Chapter 8 - The Betrayal Signal
Leo sprinted frantically out of the bedroom, clutching the terrifying ransom note tightly in his small, shaking hand.
He practically threw himself down the grand staircase, screaming Daniel’s name at the top of his lungs despite the obvious danger of alerting Vance.
He found the billionaire in the shattered ruins of the grand library, furiously loading a heavy shotgun while surrounded by the unconscious bodies of two corrupt security guards.
Daniel spun around, his weapon raised aggressively, but dropped it instantly when he saw the absolute terror written across the boy's dirty face.
“Where is she, Leo? Where is my daughter?” Daniel demanded violently, rushing forward and aggressively grabbing the boy by his shoulders.
Leo couldn't form the words, so he simply shoved the damp, crumpled ransom note aggressively into the desperate father's chest.
Daniel read the elegant handwriting once, and all the aggressive, vengeful fight seemed to violently drain out of his massive body.
“It's Victoria,” Daniel whispered, his voice cracking with a horrifying realization of his own terrible, blinding stupidity.
“She's been planning a hostile takeover of my company for months, and I was entirely too blinded by my own grief to see the obvious truth.”
Daniel slumped heavily into a leather chair, burying his face in his hands as the crushing reality of his absolute failure destroyed him.
“I have to just sign the papers and give her everything she wants, or she will actually kill my little girl,” the broken billionaire sobbed.
Leo stood frozen, staring at the defeated man, before a sudden, brilliant memory struck his brain like a bolt of lightning.
“When we were hiding in the bunker, I gave Emily my cheap plastic watch to hold so she wouldn't be scared of the dark,” Leo said quickly, his voice rising in sudden excitement.
Daniel looked up slowly, completely failing to understand how a cheap piece of street garbage could possibly help them now.
“Mr. Daniel, I lived on the dangerous streets for three years, and I stole that specific watch from a paranoid drug dealer,” Leo explained rapidly, rushing over to Daniel's massive computer desk.
“It has a highly illegal, military-grade GPS tracker built directly into the battery compartment so the dealer could always track his merchandise!”
Daniel practically leaped out of his chair, aggressively shoving his expensive laptop toward the boy and demanding he log into the tracking software immediately.
Leo’s small fingers flew furiously across the keyboard, entering a complex series of back-alley codes he had memorized long ago.
A highly detailed satellite map of the entire city violently popped onto the large screen, a bright red dot aggressively blinking in the bottom right corner.
Daniel stared at the blinking red dot, his eyes widening in absolute, terrifying disbelief as he recognized the isolated location.
May you like
“That signal isn't coming from some abandoned warehouse or a shipping container at the docks,” Daniel whispered, picking his heavy shotgun back up from the floor.
“That tracker is broadcasting directly from the heavily fortified, underground basement of Victoria’s private, multi-million dollar art gallery.”
