Chapter 6 - Trapped in the Steel Trap
The garage plunged into darkness, illuminated only by the faint red emergency lights along the floorboards.
"Victor!" Leo slammed his shoulder against the reinforced steel shutter, but it was three inches of solid alloy.
Over the garage intercom system, Victor’s voice echoed with cold detachment. "Don't bother, Leo. The signal is jammed down there. No cell service, no Wi-Fi. And in ten minutes, the automatic fire suppression system will activate to 'clean' the bay. Carbon dioxide gas will flood the room. It will look like a tragic industrial accident—a chemical leak in the underground workshop."
Leo’s heart hammered against his ribs. He looked around the dimly lit bay. High concrete walls, thick reinforced doors, zero ventilation.
"You won't get away with this," Leo shouted into the air. "Bellini knows I'm down here!"
"Bellini works for me," Victor replied over the speaker. "He's already telling the police that you left through the back entrance twenty minutes ago. Goodnight, brother."
The intercom went silent with a harsh static click.
A second later, a loud hiss filled the room. High-pressure carbon dioxide gas began pouring out of the ceiling vents, thick white clouds falling to the floor and displacing the oxygen at an alarming rate.
Leo began coughing immediately, his chest tightening as air became scarce. He had less than three minutes before he suffocated.
Thinking fast, Leo sprinted over to his heavy tool cabinet. He didn't have weapons, but he had something far better: the master tools of a world-class automotive engineer. He grabbed a heavy-duty plasma cutting torch, hooked it up to a high-pressure oxygen-acetylene tank, and struck a spark.
A bright blue flame ignited, roaring into life.
Instead of cutting the heavy iron door—which would take too long—Leo pointed the plasma torch directly at the main hydraulic line powering the showroom elevator lift right above him. He blasted the high-pressure steel tube with extreme heat.
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BOOM!
The hydraulic line ruptured under immense pressure, blasting fluid everywhere and causing the heavy lift mechanism above to collapse with a deafening crash, tearing open a massive hole in the ceiling leading straight up into the main showroom!
