Chapter 8 - The Undergound Breach
The floor beneath our feet shuddered violently, sending a cloud of white drywall dust raining down from the high coffered ceiling. Shouts echoed from the corridors outside as security alarms began to wail in a frantic, ear-piercing shriek.
"What did you do?" Dominic roared, lunging across the table toward Marcus, but the head of security was already stepping backward into the open doorway behind him, drawing a compact submachine gun with terrifying speed.
"Just evening the odds, boss," Marcus smiled, firing a rapid burst into the ceiling panels above us. Chunks of plaster and heavy wiring rained down, throwing the boardroom into a blinding cloud of dust and confusion.
Caps and syndicate elders scrambled for cover, diving under tables and rushing for the exits as the room plunged into absolute panic.
I grabbed Lily tightly, throwing my arms around her small body and diving behind the heavy oak base of the boardroom table just as a hail of suppression fire chewed through the wood above our heads.
"Stay down!" Dominic yelled over the deafening noise. He fired two shots toward the doorway, but Marcus had already vanished into the smoke-filled corridor, drawing his own backup from the hidden stairwells.
"Dominic! The medical wing!" I screamed, the horrible realization hitting me like a physical blow. "My mother—she's down on the lower level!"
The explosion had come from the basement. Exactly where the private medical wing was located. Exactly where my mother was recovering from her near-fatal collapse.
Dominic’s face went pale with a terrifying realization. He didn't hesitate. He grabbed me by the arm, pulling me up from behind the table while using his free hand to scoop Lily safely into his arms.
"Move!" he shouted to his remaining loyal guards. "Secure the perimeter and flush Marcus out! If he touches the medical wing, I want him in pieces!"
We burst out of the boardroom into a hallway choked with acrid gray smoke. The emergency lighting flickered overhead, casting an eerie, blood-red glow across the walls. Glass from shattered light fixtures crunched beneath our boots as we raced toward the private service elevator at the end of the wing.
The elevator was dead—its digital panel dark, the cables fried by the blast.
"Stairs!" Dominic yelled, pivoting toward the heavy iron fire door that led down to the subterranean levels.
We descended the winding concrete staircase three steps at a time, the roar of our footsteps echoing off the stark walls. As we reached the basement landing, the smell of smoke grew exponentially worse, mixed with the sharp, sickening odor of burning wiring and chemical agents.
The heavy steel door to the private medical wing hung off its reinforced hinges, blown completely inward by the blast.
Inside, the sterile white corridor was a disaster zone. Smoke poured from a ruptured ventilation duct, and the emergency sprinklers were hissing overhead, drenching the floor in a chilling, artificial rain.
My heart stopped.
I broke away from Dominic, sprinting past the shattered doorway into my mother’s recovery room.
The bed was empty.
The medical monitors were smashed to pieces on the floor, their wires sparking and crackling in the puddles of water. The window leading out to the estate's subterranean drainage tunnels had been shattered from the outside.
And scrawled in thick, wet red paint across the white wall above the empty bed was a single, mocking message:
May you like
“Wrong mother, Dominic. We have the original.”
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