Chapter 5 - Darkness in the Archive
Click.
The emergency backup generators failed simultaneously across the entire sub-basement, plunging the room into inky, suffocating blackness.
“Secure the doors!” Arthur Vance shouted, his voice cracking with sudden panic. “Shoot anything that moves!”
A silenced pistol barked in the dark, the bullet chewing into a filing cabinet inches from my left shoulder, showering the concrete with metal sparks.
I was already moving.
Years of training in subterranean martial arts camps and Cicero basement gyms hadn't dulled my reflexes; they had sharpened them into a lethal, instinctual quiet. In total darkness, sound and air pressure became my eyes.
The first thug lunged forward, his heavy combat boots scraping against the concrete. I pivoted on my heel, letting his momentum carry him past me, and drove my elbow hard into his solar plexus. He collapsed with a wheezing gasp, his weapon clattering across the floor.
“Over here! She’s by the server racks!” the second guard yelled, firing blindly into the rows of equipment.
I dropped into a low crouch, sliding across the slick floor, and swept his legs out from under him. As he hit the ground, I brought my heel down squarely on his wrist, hearing the bone snap cleanly. He screamed, dropping his gun.
“What is happening? Turn the lights on!” Arthur shrieked in the dark, stumbling blindly toward the door.
I lunged through the blackness, grabbing Arthur by the lapels of his expensive suit, hoisting him off his feet, and slamming him hard against the heavy steel door.
Thud.
Arthur wheezed, gasping for air as my forearm pressed firmly against his windpipe, cutting off his airway just enough to remind him who was holding the cards.
“You—” Arthur choked out. “You’re... you’re dead.”
“Not yet, Arthur,” I whispered right into his ear, my voice cold enough to freeze blood. “We have some catching up to do about my father.”
Suddenly, a brilliant beam of white light flooded the room as Marcus hacked the override panel, bringing the emergency lighting back online.
The harsh fluorescent glare revealed Arthur Vance pinned against the steel door, his face purple, gasping for breath, while his two heavily armed guards lay unconscious on the floor like discarded laundry.
Standing in the open doorway behind them, leaning casually against the doorframe with a half-smoked cigar in his hand, was Dominic Moretti.
May you like
Dominic looked at Arthur, then looked at me, a slow, approving grin spreading across his face.
“I told you she was an asset, Marcus,” Dominic murmured, tossing his cigar into a sand bucket. “Remind me never to make her angry on an empty stomach.”
