Chapter 4 - THE SUB-BASEMENT TRAP
Nia didn't run to the police station.
She was an emergency medicine physician. When a building was in crisis, her brain didn't process fear; it processed triage.
She ducked into the pharmacy supply room, grabbed a heavy brass fire extinguisher from the wall, and slipped through the heavy steel door leading to the service stairwell.
The echoing sound of silenced gunfire rang out from the floor above. Daniel was delaying them, drawing them away from the patient rooms and toward the north wing. But he was fighting on empty reserves. The poison had left his heart vulnerable to extreme physical exertion. If his heart rate spiked past 160, he would go into ventricular fibrillation.
She ran down three flights of stairs, her sneakers squeaking against the concrete steps.
When she reached the sub-basement level—a dimly lit maze of steam pipes, linen carts, and backup generators—she heard heavy footsteps echoing from the corridor ahead.
She pressed herself against the cold brick wall, holding the heavy fire extinguisher close to her chest.
A man stepped around the corner. It wasn't one of the tactical attackers.
It was Julian Vance himself.
The seventy-year-old billionaire was dressed in a pristine navy overcoat, holding a silver-handled walking stick in one hand and a silenced revolver in the other. Flanking him was Evelyn Vance, still wearing her ruined wedding dress, a small velvet case held tightly in her trembling hands.
"I told you he wouldn't die easily, Father," Evelyn said, her voice shaking with a mixture of fear and bitterness. "He’s like a demon. He survived the wine!"
"He survived because of that emergency doctor," Julian Vance rasped coldly, his eyes scanning the dark pipes. "Where is she? My men reported she was with him in the ICU."
Nia held her breath, her back pressed hard against the brick.
"It doesn't matter," Julian continued, pulling a set of heavy brass keys from his pocket. "The digital drives containing the port offshore accounts are in Daniel’s private vehicle down here. Once we secure them and burn this wing, the police will assume the Han organization had an internal purge. We take full control of the city’s logistics by morning."
Nia’s mind raced. The digital drives. That was what Daniel had signed over yesterday—the evidence that transferred eighty percent of his wealth to a private trust and exposed the Vance family's decades of dock smuggling.
She didn't hesitate.
Nia stepped out from behind the steam pipe, pulling the safety pin from the fire extinguisher.
"Looking for me?" she called out.
Julian Vance turned his head—and Nia squeezed the lever.
A massive, blinding cloud of white chemical foam erupted from the nozzle, striking Julian and Evelyn directly in the face. Evelyn shrieked, dropping her velvet case as the thick white powder blinded them both. Julian coughed violently, firing two wild shots into the air that ricocheted harmlessly off the overhead steam pipes.
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Nia swung the heavy brass cylinder with all her strength, slamming it into Julian’s wrist. The revolver clattered across the concrete floor.
She scooped up the gun, kicked it down the dark hallway, and grabbed Evelyn’s dropped velvet case, sprinting toward the heavy double doors of the main generator room.
