Chapter 5 - The Betrayal
Damian slowly lowered his weapon and dropped it onto the concrete floor.
His head of security, a man named Marcus, stepped into the dim light.
"You sold me out for a corrupt politician?" Damian asked, his voice deceptively calm.
"The Mayor offered me half the city, Damian," Marcus sneered.
Preston Hale walked out from behind a stack of crates, dragging Walter with him.
"Now, where is the girl and the flash drive?" Preston demanded.
"She ran away the second the shooting started," Damian lied effortlessly.
Marcus shook his head and laughed.
"I saw you push her into the footwell of the SUV, Boss," Marcus corrected.
Marcus raised his radio to his mouth to order his men to search the vehicle.
Before he could press the button, a massive forklift suddenly roared to life at the back of the warehouse.
Its bright headlights flipped on, blinding everyone in the room.
The heavy machine accelerated rapidly, driving straight toward Preston and Marcus.
Clara was behind the wheel, gripping the steering wheel with terrified determination.
She crashed the forklift into the stack of crates, sending heavy wooden boxes raining down.
Marcus dove out of the way, dropping his radio in the process.
Preston screamed as a crate clipped his shoulder, forcing him to drop Walter.
Damian did not waste a single second.
He swept Marcus's legs out from under him and retrieved his fallen gun.
He fired two shots into Marcus's kneecaps, ensuring the traitor would not follow them.
Damian sprinted toward the forklift and pulled Clara out of the driver's seat.
He grabbed Walter's arm, cutting the zip ties with a pocket knife.
"We have to move, now!" Damian shouted over the ringing in their ears.
They rushed out the back exit into the narrow, rain-slicked alleyway.
Damian led them to a secondary safe house hidden beneath an old Italian bakery.
Once inside, Clara collapsed onto a dusty sofa, shaking violently.
"We have the evidence, we can go to the police now," Clara panted.
"The police work for the Mayor, Clara," Damian reminded her grimly.
"If we hand over that drive, they will destroy it and bury us all in unmarked graves."
Walter coughed weakly from the corner of the room.
"Then what do we do?" the old man asked.
Damian plugged the flash drive back into his laptop.
"We bypass the city entirely," Damian said, hitting a few keys.
"I am sending this data directly to a federal prosecutor I have in my pocket."
The upload progress bar appeared on the screen, ticking slowly toward one hundred percent.
Suddenly, the screen went completely black.
May you like
A red digital skull flashed across the monitor, followed by a bold text message.
"Did you really think the Mayor's server wasn't protected by a tracking virus?"
