Chapter 4 - Crossfire in the BallroomFootsteps—heavy, calculated, and professional—pounded down the hallway outside the dining hall. Tactical gear, reinforced boots, and suppressed automatic weapons. Amateurs wouldn't use a cross-hall sweep; these were corporate hit squads disguised as federal agents.
"They're here for the archive drives in your study," Maya said, ducking low as a burst of submachine gun fire chewed through the oak double doors, splintering wood and showering the floor with shrapnel.
Adrien pulled his pistol, firing two rapid shots through the smoke toward the shattered doorway. A muffled grunt echoed from the hall, followed by the heavy thud of a body hitting the marble floor.
"My study?" Adrien hissed, grabbing Maya by the elbow and dragging her behind the heavy stone fireplace. "The archive drives only contain my father’s old blueprints and personal ledgers! There's nothing incriminating there—it's just sentimental junk!"
"It's not sentimental, Adrien," Maya yelled over the deafening chatter of incoming gunfire. "Your father didn't die of a heart attack on that construction site in 1998. He was murdered because he found out Whitmore Holdings was built on toxic waste dumping grounds funded by the syndicate that currently controls your board of directors!"
The words hit Adrien harder than any physical blow. His breath caught in his throat. For fourteen years, he had carried the guilt of his father’s "weak heart," driving himself to the brink of insanity to prove he was worthy of the empire his father left behind.
"You're lying," he choked out.
"Check the bottom drawer of his walnut desk," Maya fired three precise rounds down the hallway, neutralizing another advancing shadow. "There's a microcassette and a signed confession from Marcus Vance’s father. Now, are we going to stand here and debate family history, or are we going to blow the panic hatch behind the grandfather clock?"
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Adrien looked at the woman beside him—the immaculate estate manager who knew too much, fought too well, and looked at him not with fear, but with a fierce, protective loyalty that defied logic.
"The grandfather clock," Adrien gritted his teeth, a dark, dangerous fire igniting in his eyes. "Move."
