Chapter 7 - The Bluff"Don't do it, Dad," I growled, stepping around my father with the iron poker gripped so tightly my knuckles turned white. "He's bluffing. If he kills them, he loses his leverage."
Arthur Vance chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. He pulled a small silver remote control from his pocket and pressed a single button.
Across the basement, a digital timer mounted on a metal shelving unit suddenly lit up in bright red numbers: 03:42 and counting down rapidly.
"That's a localized EMP charge rigged to fry every hard drive, server, and phone within a five-block radius," Vance said, his smile vanishing, replaced by a mask of cold corporate ruthlessness. "Including the neural pacemaker your dear father installed in his own chest twenty years ago to monitor his fake heart condition."
I froze. I looked at my father. Raymond’s face paled instantly, his hand clutching instinctively at his left ribs.
"You didn't think I'd come alone, did you, Raymond?" Vance sneered. "A remote cardiac shutdown frequency is locked right onto that timer. If I stop breathing, your heart stops beating. Three minutes, Julian. Tell me where the master server is, or your father dies right here in front of you."
Celeste was thrashing against the ropes, muffled screams tearing through her taped mouth as tears streamed down her cheeks. My children were crying silently, shaking with cold and fear.
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"Julian, listen to me," my father gasped, leaning against the wooden wall as a sudden wave of dizziness hit him. "The server isn't on a flash drive... it's..."
"Shut up, Raymond!" Vance barked, raising a pistol from his coat pocket and leveling it directly at my father's chest. "Time's up. Give me the location or he takes the final shot."
