Chapter 12 - A Fortress Divided
Lorenzo drew a concealed revolver from his ankle holster, aiming wildly at Don Carmine.
“Nobody moves! I have twenty armed men stationed in the lobby! Vance has this building surrounded!” Lorenzo screamed, backing out into the elevator vestibule. “You’re all going down together!”
Before the guards could draw, Lorenzo hit the elevator recall button and slipped inside the private express car, the heavy brass doors sliding shut.
“Cut the power to the express lift!” Carmine roared.
“No,” Victor commanded, checking his weapon. “Let him reach the ground. Marco has our units sealing the exits. This ends tonight, on my terms.”
Victor turned to Adriana. She was already packing the laptop back into the Pelican case, her face set with grim determination.
“Stay up here with Don Carmine’s security,” Victor instructed gently, placing a hand on her arm. “The building is locked down. It’s safe here.”
Adriana looked at him, her eyes fierce. “Lorenzo knows I have the original drive. If he gets to Vance’s perimeter, he’ll claim the evidence was corrupted during a gunfight. I need to upload these raw hashes directly to the federal grand jury portal from a clean hardline terminal in the ground-floor communications hub.”
Victor stared at her, seeing once again the extraordinary courage that set her apart from everyone he had ever known.
“You don't back down, do you?”
“Not when we’re this close,” she replied.
Victor pulled her in, pressing a fierce, possessive kiss to her lips in front of the entire Commission.
“Then we go down together.”
They took the emergency stairwell, descending through the concrete core of the skyscraper as alarms blared across the complex. Outside, the wail of sirens signaled that Vance’s corrupt federal task force was staging a perimeter, preparing to breach.
The lobby was a battleground. Gunfire echoed across the polished marble as Lorenzo’s rogue loyalists clashed with Victor’s elite security team. Glass shattered, and bullet casings bounced across the floor like coins.
Victor moved like a phantom of destruction, using pillar cover to systematically dismantle Lorenzo’s remaining guards. Adriana moved right behind him, using the heavy columns as shielding, keeping her focus entirely on the central server junction room across the lobby.
“There!” Adriana pointed to the fortified glass dispatch booth near the front entrance. “The primary hardline!”
“Cover her!” Victor roared to Marco and his men.
A wall of suppressive fire lit up the lobby. Adriana sprinted across the open marble, sliding behind the steel counter of the dispatch booth.
Her fingers flew across the terminal keyboard. She plugged the encrypted drive into the fiber port.
Uploading: 24%... 58%... 89%...
A shadow fell over the booth window.
May you like
Lorenzo Voss kicked the reinforced door open, his face twisted in madness, his gun aimed directly at Adriana’s chest.
“Give me the drive, you little bitch,” Lorenzo snarled, “or I paint this glass with your brains.”
