Chapter 9 - Checkmate
Massive, thick steel blast doors instantly slammed down with terrifying force over all the mansion's exits, violently sealing the entire grand hallway into an impenetrable metal box.
My mother laughed maniacally at my shocked expression, proudly revealing she had completely rigged this entire wing of the estate with military-grade explosives in case of a federal raid.
A loud, rhythmic mechanical timer immediately began beeping ominously from the reinforced walls, aggressively counting down from three incredibly short minutes to total annihilation.
She confidently turned and sprinted toward a hidden, reinforced panic room concealed securely behind a massive oak bookshelf, knowing she was the absolute only person in the room who could survive the blast.
Matteo violently broke free from his distracted captors, throwing a massive, bone-crushing right hook that completely shattered a heavily armored guard's jaw in a spray of blood.
Absolute chaos immediately erupted in the enclosed space as we fought desperately hand-to-hand with the highly trained, panicked mercenaries who realized they had just been betrayed.
I ruthlessly tackled my fleeing mother just as she frantically reached the heavily armored threshold of the supposedly impenetrable safe room.
The small plastic detonator violently slipped from her manicured fingers during the struggle, rapidly sliding across the highly polished marble floor directly toward Beatrice.
Beatrice viciously stomped her heavy winter boot directly down onto it, completely crushing the intricate plastic casing and internal wiring into useless, jagged shards.
I aggressively dragged my violently screaming, cursing mother backward out of the safe room doorway, ruthlessly throwing her directly into the chaotic center of the frantic, bloody firefight.
Matteo precisely shot the heavy electronic locking mechanism of the panic room door, permanently wedging the massive chunk of steel wide open for us.
With only thirty terrifying seconds left on the echoing timer, we violently shoved Beatrice inside and aggressively fought our way backward into the small, reinforced space.
I looked back one last, defining time to see my wealthy, powerful mother desperately and pathetically crawling across the bloody floor toward the completely shattered remote.
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I violently pulled the heavy inner locking bar of the blast door firmly into place from the inside just as the digital timer finally hit absolute zero.
The violent, corrupt world immediately outside our reinforced steel vault instantly dissolved into a blinding, deafening, roaring sea of inescapable fire and thunder.
