Chapter 10 - The Highway to Blackwood
Marcus slammed the heavy airlock door shut, locking Victoria inside the outer corridor of the bunker while Elena and Leo remained secure within the reinforced inner chamber. He didn't look back as her muffled screams beat against the reinforced glass panel.
He sprinted back up to the garage level, hitting the master override switch for the vehicle bay. The heavy steel shutters rolled upward, revealing Marcus’s private fleet. He bypassed the luxury sedans and chose the custom-armored Range Rover Sentinel.
He threw himself into the driver's seat, hit the ignition button, and the supercharged V8 engine roared to life with a ferocious, metallic snarl.
He tore out of the garage, the heavy tires ripping across the manicured lawn, blasting past the shattered wrought-iron front gates and hurtling onto Blackwood Valley Parkway.
His heads-up display on the windshield projected the countdown: twenty-two minutes.
Marcus dialed Frank Miller’s secondary private line. The security chief had finally come to, his voice thick and slurred from the paralytic agent.
""Marcus... I'm up,"" Miller croaked. ""Head is spinning... what happened?""
""Vivienne has Clarissa’s ledger and Leo’s biological data,"" Marcus barked, swerving through oncoming traffic as he pushed the heavy SUV past one hundred miles per hour. ""Julian set an explosive on the main pillar beneath the panic room. It’s slaved to Julian’s personal transmitter. I need you to run an emergency trace on Julian’s cell signal right now!""
""On it,"" Miller replied, the sound of furious typing echoing through the Bluetooth speakers. ""Julian’s phone just registered on the cell tower near Hangar Four at the county airstrip. But Marcus... there's something else.""
""Speak!""
""The ledger isn't just offshore bank codes,"" Miller said, his tone turning grave. ""Clarissa had compiled a complete legal deposition. The Trust wasn't trying to cut you out, Marcus. The Trust was set up by Clarissa to protect you and Leo. Vivienne faked Clarissa's signature to initiate a complete liquidation of the estate assets upon Clarissa's confirmed death. If Vivienne boards that flight, the entire Vance conglomerate defaults automatically.""
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Marcus pressed the accelerator to the floorboards. ""She won't board that plane.""
Ahead of him, the private airfield’s perimeter fence emerged against the gray horizon. A sleek Gulfstream jet was already taxiing down the tarmac, its turbine engines winding up with an ear-splitting whine.
