Chapter 10 - The Sub-Basement Breach
The crash echoed through the hollow, stripped-down penthouse like a gunshot.
Natalie, Julian, and Arthur all spun toward the entryway. Stepping out of the elevator shaft wasn't a federal marshal or a corporate courier—it was Thomas Vance, the former CFO of Holloway Development. But Thomas looked entirely different from the terrified, sweat-dampened accountant who had stuttered on the red carpet three nights ago. His eyes were wide, manic, and unblinking, his silk tie ripped loose, and in his right hand, he clutched a heavy, industrial-grade steel crowbar.
"Thomas?" Arthur stammered, raising a hand defensively. "What are you doing here? How did you bypass the security gates?"
"Security gates?" Thomas let out a sharp, unhinged laugh that bounced off the bare concrete walls. He pointed the crowbar directly at Natalie. "There are no security gates left! The whole system is being wiped! Every server on the sub-level is dumping its data to an external offshore server as we speak!"
Julian’s calm exterior vanished instantly. He crossed the room in two long strides, grabbing Thomas by the lapels of his rumpled suit. "Who authorized the data dump? Was it the Austin branch?"
"No!" Thomas gasped, struggling against Julian’s iron grip. "It wasn't Austin... it was Grant!"
Natalie’s breath caught. "Grant is in a holding cell at the county jail. He has no access to communications."
"He had a burner phone smuggled in by his mother during visiting hours two hours ago!" Thomas yelled, his voice cracking with rising panic. "He didn't care about saving his company, Julian! When he realized the feds were closing in and you were moving in to take the assets, he sent a pre-programmed command script to the main server mainframe. If he goes down, he’s wiping out the entire Whitmore-Holloway financial grid—every trust, every asset, every offshore account!"
Arthur grabbed his tablet, his fingers flying across the screen with desperate speed. "My God... he’s initiating a total core purge. If that script executes fully, thirty billion dollars in regional capital will evaporate into untraceable cryptocurrency loops within twelve minutes."
Julian shoved Thomas away, his aristocratic composure completely shattered, revealing the ruthless predator underneath. He turned to Natalie, his slate-gray eyes blazing with fury. "Your husband is about to burn our entire inheritance to ash."
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Natalie didn't flinch. She looked past Julian toward the service stairwell door at the back of the penthouse—the emergency access route leading directly down to the sub-basement server core.
"Then we have twelve minutes," Natalie said coldly, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a heavy, brass-keyed security fob. "Let's go stop him."
