Chapter 2 - The Stolen Empire
I did not have time to think or negotiate with the armed men.
I grabbed the pot of boiling coffee from the stove and hurled it directly at the lead gunman.
The scalding liquid struck his face and forced him to drop his weapon with a scream of agony.
I pushed the kitchen table forward to block the path of the other two attackers.
I grabbed Marisol by the arm and yelled for her to run toward the fire escape.
She scooped Renata into her arms and kicked open the rusted window in the bedroom.
We scrambled out into the freezing rain just as bullets shattered the glass behind us.
We carefully climbed down the slippery iron stairs into the dark and narrow alleyway.
I led them through the shadows until we reached the bustling avenue several blocks away.
We ducked into a crowded twenty-four-hour diner to hide from our violent pursuers.
I pulled out my phone to call my head of security for immediate extraction.
The call went straight to a disconnected automated voice message.
I quickly logged into my private banking application to access my emergency funds.
A bright red error message flashed across the screen of my device.
Every single one of my personal and corporate bank accounts had been completely frozen.
My password to the executive company server was also entirely locked out.
I realized with absolute horror that this was not a random home invasion.
The man who had organized this hostile takeover was someone who knew my exact schedule.
It was Sterling, my trusted senior manager who had pointed Renata out to me in the lobby.
Sterling had used my brief disappearance to execute a flawless corporate coup.
He had framed me for the massive embezzlement that Marisol had initially discovered.
I looked across the diner booth at the terrified mother and her brave little girl.
I told them that I was now just as homeless and destitute as they were.
Marisol wiped the rain from her face and reached into her damp pocket.
She pulled out a small and incredibly tarnished brass key.
She whispered that she had stolen this key from Vanguard before they escorted her out of the building.
It belonged to a hidden storage locker containing all the physical ledgers she had secretly copied.
She said the locker was located at the central bus station downtown.
We rushed out of the diner and hailed a passing taxi using my last fifty-dollar bill.
We arrived at the bus station and quickly found the rusted locker at the end of the terminal.
Marisol inserted the brass key and slowly turned the heavy lock.
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The metal door swung open, but there were no financial ledgers inside the dark space.
Instead, a digital timer attached to a block of plastic explosives was counting down from three seconds.
