Chapter 8
The concrete drainage tunnel was cramped, damp, and freezing, forcing the sisters to hunch over as they hurried through the darkness. The sound of their boots splashing through shallow puddles echoed loudly off the curved walls, but the thick earth above them muffled any pursuit from inside the manor.
“Keep going,” Clara whispered ahead, her voice echoing in the confined space. “The exit leads out into the ravine behind the perimeter fence. There’s an old maintenance shed where we left emergency gear two years ago during a hunting trip.”
Elena nodded in the dark, her chest heaving as the cold air burned her lungs. The physical strain was immense, but her mind remained razor-sharp. Julian had crossed the Rubicon. By sending armed operatives to detain them at a private family property, he had stripped away any remaining illusion that this was a mere domestic dispute. He was treating them as enemy combatants, which meant he knew the contents of the safe compromised everything he had spent a decade building.
After ten grueling minutes of navigation, a faint circle of gray moonlight appeared ahead. The tunnel opened directly into the overgrown brush of the ravine, surrounded by dense thickets of pine and bramble.
They stumbled out into the cool night air, gasping for breath as they collapsed against the rough wooden planks of the old maintenance shed. Clara quickly unlatched the shed door, slipping inside to flick on a battery-powered work light.
“Are you hurt?” Clara asked, turning to inspect Elena.
“I’m fine,” Elena panted, brushing a streak of cobwebs and dirt from her beige dress, which was now thoroughly ruined. She held up the manila folder. “And more importantly, Project Vanguard is still with us.”
Clara opened an old metal locker against the back wall, pulling out a spare set of heavy canvas jackets and a pair of rugged hiking boots. “We can’t drive the Ferrari back onto the main highways. Julian’s network will have automated plate readers flagged across every major intersection within fifty miles.”
“Then we abandon the car,” Elena said without hesitation. “There’s an old logging truck parked behind this shed with the keys in the ignition. Marcus left it here last autumn for timber maintenance. It’s an analog diesel engine—no onboard computer, no telemetry, and completely untraceable by digital firewalls.”
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Clara let out a small, breathless laugh, a mixture of disbelief and fierce admiration. “You thought of everything.”
“Survival requires paranoia,” Elena replied, pulling on the heavy canvas jacket over her ruined dress. “Let’s load the files. We’re heading straight for the federal district office in the capital. If we time it right, we’ll walk through the doors right as the morning shift begins, before Julian’s promotion hearing is called to order.”
