Chapter 9 - The Countdown
The red numbers on the digital screen blinked mercilessly in the dim, flickering light of the warehouse: *00:12:45*.
"Get back, Emily!" my father commanded, his voice sharp and absolute as he shoved me gently behind his shoulder, stepping closer to the open safe. His eyes darted across the tangled wiring connecting the digital timer to the base of the leather briefcase inside. "Marcus! Call the bomb squad immediately! Tell them we have a modified C-4 remote trigger with a proximity override!"
"Sir, the cell signal inside this concrete bunker is jammed," Marcus’s voice crackled frantically over the comms earpiece from the upper catwalks. "We're completely isolated. The signal jammer must be hidden somewhere within twenty feet of the safe!"
Panic threatened to claw its way up my throat, but years of surviving Daniel Whitmore’s psychological abuse had forged a strange, unbreakable resilience inside me. When the world was collapsing around you, screaming didn't help. Thinking did.
"Daddy, look at the wiring," I said, stepping past his arm despite his protective protests, peering closely at the crude, amateurish solder points on the circuit board. "This isn't military-grade C-4. Look at the battery pack—it's a commercial lithium-ion setup. And the timer... it's wired into a standard Wi-Fi router relay."
My father blinked, his analytical mind instantly locking onto my observation. "A relay? You mean..."
"It's not meant to blow up the building," I said, my voice steadying as the pieces fell into place. "It's a distraction. Or a remote data transmitter. Whoever set this trap isn't trying to kill us—they're trying to force us to download the files inside that briefcase before the timer hits zero, or else the onboard wipe-protocol will erase everything."
The timer clicked down: *00:08:15*.
My father let out a sharp, breathless laugh, his tension instantly shifting from mortal terror to cold, calculating fury. "Clever bastard. They want the contents of Victor Vance’s vault, but they couldn't crack the encrypted drive without our biometric authorization. So they rigged a fake bomb scare to force us to plug our corporate terminal into their local network."
"And the moment we plug in," I added, "they steal our security keys to Carter Global."
"Not today," my father muttered. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a heavy-duty tactical multi-tool, and flipped open a pair of wire cutters with a sharp *clack*.
"Daddy, wait—"
"I spent forty years building this empire, Emily," he said, his eyes locked on the circuitry with absolute precision. "I know every wire these old-school extortionists use."
With a steady, surgeon-like hand, he snipped a single, pulsing blue wire connected to the Wi-Fi relay.
The red numbers froze instantly at *00:03:42*.
For three heart-stopping seconds, the warehouse held its breath. Then, the fluorescent light overhead flickered, stabilized, and hummed a steady, normal tone. The trap was disarmed.
My father exhaled slowly, letting out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. He reached into the safe, pulled out the heavy leather briefcase, and laid it flat on the metal table beside us.
"Let's see what our anonymous friend was so desperate to hide," he said, popping the brass latches.
May you like
The lid sprang open. Inside, neatly organized files and a single golden USB drive lay resting against black velvet padding. On top of the files was a crisp, typed note bearing a name that made my blood run colder than the winter rain outside:
*Welcome back to the game, Alexander. Tell your daughter her real mother sends her regards.*
