CHAPTER 7: THE BETRAYAL WITHIN
CHAPTER 7: THE BETRAYAL WITHIN
"Liam! Break the lock!" Evelyn screamed as the secondary lockdown protocols engaged throughout the sub-basement. Heavy steel blast doors began sliding down over the main entrance.
"The system is locking us out from the main building network!" Liam yelled, frantically plugging his bypass rig into the vault console. "She had a ghost protocol waiting for this exact signal!"
Over the comms, Marcus’s frantic voice broke through the static. "Evelyn! Liam! You have multiple armed strike teams moving into your corridor! You have to leave NOW!"
"We aren't leaving without the drive, Dad!" Evelyn shouted back. She grabbed a heavy titanium crowbar from a nearby workbench and jammed it beneath the vault's mechanical lockdown arm. "Liam, override the manual actuator! Use my bypass code!"
Liam’s fingers blurred across his handheld terminal. "Overriding lock... five seconds!"
Outside the laboratory door, heavy impact charges detonated. BOOM! The reinforced door buckled inward under the force of the explosive breaching rounds. Sparks rained down as guards in tactical armor began shoving their way through the ruined entrance.
"Done!" Liam yelled.
The iron arm retracting with a sharp metallic clack. Evelyn lunged forward, grabbed the silver hard drive from its housing, and shoved it deep into her tactical pack.
"Cover!" Liam roared, pulling Evelyn behind a heavy steel workbench as automatic gunfire shredded the surrounding glass equipment.
Liam returned fire with his suppressed pistol, keeping the advancing mercenaries at bay while Evelyn ducked low.
"I’m clearing your exit path!" Marcus roared over the radio. Suddenly, two heavy thunderclaps echoed from outside the building high above. Through the upper windows of the basement atrium, two guards stationed on the walkway collapsed as Marcus’s long-range non-lethal rounds hit their marks with absolute precision.
"Move to the service elevator!" Liam shouted, tossing a smoke grenade toward the doorway. Thick white smoke instantly filled the laboratory, blinding the incoming guards.
Evelyn and Liam bolted through the fog, scrambling into the service elevator shaft. Liam shot out the door control panel, locking the doors behind them, and grabbed the manual emergency cable.
"Hold on to me!" Liam yelled.
Evelyn wrapped her arms tightly around Liam’s chest just as he hit the emergency brake release. The elevator counterweight dropped, pulling their cable upward with violent speed, launching them past thirty floors of concrete within seconds before screeching to a halt near the roof access level.
They kicked open the upper maintenance door and burst out onto the windswept roof of the Sterling Research Center under the pouring rain.
"Marcus! We have the drive! We're on the roof!" Liam called out into his comms.
Silence answered.
"Dad? Dad, do you read me?" Evelyn asked, her heart dropping into a cold abyss.
Static hissed through the earpiece. Then, a harsh, unfamiliar voice answered over Marcus’s radio frequency.
"Your father was very brave, little girl," a ruthless voice chuckled cold-bloodedly over the line. "But he forgot to check his rear flank. We have Mr. Vance. If you ever want to see him breathe again, bring that drive to the old Blackwood Docklands within two hours. Come alone."
The line went dead.
Evelyn stood frozen in the freezing rain, holding the silver hard drive tightly against her chest. Tears mixed with rainwater on her face, but her eyes held no defeat—only a burning, unstoppable fire.
May you like
"She took him," Evelyn said, her voice dropping to an icy whisper.
Liam placed a firm hand on her shoulder, his jaw set in fierce determination. "Then we end this tonight. We aren't just saving Uncle Marcus, Evelyn. We are taking Victoria’s entire empire down with him."
