Chapter 12
The harsh fluorescent lights of the subterranean bunker hummed overhead, casting a sterile, unforgiving glow over the concrete walls. Arthur stood rigidly before the interrogation table, his wrists still bound by steel cuffs, staring at his sister with a mixture of profound grief and lingering disbelief.
"You sold them out, Elena," Arthur said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Everything we believed in—everything father taught us about duty and integrity—you traded it for a seat at their table."
"Integrity doesn't keep you warm when you're rotting in a black-site prison in Siberia, Arthur," Elena retorted, her voice hardening as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You spent twenty years hiding behind spreadsheets while the real world burned. I was out there in the dirt, cleaning up your messes. So don't lecture me about morality."
Marcus Sterling stepped into the room, tossing his trench coat over the back of an empty chair. He pulled out a silver pocket watch, flipped it open, and glanced at the dial before looking up at Arthur.
"Time's up, Arthur. We're running out of runway," Sterling said calmly. "Your sister gave you a chance to do this the easy way. If you keep playing the martyr, I'm going to give the order to the extraction team currently tracking your wife's cell phone signal."
"They're not at the house, Marcus," Arthur said, a grim smile touching the corner of his mouth. "You checked the thermal feed of the storm shelter, but you missed the secondary tunnel map in the blueprint archives."
Sterling’s calm demeanor vanished instantly. He stepped across the room in two strides, grabbing Arthur by the lapels of his ruined grey suit and slamming him against the concrete wall. "What did you say?"
"The storm shelter has a drainage tunnel that leads straight down to the river," Arthur said, refusing to blink under Sterling’s furious gaze. "By now, Clara and Maya are already three miles downstream in a fishing boat, heading for the Canadian border."
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Before Sterling could strike him, a loud, shrill alarm blared through the bunker’s intercom system. The bank of glowing computer monitors against the far wall suddenly flashed red, the primary operating system overriding with a stark, blinking warning text: BREACH DETECTED - MASTER ARCHIVE ENCRYPTION COMPROMISED.
Elena spun around toward the computer consoles, her fingers flying frantically across the keyboard. "Someone is accessing the master server," she gasped, her face draining of color. "It’s not an external hack... it’s coming from an internal terminal inside the lake house network."
