Chapter 14
Before Frank could strike the door again, a sudden, sharp commotion erupted from the outer dining room—a heavy scuffle, a muffled shout, and the unmistakable sound of breaking ceramic.
It was Julian. Somehow, miraculously, he was still fighting.
"Get away from her!" Julian’s raspy voice roared through the walls, full of a fierce, desperate energy that defied his injuries.
Outside the walk-in room, the heavy thuds of the crowbar ceased entirely as Frank and the scarred brute abandoned their assault on the vault door to deal with the resilient fugitive in the main hall. Shouts of rage, the sound of crashing tables, and heavy bodies slamming against the diner walls echoed down the service corridor.
Chloe gripped the metal meat hook tighter, her knuckles white, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She wanted to throw the deadbolt, fling the door open, and rush out to help him, but she knew that would only destroy the last line of defense and hand the data drive straight to the enemy. Her job wasn't to fight a losing battle in the open; her job was to survive, to protect the truth, and to wait for the red-and-blue flash of the state police cruisers out on the highway.
Minutes ticked by like hours in the chilled silence of the walk-in room. The chaotic sounds in the hallway slowly subsided into heavy breathing, groans of pain, and the steady patter of the storm outside. Then, heavy footsteps dragged slowly down the service corridor, stopping right outside the reinforced steel door.
"Chloe..." a weak, familiar voice rasped against the metal seam.
It was Julian. Not Frank.
Chloe dropped the meat hook onto the concrete floor with a sharp clatter. She threw the massive deadbolt, pulled the security latch, and yanked the heavy steel door open wide.
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Julian slumped against the doorframe, pale as death, blood streaming from a fresh gash across his cheek and soaking the front of his torn leather jacket. But he was breathing. And in his hand, he held the keys to the blue motorcycle.
"They're... they're outside," Julian whispered, coughing weakly as he slid down the doorframe to the floor. "Truck is disabled... highway patrol is two minutes out... we made it, Chloe."
