Chapter 7 - OXYGEN AND LIES"The ventilation shaft!" Vera cried, pointing frantically toward a narrow steel grate near the ceiling of the panic room. "It leads out to the secondary generator building outside the blast radius!"
"It's too small," Dante barked, measuring the width with a cold, calculating eye. "None of us can fit through there with Leo—"
"I can," Elina interrupted, her voice cutting through the panic with startling authority. She looked down at the sleeping infant, then up at the two hardened members of the Orelio crime syndicate. "I'm smaller, I'm agile, and I'm not carrying a bullet wound or panic-frozen. Give me the baby."
Dante stared at her, his dark eyes warring between the fierce instinct to protect his son and the brutal reality of their ticking clock. The air in the room was already growing noticeably heavier as the purge system sucked out the oxygen.
"Elina, if you fall—"
"I won't fall," she said fiercely, stepping right up to him, her face inches from his. "Trust me. Just like your son did."
Dante didn't hesitate anymore. He grabbed a heavy metal chair, smashed it against the wall beneath the vent, and unscrewed the rusted bolts with his bare hands, ignoring the fresh blood soaking through his bandages. He lifted Elina up, carefully transferring baby Leo into her arms, wrapped securely in his heavy wool coat.
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"Go," Dante whispered, his hand lingering for a fraction of a second against her cheek. "If you make it out, take him to the old safehouse on Maple Street. Tell them the dragon sent you."
Elina nodded once, squeezed his fingers back, and hoisted herself feet-first into the dark, claustrophobic metal tunnel just as the emergency alarms shrieked a deafening final warning.
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