Chapter 7 - The Mastermind
From beneath the desk, I watched the polished shoes pace slowly across the carpet.
"I know someone has breached the server," a sharp, aristocratic voice announced to the empty room.
It was Eleanor, my mother-in-law.
"The firewall alerts go directly to my phone," she continued, her voice dripping with lethal calm.
"Come out, Clara. There is nowhere left for you to run."
I felt a cold sweat break out across my forehead, but my auditing drive finally beeped, signaling the download was complete.
I yanked the drive from the computer port and slowly stood up from beneath the desk.
Eleanor was standing near the doorway, holding a small, silver handgun pointed directly at my chest.
She didn't look like a suburban grandmother anymore; she looked like a ruthless cartel boss.
"You always were too smart for your own good, Clara," Eleanor sighed with genuine disappointment.
"Why?" I asked, keeping my hands visible while clutching the drive.
"Richard's company was facing a federal indictment for pension fraud," she explained coldly.
"We needed capital to cover the missing funds, and you were sitting on a goldmine you refused to share."
"So you ordered Eric to kill me?" I asked, stalling for time as I edged toward the server rack.
"Eric is a weak, pathetic boy who couldn't even successfully cut the brake lines on a car," Eleanor sneered.
"I had to clean up his mess by having Arthur killed and framing you for the murder."
She raised the gun slightly, aiming it squarely at my head.
"Now, I am going to shoot you, delete the server, and tell the police I acted in self-defense against a wanted murderer."
Eleanor had perfectly scripted my final moments.
But I knew something about this server room that she didn't.
During my download, I noticed the building's fire suppression system was tied directly into the server's cooling unit.
I casually leaned back and slammed my elbow into the emergency thermal override switch on the wall.
A deafening alarm instantly shattered the silence of the room.
Seconds later, a massive cloud of thick, white Halon gas sprayed violently from the ceiling vents.
The gas instantly blinded Eleanor, and she fired wildly into the thick white fog.
The bullet shattered the glass door behind me.
I dropped to the floor, crawling frantically through the blinding gas until I reached the hallway.
I sprinted down the stairwell, coughing the chemical residue from my lungs.
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I had survived the encounter, and I now held the undeniable proof of her entire criminal empire.
But as I burst out onto the busy Manhattan street, multiple police cruisers violently swerved onto the sidewalk, completely surrounding me.
