Chapter 16 - The Countdown in the Dark00:03:30.
The red numbers on the digital display blinked with ruthless, mechanical precision. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird, adrenaline flooding my veins with icy clarity.
“A dead-man’s switch,” I whispered aloud, realizing with horrifying clarity what Jason had done. “If the safe was ever opened without the proper security override from the prison terminal, the local data-wipe protocol would trigger instantly—destroying the only physical evidence linking your mother to the racketeering ring.”
Through the phone screen, Jason let out a manic, triumphant laugh from his prison booth. “That’s right! Either you let the evidence burn and protect your precious legal standing, or you try to save the files and risk getting buried in an underground explosion when the chemical charge goes off!”
00:02:45.
I didn't panic. Panic was a luxury for people who didn't know how to survive. My eyes swept across the interior of the safe, ignoring the flashing timer and focusing entirely on the wiring harness connecting the digital keypad to the data drive.
Jason had always been arrogant, but he was fundamentally lazy. He never built his own tech traps; he bought cheap, off-the-shelf industrial hardware with standardized override ports.
I reached into my coat pocket, pulling out my heavy-duty stainless-steel house key and a long, rigid metal hairpin I used to secure my hair during long legal sessions. Without a second hesitation, I jammed the hairpin into the auxiliary diagnostic slot beneath the keypad, bypassing the logic board and short-circuiting the power relay.
00:01:15... 00:01:14...
The red numbers flickered violently, stuttered, and then—with a sharp, electronic pop—died completely. The display went utterly black.
I let out a long, shuddering breath, pulling the sealed stack of confessions and the master flash drive out of the safe just as the heavy wooden door above the stone staircase burst open.
“Sarah! Sarah, where are you?!” Marcus’s voice echoed urgently down from the hallway, followed by heavy footsteps thundering onto the stone steps.
Marcus appeared at the bottom of the cellar stairs, flashlight in hand, looking wild-eyed and breathless. When he saw me standing unscathed beside the open safe with the documents in my hand, the color rushed back into his face.
“Thank God,” Marcus breathed out, rushing over to me and grabbing my shoulders. “We got an automated cyber-alert ping on our legal server indicating a security breach at the estate. What on earth happened?”
I held up my phone, where Jason’s face was still frozen on the screen in a mask of absolute, stunned disbelief.
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“Your client,” I said into the active speaker, my voice dropping an octave into absolute ice, “is officially out of moves.”
I pressed the red end-call button, plunging the phone into total silence.
