Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Penthouse
“Get down!” I yelled, tackling Lily to the hard pavement.
A suppressed sniper bullet shattered the brick wall exactly where she had just been standing.
My security team swarmed the alley, providing covering fire as I dragged Lily into the armored Maybach.
“Drive to the secure penthouse, now!” I ordered my driver.
We sped through the neon-lit streets of Manhattan, the silence in the car heavy with unspoken panic.
Lily was clutching her gun tightly, her breathing ragged as she processed how close she came to dying.
“Arthur knows you found me,” she whispered, staring out the tinted window.
“He is trying to silence both of us before we can expose him,” I agreed grimly.
We arrived at my private, reinforced penthouse tower and bypassed the main lobby through a hidden elevator.
Once inside the luxurious suite, I immediately moved to my desk to access the company mainframe.
I needed to freeze Arthur’s security clearance before he could completely hijack my corporate empire.
“Professor James Lee warned my mother that the syndicate would eventually come for her,” Lily said, looking around the massive room.
“He is the one who taught me how to fight and how to hide.”
I typed furiously on my keyboard, but the system repeatedly denied my biometric access.
“Arthur has already locked me out,” I growled in frustration.
Suddenly, the heavy steel security doors of the penthouse slammed shut and locked magnetically.
The digital thermostat on the wall turned bright red, and the air vents began hissing loudly.
A thick, yellowish gas started pouring into the sealed room.
Lily coughed, covering her mouth with her sleeve as her eyes began to water.
“It is a neurotoxin,” I realized with absolute horror.
Arthur had completely compromised my sanctuary and turned it into a high-altitude death trap.
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I grabbed a heavy bronze statue from my desk and smashed it against the reinforced glass windows.
The glass did not even crack, and the toxic gas was quickly filling the entire room.
