Chapter 4 - THE SIEGE FROM WITHINSmoke and shattered iron filled the small room.
Before Vance or Ryker could draw their weapons, three men wearing heavy tactical gear burst through the breach. Leading them wasn't the police—it was Officer Miller, holding a breached master keycard, along with three inmate trusted workers from the maintenance department whom I had saved from beatings years earlier.
"Drop the weapon, Vance!" Miller yelled, his shotgun leveled at the Warden's chest.
Ryker tried to raise his stun baton, but Miller didn't hesitate. He fired a beanbag round straight into Ryker's sternum, sending the captain crashing against the concrete wall, gasping for air.
Vance froze, his hand trembling over the silenced pistol on the table.
"You're insane, Miller!" Vance shouted, his composure shattering. "You're throwing away your pension, your career, your life for a convicted felon!"
"He's not a felon, Vance. He's an innocent man you buried alive," Miller replied, stepping forward and kicking the pistol off the table.
Miller produced a heavy key set and unlocked my handcuffs. I stood up, rubbing my swollen wrists, looking at the man who had just saved my life.
"Where is Noah?" I asked immediately.
"He's safe. I had my wife pick him up outside the gate before Vance locked down the perimeter," Miller said. "Noah brought more than just memories today, Ethan. He didn't come alone."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Noah spent the last three years working with an independent investigative journalist. The moment Noah stepped into this prison today, that journalist went live on national television with all the supporting evidence Noah’s family gathered over the last eight years. The entire country is watching this prison right now."
May you like
Vance’s face drained of all color. "You... you lied. The drive..."
Miller pulled the tiny micro-SD card out of his pocket and held it up. "The drive I snatched from the dirt? That was real. But the copy of its contents was already uploaded to a secure cloud server the second Noah brought the original file logs to light. You were caught eight years ago, Vance. It just took the world eight years to see it."
