Chapter 6 - The Counter-Strike
In the dim light of the archive room, Lucas looked down at me, his expression fierce and resolute. "We need to get to my car. I've already uploaded a backup of the flash drive to my cloud server, but we need the physical drive and the DNA papers to make it stick with the prosecutor."
"How do we get out?" I whispered, scanning the tiny room. The only window looked down into the alleyway—twenty feet straight down into the concrete loading yard.
"I’ll create a distraction," Lucas said quietly. He unzipped his jacket, pulled out his heavy leather-bound portfolio, and tossed it against the far wall of the archive room with a loud crash.
"What was that?" Elaine barked from the main office.
"Someone’s in the archives!" Tessa yelled.
Heavy footsteps rushed toward our door.
"Run!" Lucas grabbed my arm, shoving me toward the emergency fire escape door located at the back of the archive room—a door I had completely forgotten existed.
We burst through the metal door into the cool afternoon air, racing down the exterior metal stairs just as Elaine flung open the archive door behind us.
We didn't stop running until we reached Lucas’s car parked two blocks away. As we locked the doors and pulled into traffic, I looked at the flash drive in my hand, then down at the adoption papers and the DNA report resting on the passenger seat.
Warren wasn't my father.
Which meant I wasn't bound by family loyalty, corporate subjugation, or inheritance laws.
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I pulled out my phone and dialed a direct number I had saved from an old college friend who now worked as a senior investigative journalist for the state's largest newspaper.
"Marcus?" I said when he answered on the second ring. "I have the story of a lifetime. And it starts with a corporate family that tried to bury my daughter alive."
