Chapter 9 - Breaking ThroughWithout wasting a single second, Emily threw her weight against the heavy metal shelving unit. Adrenaline surged through her veins, overriding the lingering exhaustion of the past week.
"Push!" Daniel grunted, planting his shoulder against the side of the shelf.
With a screech of rusted iron against concrete, the massive shelving unit groaned and slid forward two feet, revealing a small, reinforced iron hatch set into the stone floor, covered in a thick layer of dust and cobwebs.
Daniel dropped to his knees, seized the heavy iron wheel handle, and turned it with all his might. The rusted gears screamed in protest, but with a sharp pop, the seal broke, releasing a rush of cool, stale subterranean air.
"After you," Daniel said, holding the hatch open.
Emily didn't hesitate. She dropped down into the dark opening, landing softly on a concrete walkway below. Daniel followed immediately behind her, pulling the heavy iron hatch shut just as a faint, hissing sound began to emanate from the ventilation grates above them—the halon gas was being released into the vault.
They scrambled through the narrow brick drainage tunnel, guided only by the narrow beam of Daniel’s phone light. The air was damp and smelled of earth and old rain, but with every step they took forward, they were moving further away from the trap.
Ten minutes later, they pushed open a rusted street-level maintenance grate, hoisting themselves up into a deserted alleyway just two blocks away from the Vance Global tower.
Cold, fresh Manhattan air hit their lungs like a revitalizing shock.
Emily collapsed against the brick wall of the alley, catching her breath, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Daniel stood right beside her, dusting off his expensive suit, his expression a mask of pure, concentrated vengeance.
"She thinks we're dead," Daniel said quietly, his voice like ice.
"She has the master flash drive," Emily said, looking up at him with fierce determination. "She thinks she has all the evidence of her crimes."
"She has what she stole," Daniel corrected, pulling out a second, identical flash drive from his inner breast pocket with a slow, chilling smirk. "Standard corporate protocol for the compliance office: every master terminal mirrors its database in real time to an encrypted cloud server. Margaret just walked out of the building carrying a duplicate of data we already downloaded to federal servers five minutes ago."
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Emily stared at him, a slow, triumphant smile finally breaking across her face.
The hunter had just become the hunted.
