Chapter 6 - The True Architect
I didn't hesitate for a fraction of a second.
I slammed my foot down on the accelerator, flooring the heavy SUV with absolute brutal force.
The armored vehicle lurched forward, violently sideswiping the corrupt police officer.
He screamed as the impact shattered his ribs and threw him into the muddy ditch.
Bullets immediately began pelting the back of my car, sparking harmlessly off the reinforced steel.
I tore through the empty Boston streets at ninety miles an hour, taking sharp turns to break their line of sight.
The heavy rain acted as my camouflage, swallowing our taillights in the thick fog.
I navigated toward the industrial district, finally losing our pursuers in a maze of abandoned warehouses.
I pulled the battered SUV into the rusted, overgrown gates of a forgotten shipyard I owned through a shell corporation.
The facility had been empty for a decade, but it was heavily fortified and off the grid.
I parked the car inside a massive, hollowed-out dry dock and cut the engine.
The silence that followed was heavy and terrifying.
Mia was softly crying in the backseat, rocking her sleeping sister back and forth.
I turned around to face Clara, my patience completely exhausted.
"You knew the layout of my hidden tunnels perfectly tonight," I stated coldly.
"You knew about the Irish child, and you knew about Victoria's betrayal."
I leaned over the center console, staring into my aunt's tired eyes.
"You didn't just hide in that wall today to escape the hit squad, did you?"
Clara looked down at her scarred, trembling hands.
"No, Roman," she whispered quietly.
"I have been living inside that concrete room for seventeen years."
My mind violently rejected the information.
"That's impossible," I argued. "My father sealed that room to protect our family's wealth before he died."
Clara let out a bitter, sorrowful laugh.
"Your father didn't seal that room to hide his money, Roman."
She looked up, and I saw a lifetime of absolute suffering in her eyes.
"He sealed the room to hide me, because I had discovered his ultimate secret."
I felt the blood drain entirely from my face.
"What secret?" I demanded.
Before Clara could answer, a blinding spotlight pierced through the rusted windows of the dry dock.
May you like
The deafening roar of armored troop transports echoed across the concrete yard.
They had found us.
