Chapter 12 - SHE RETURNED HER $10,000 DRESS TO WORK IN THE CAFETERIA, BUT AN ANONYMOUS BOMB THREAT CHANGED EVERYTHING!
While executive teams scrambled across the globe searching high-tech databases for Arthur's missing digital key, Chloe quietly stripped off her executive blazer. She swapped her designer heels for flat non-slip shoes, pulled her hair back into a tight bun, and walked down to the lowest basement level of Vance Tower—the employee cafeteria.
"What are you doing here?" Maya asked, finding her twin standing behind a steaming counter, washing heavy steel pots in soapy water.
"I spent my entire life taking things I never earned," Chloe said softly, wiping sweat from her brow, her hands raw from the hot water. "If I am going to prove I deserve to be your sister—and Eleanor's daughter—I need to start where you started. I need to understand the true heart of this company."
Maya felt a lump form in her throat. The arrogant, vain bride who had smirked as Eleanor was shoved onto the floor was completely gone. In her place stood a woman desperately trying to wash away her past sins.
Suddenly, every emergency siren in the sixty-story skyscraper screamed in unison! Red warning lights flashed across the walls.
“ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL. THERMAL OVERLOAD DETECTED IN SUB-BASEMENT 3. SYSTEM COMPROMISE IMMINENT. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY.”
Panic flared as hundreds of workers rushed toward the emergency exits. But as the crowd surged forward, Chloe noticed something horrifying—a group of trapped maintenance workers were screaming behind a locked reinforced blast door in the lower boiler room.
"The digital key isn't a thumb drive," Maya suddenly realized, staring at the flashing mainframe monitors behind the cafeteria counter. "Arthur didn't hide it in a bank vault... he buried the server core right here in the sub-basement! The system overload isn't a glitch—it's a self-destruct command sent by Arthur’s loyalists to cremate the evidence and kill anyone inside!"
"Go, Maya!" Chloe screamed, grabbing a heavy fire axe from the wall. "You get the mainframe data! I'll break the emergency lock for the workers!"
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"Chloe, no! The heat down there is deadly!" Maya cried out.
"If I die down here," Chloe shouted over the deafening alarm, tears stinging her eyes, "at least I die saving the people I used to look down on!"
