Chapter 9 - The Panic Room
Liam and Avery drove back to the estate like absolute maniacs.
The police had arrived, but Victoria’s highly paid lawyers were refusing them entry to the main house.
Liam ignored them all, dragging Avery through the hidden servant tunnels into the sub-basement.
They reached the massive, circular steel door of the panic vault.
A digital keypad glowed menacingly beside it, showing a red timer counting down from fifteen minutes.
"I can hack the main frame, but it will take at least an hour," Liam said, his hands shaking in panic.
"We only have fifteen minutes of oxygen left in that room!" Avery cried out.
Liam typed his master override codes into the pad, but it beeped angrily, denying him access.
"She changed the biometric cipher," Liam groaned in despair.
"She would use a number she never forgets, something tied to her absolute core," Avery analyzed quickly.
They tried Victoria's birthday, Liam's birthday, and the date the company was founded.
Nothing worked.
The timer ticked down to five minutes, and the video feed on Avery's phone showed Leo crying weakly from the thin air.
Avery thought back to all the cruel insults Victoria had hurled at her over the years.
Victoria was obsessed with pure bloodlines and the exact day she married into the Sterling wealth.
"Liam, what was the exact date your father signed the prenuptial agreement giving her total control?" Avery asked.
Liam typed in the six-digit date without hesitating.
The keypad flashed green, and the heavy steel door hissed violently as the hydraulic locks disengaged.
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Avery rushed inside, only to find the vault completely empty, save for a laptop playing a looped video of the baby.
A secret escape hatch in the floor of the vault was wide open, leading out toward the estate's dangerous ocean cliffs.
