lena wasn’t going to wait for them to take the shot.She was going to strike first.The car sped down the highway, the glow of the city fading in the distance.Jessica sat in the back seat, hunched over her laptop, trying to work through the paranoia that had settled deep in her bones.Michael kept his eyes on the rearview mirror, scanning for tails, for threats, for anything that meant they weren’t alone.And Lena?Lena drove.Fingers tight on the steering wheel.Jaw clenched.Mind racing.They had no safe house anymore. No headquarters, no war room, no home base.They were ghosts.And they had to stay that way.Michael finally broke t

Lena Thompson had spent her career exposing the truth.But now?Now she was weaponizing it.The game had changed.For months, she had been peeling back layers of corruption, dismantling networks, taking down the people she thought were at the top.But she had been wrong.The real power—the kind that didn’t leave fingerprints, that didn’t rely on public office or corporate ownership—had been watching her.And now?Now they knew she was coming.Good.Because she wasn’t hiding anymore.She was declaring war.Jessica sat hunched over her laptop, screens flashing with encrypted data. Thousands of documents, financial records, black-budget allocations, intelligence memos. Everything they had gathered. Everything Monroe had given them.Michael stood near the window, gun in hand, watching the street below.Lena sat at the center of it all, her mind calculating the next move.Jessica exhaled. “Okay, just to be clear—we’re about to leak everything?”Lena nodded. “Everything.”Michael crossed hi

The fires still burned in the ruins of Volkov’s compound. Smoke coiled into the night sky, thick and black, a funeral pyre for the last remnants of the Council.Lena stood on the edge of the wreckage, staring at the devastation. The scent of gunpowder, charred stone, and blood filled the air. Somewhere beneath the rubble lay Katarina Volkov’s body, but Lena didn’t bother digging for it. She didn’t need confirmation. She knew.Michael pulled a crushed cigarette from his pocket and lit it with unsteady hands. “Well,” he muttered, taking a long drag. “That was fun.”Jessica’s voice came over the comms, static cutting through. “Jesus Christ, Lena. Are you two alive?”Michael grinned. “Define ‘alive.’”Lena pressed a finger to her earpiece. “We’re fine. Volkov’s dead.”Jessica exhaled. “And the rest of the compound?”Lena glanced over the burning wreckage. The place had been built to withstand wars, but even the strongest fortress couldn’t survive a well-placed detonation and two people wit

Lena had spent her entire life fighting men like Jonas Cain.People who wore power like a second skin, who spoke in carefully measured words that concealed knives, who thought in strategies and contingencies instead of emotions and morals.And now, one of them was sitting across from her, watching, waiting.Testing her.She wouldn’t break.Not here. Not now.Even as the image of Michael—beaten, bound, bloodied—sat in front of her, printed neatly on a classified document, a hostage in a war she thought she had already won.Cain tapped his fingers against the table, a lazy, almost amused rhythm. “You’ve gone quiet.”Lena didn’t respond. She was thinking. Calculating. Weighing options.None of them were good.Cain exhaled, flipping through the file. “You know, when we were tracking your little crusade, there was a lot of internal debate about what to do with you.”Lena narrowed her eyes. “Internal debate?”Cain smiled. “Oh yes. Some thought you were just another whistleblower. An idealis