Chapter 4 - The Dangerous Creditor
My lungs began to burn instantly as the toxic gray gas filled the freezing, enclosed space.
Victoria covered her mouth with her silk scarf, coughing violently as she slammed her fists against the locked steel door.
I remembered that the server room was built with a specialized emergency ventilation override for fire suppression.
I dropped to my knees, crawling through the thick smoke to reach the manual release lever hidden under the main floor panel.
I yanked the heavy red lever with every ounce of strength I had left in my exhausted body.
The massive exhaust fans roared to life, violently sucking the dangerous gas out of the room and unlocking the steel doors.
We stumbled out into the hallway, gasping desperately for clean air while our eyes watered from the chemical smoke.
Standing at the end of the hallway was a towering, heavily scarred man holding a suppressed pistol.
He did not look like a police officer or one of Arthur's pathetic, amateur hired thugs.
He wore the unmistakable tattoos of a notorious, highly violent criminal cartel that operated on the coast.
He aimed the weapon directly at my chest and demanded the five million dollars Arthur had promised his boss.
I held my hands up in surrender, frantically explaining that Arthur had stolen from me as well.
I told the assassin that freezing Arthur's bank accounts was the only reason the cartel had not been paid.
The man lowered his weapon slightly, realizing that killing me would permanently destroy any chance of recovering their money.
I offered him a dangerous, highly calculated deal to save both of our lives in that dark hallway.
I promised to unfreeze the accounts and transfer the stolen funds to the cartel, but I needed forty-eight hours to bypass the federal holds.
The assassin stared at me with cold, dead eyes, calculating the risks of trusting a desperate woman.
He finally lowered his gun entirely, agreeing to my terms with a chilling, humorless smile.
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He told me I had exactly two days to deliver the money, or he would slowly torture everyone I had ever loved.
To ensure my absolute compliance, he grabbed Victoria by the hair and dragged my screaming lawyer away as his personal collateral.
