Chapter 9 - The Ticking Clock
Before Marco could move, Julian pulled out a heavy, encrypted satellite phone and slammed a large red button on the side.
A shrill, mechanical alarm began to pulse rhythmically through the penthouse ceiling speakers.
Warning: Main vault lockdown initiated. Core financial servers isolated.
"What did you do?" Marco roared, lunging forward and grabbing Julian by the lapels of his tailored suit, slamming him hard against the mahogany piano.
Julian choked out a laugh, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes bright with manic triumph. "I set the remote self-destruct protocol on the main database servers in the basement! In exactly ten minutes, thirty years of transaction records, client contracts, and asset deeds are going to be permanently wiped clean. Without those records, the hotel group defaults to the holding trust—which I control!"
I adjusted Noah carefully in my arms, my mind racing as the alarm flashed a relentless red light across the room.
"Marco, he's bluffing," I called out over the blaring siren. "No corporate database wipes in ten minutes without an active master encryption key!"
Julian glared at me, his face twisted in rage. "You think I'm bluffing? The master key is locked inside the subterranean mainframe room, and the biometric scanner has been scrambled by a rolling algorithm. Nobody can get in—not even your precious little IT team!"
Marco stared down at his uncle, his jaw locked so tight I thought bone would splinter. Then, with a cold, terrifying calm, he let go of Julian’s lapels, letting the older man slump against the piano.
Marco turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine across the red-lit room.
"Elena," Marco said, his voice dropping into an absolute command. "Take Noah down the private service elevator. Head straight to the sub-basement server room."
I stared at him in horror. "The sub-basement? Julian just said the biometric scanner is scrambled!"
"The main scanner is," Marco corrected, stepping toward his desk and unlocking a heavy steel wall safe hidden behind a modern oil painting. He pulled out a heavy, old-fashioned mechanical iron key and a thick, copper-wired override module. "That system was installed by my grandfather thirty-five years ago, before digital scanners were even a thought in this city. It has a manual mechanical bypass hidden behind the secondary cooling vent."
Julian’s face went dead white. "No... that's impossible. That's a legend!"
"It's family history," Marco snapped.
He tossed the heavy iron key through the air. I caught it reflexively with one hand, the cold metal biting into my palm.
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"Get down there and override the manual lock before the timer runs out," Marco instructed, his eyes burning with absolute, unshakeable trust. "I'll deal with my uncle."
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