Chapter 6 - The Breach
I rushed to Sarah's side and desperately checked her pulse, letting out a heavy sigh of relief when I found a strong beat.
She had a deep, nasty gash across her forehead, but she was still breathing steadily.
I grabbed a clean cloth from a nearby table and pressed it firmly against her wound to stop the bleeding.
Eli sat quietly on a wooden pew, watching me work with wide, terrified eyes.
"Mommy, is the bad man coming?" Eli whispered, his voice trembling in the cold, damp air.
"No, sweetie, I am not going to let anyone hurt us ever again," I promised him fiercely.
Sarah groaned softly and fluttered her eyes open, squinting against the dim candlelight of the crypt.
"Hannah?" she coughed, trying to push herself up off the cold stone floor.
I helped her sit up and asked her what had happened to the supposedly secure safe house.
"Your mother sent an advanced team to intercept the digital files I was uploading to the FBI," Sarah winced, holding her head.
Sarah pointed a shaking finger toward a smashed laptop sitting on a stone altar across the room.
"I managed to secure undeniable proof of your mother's forgery and the corrupt judge's paper trail," Sarah explained.
"The files are safely stored on a hidden encrypted server, but the team smashed my upload terminal before I could send them to the feds."
I realized that we were sitting on a goldmine of evidence that could destroy my family's criminal empire permanently.
"How do we access the server and send the files now?" I asked urgently.
Sarah pulled a small, silver thumb drive from a hidden pocket inside her bloody jacket.
"This is the physical encryption key," Sarah said, handing it to me.
"If you plug this into any computer with internet access, the files will automatically blast to every major news outlet and federal agency in the country."
I clutched the thumb drive tightly, feeling the overwhelming weight of our salvation resting in the palm of my hand.
I looked around the dark, ancient crypt, searching for any possible piece of working technology.
There was an old, dusty desktop computer sitting in the corner of the room, likely used for ancient church records.
I sprinted over to the machine, pressed the power button, and prayed for a miracle.
The monitor flickered to life, illuminating the dark corner with a bright blue glow.
I shoved the silver thumb drive into the USB port and watched the screen prompt me for the final upload confirmation.
My finger hovered over the enter key, ready to finally end this nightmare for good.
Suddenly, the power grid to the entire building was completely severed, plunging the crypt into pitch-black darkness.
The blue glow of the monitor faded into nothingness, leaving my finger pressing a dead key.
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A slow, mocking slow-clap echoed from the top of the stone stairs leading down into the crypt.
"You really almost had me, Hannah," Ryan's voice drawled through the terrifying darkness.
