Chapter 9 - The Double Cross
Elena stared at the glowing monitor in absolute, soul-crushing disbelief.
Marcus had completely played both sides, helping Sylvia poison Victor while pretending to be Elena's savior.
"He wants the entire fortune for himself, and he needs my son to control it legally," Victor croaked, his eyes wide with newfound terror.
Elena realized that Marcus catching the baby was not an act of heroism, but a calculated kidnapping.
Suddenly, the bright lights in the panic room flickered violently and died, leaving them in complete darkness.
The quiet humming of the room's ventilation system slowly ground to a terrifying halt.
"They have cut the main power and disabled the backup generators," Victor wheezed, struggling to draw a full breath.
The panic room was completely airtight, meaning they only had a few precious minutes of oxygen left before they suffocated.
Elena blindly felt her way along the cold steel walls, desperately searching for any alternative exit.
Her fingers brushed against a small, rusted metal grate located near the ceiling in the far corner.
It was an old, secondary ventilation shaft that was entirely too small for a grown man, but she might just fit.
"I am going to get him back, Victor, I swear it," Elena promised in the dark.
She unscrewed the metal grate with a heavy tactical knife she found in the emergency kit.
Elena painfully squeezed her injured body into the narrow, dusty shaft, crawling forward with sheer willpower.
She dragged herself through the suffocating darkness for what felt like an eternity, ignoring the agonizing pain in her shoulder.
She finally reached a larger vent that opened directly above the mansion's rear outdoor patio.
Elena peered through the metal slats and saw Marcus standing near a running helicopter on the lawn, holding the crying baby.
She quietly kicked the grate out and dropped silently onto the soft grass perfectly behind him.
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Elena slowly raised a heavy steel pipe she had found in the vents, ready to strike him down.
Marcus suddenly spun around with terrifying speed and pointed his heavy pistol directly at the baby's fragile head.
