Chapter 11: Betrayal in the Ranks
“Hold on!” Victor shouted, slamming the SUV into reverse with violent speed. The tires spun furiously on the ice before catching traction, throwing a spray of gravel against the side of Miller’s truck as we jerked backward into the shadows of a towering earth mound. Shouts echoed across the open pit through the howling wind, followed sharply by the distinct, sickening thud of a heavy object slamming against metal.
Miller’s truck wasn’t as fast; the headlights of the leading Blackwood security sedan pinned his vehicle instantly. Through our rear window, I watched in horrified silence as two burly men in tactical gear yanked Miller from his driver’s seat, forcing his hands behind his back against the hood of his truck. Serena’s private security wasn't just tracking us—they had anticipated our move, which meant someone within Victor’s inner circle had leaked the exact coordinates of our rendezvous.
“It was Marcus,” Victor muttered, his jaw clenching so tightly a muscle twitched violently in his cheek. He gripped the steering wheel with his leather-gloved hands, his knuckles stark white under the cabin lights. “I should have seen it coming. He managed the regional logistics for the estate before I brought him onto my independent detail. He sold us out to protect his corporate pension.”
“Can we outrun them through the ridge trails?” I asked, clutching the flash drive tightly against my chest while keeping one watchful eye on Ethan, who stirred restlessly in his car seat from the sudden jolting motion.
“Not with their comms network active,” Victor said grimly, killing our headlights entirely as we drifted deeper into the shadow of an abandoned sorting machinery shed. “They’ve got drones in the air and roadblocks on every paved highway within twenty miles. If we try to flee north, we’re walking straight into an ambush.”
He turned to look at me, his gaze fierce, stripped of any lingering corporate hesitation. “There’s only one play left. We don’t run away from them anymore. We go straight back to the heart of the beast—right back to the Blackwood estate while their primary tactical teams are out here chasing ghosts in the mountains.”
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“Go back?” I repeated, my voice dropping in disbelief. “Serena’s entire security apparatus is stationed at the mansion. It’s suicide.”
“It’s the only place they won’t expect us to look,” Victor corrected, slipping the SUV into gear as he navigated the dark, snow-choked perimeter roads away from the trap. “The main security server room still operates on my original master architecture. If we plug this flash drive directly into the mainframe terminal beneath the grand foyer, we can override their corporate firewall and broadcast the unedited footage to every major news outlet in the country simultaneously before their IT team can isolate the signal.”
