Chapter 6 - The Vault BreachThe basement level of the Vale estate felt like a subterranean concrete bunker. The air was cool, humming with the continuous whine of cooling fans from ranks of black server racks. Emergency red lights pulsed along the ceiling, casting ominous shadows against the polished concrete floor.
I hit the bottom of the service stairs, slipping my shoes off to move silently. Through the reinforced glass window of the server vault, I saw Thomas—the night technician—frantically tapping commands into a laptop hooked directly into the main drive bay. A USB drive was glowing red as it pulled data from the system.
"Come on, come on..." Thomas muttered under his breath, sweating profusely under the dim lights.
I didn't have weapons or security training, but I knew the estate layout. Beside the main door was the automated fire suppression control panel. I flipped open the safety glass and slammed the emergency manual isolation button.
Heavy steel shutter doors immediately slammed down over the glass windows with a loud CLANG, sealing the main vault exit.
Thomas spun around in terror. "What the hell?!"
The vault door locked electronically from the outside. Thomas ran to the glass, seeing me standing by the control panel. "Elena! Open this door! The system is glitching!"
"The system isn't glitching, Thomas," I called through the intercom speaker. "You're caught."
His face transformed from panic to rage. "You don't know what you're getting into, girl! Julian Thorne pays ten times what Vale gives you! Open this door right now or I swear—"
"You're not going anywhere," I said coldly.
Suddenly, the secondary elevator doors at the end of the hall chimed. Adrian rolled out, holding an emergency override tablet in his lap, followed closely by Harrison with his weapon drawn.
"Step away from the console, Thomas!" Harrison commanded, bringing his firearm to bear on the vault door.
Adrian tapped his tablet, triggering the vault's internal lockdown protocol. High-density foam began spraying from the ceiling vents inside the server room, completely covering Thomas's laptop and destroying the data transfer mid-cycle. Thomas screamed in frustration, throwing his hands up as Harrison breached the door and forced him to the ground.
Adrian rolled up beside me, breathing heavily, his face flushed with adrenaline. He looked at the foaming server rack, then looked up at me, checking me over. "Are you alright? Did he hurt you?"
"I'm fine," I breathed, letting out a heavy sigh of relief. "The server data is safe."
"Because of you," Adrian said quietly. He reached out, grabbing my hand, his grip tight and warm. "You saved my life's work tonight, Elena."
Harrison dragged a handcuffed Thomas out of the vault. "Mr. Vale, I found this in his jacket," Harrison said, holding up an encrypted satellite phone. "It was actively transmitting to an unlisted number in Manhattan."
Adrian took the phone, tapping the screen to reveal the last dialed contact. The name displayed on the caller ID made Adrian's eyes narrow into slits of cold steel.
Julian Thorne.
"He's desperate," Adrian said, turning the phone over in his hand. "The board meeting is in forty-eight hours. Julian knows if he can't steal the software, he has to destroy me publicly before I can present the crash evidence to the shareholders."
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"What's his next move?" I asked.
"He's going to call an emergency board vote to strip my voting rights on grounds of physical and mental incapacity," Adrian replied, looking up at me with fierce determination. "And we are going to walk right into that board meeting and tear his empire down."
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