Read on to uncover the truth behind what happens next.

10 -

The firefight in the grand foyer of Ravenscroft was deafening, the continuous crackle of automatic fire mingling with the concussive blasts of Harold’s heavy shotguns.

Plaster dust and sulfurous smoke filled the air, burning my eyes and lungs.

“Julian! The vault door is engaged!” Harold shouted from behind the barricaded library doorway. “The marshals have Emily in the tunnel! Get to the cellar stairs!”

“I'm not leaving you, Harold!”

“I’m seventy-five years old, boy!” the old judge roared with a defiant grin, slamming another two shells into his shotgun and firing through the smoke, driving back another wave of mercenaries. “I’ve lived a full life. You have a daughter who needs a father. Now move, damn you!”

I knew he was right. If the hard drive in my chest pocket was destroyed or captured, Sarah’s sacrifice, Emily’s suffering, and Harold’s stand would be entirely meaningless.

I fired three suppressing shots toward the front entrance, forcing Rebecca and her mercenaries to dive behind the stone balustrades, then turned and sprinted down the narrow corridor leading to the reinforced cellar.

“He’s heading below!” Rebecca’s voice screamed from behind, shrill and venomous. “Do not let him reach the tunnel! Kill him!”

I threw my weight against the heavy iron fire door at the end of the corridor, slammed it shut, and drove the heavy steel locking bar home just as a hail of bullets ricocheted off the exterior plating.

I leaped down the concrete stairs into the lower sub-basement.

The heavy pneumatic blast door leading to the railway tunnel had already sealed shut with a green indicator light—Emily was safe, moving beneath the mountains toward federal protection.

At the far end of the mechanical room was an emergency escape shaft designed for the old furnace exhaust, leading up to the wooded bluffs behind the estate.

I climbed the rusted metal rungs of the shaft, kicking open the iron grate at the top, and emerged into the freezing mountain rain just as a deafening explosion ripped through the front wing of the manor below.

Smoke and flames billowed into the gray morning sky.

I didn't stop to look back.

Clutching Sarah’s drive against my chest, I sprinted through the dense pine forest toward the predetermined extraction point Harold had designated on the county highway: a disused gas station two miles north.

When I stumbled out of the treeline thirty minutes later, drenched in mud, blood, and rain, an unmarked black sedan with tinted windows pulled up beside me.

The rear door swung open.

I raised my weapon instinctively, but a rough hand grabbed my wrist.

“Easy, Julian. Put the iron away.”

I blinked through the rain. Sitting in the driver’s seat, wearing a neck brace and a heavily bandaged shoulder, was Detective Thomas Miller.

“Thomas?” I gasped, collapsing into the leather passenger seat. “You're alive?”

“Takes more than three private security goons to put an old precinct captain in the ground,” Thomas grunted, stepping on the accelerator and throwing the sedan into a high-speed drift onto the highway. “Harold Vance called my personal secure line two hours ago. We have a direct encrypted uplink to the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington. But they need Julian Vance to physically deliver the master drive and verify the cryptographic signature.”

“Where are we going?” I asked, catching my breath as the adrenaline slowly subsided.

Thomas looked at the dashboard clock.

“It’s 4:00 PM, Julian. The Grand Horizon Plaza opens its doors for the Sterling Foundation Gala at seven. Marcus Sterling is about to announce his takeover of the pharmaceutical market before five hundred of the most powerful people on the planet.”