Chapter 6 - The Race Against the ClockInside the dark office, Nathan’s breathing was ragged. He could hear Marcus and Chloe arguing frantically in the hallway right outside the door.
"Kick it open, you idiot! He's calling the cops!" Chloe hissed.
"The lock is reinforced, give me a second!" Marcus replied, slamming his shoulder against the door again. The wood splintered loudly.
Nathan didn't have seconds. He raced to Elena’s desk, slammed the laptop open, and began frantically typing. The local files were encrypted, but Elena had always been paranoid. She had configured a fail-safe hardware backup—a physical encrypted flash drive wired directly to the internal motherboard.
He felt along the back panel of the desk, his fingers desperately searching. Click. He popped open a secret magnetic compartment beneath the keyboard tray.
Inside sat a small, matte-black titanium flash drive.
Boom!
The office door burst inward, the frame shattering completely as Marcus lunged into the room, the pistol raised and ready.
Nathan whipped around, the titanium flash drive clutched tightly in his fist.
Marcus lowered the gun just an inch, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "End of the line, Nathan. Hand over the drive, and maybe—just maybe—I’ll let you say goodbye to your brats before we burn this house to the ground."
Before Nathan could speak, a sudden, bright beam of flashing blue and red light washed across the office windows, painting the walls in an urgent rhythm.
Sirens—faint at first, but growing deafeningly loud with every second—began to wail down the suburban street, pulling up directly outside the house.
Marcus’s face lost all its color. "What did you do?" he snarled, turning toward Chloe, who had rushed into the doorway behind him.
"I didn't call anyone!" Chloe shrieked, panic finally breaking her composure.
Nathan smiled, blood dripping from a small scratch on his forehead. "You forgot something, Marcus. When I was on that conference call early this afternoon? I wasn't just talking to my boss. I was on a live, recorded security diagnostic sync with our corporate private security detail. They heard the whole argument when I walked in. They deployed local law enforcement ten minutes ago as a precautionary protocol."
"You lying bastard—" Marcus raised the gun, his eyes wild with desperate fury.
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Before Marcus could pull the trigger, the front windows of the house shattered inward.
"Police! Drop your weapon! Down on the ground now!" a chorus of amplified shouts echoed from below.
