Chapter 5 - THE BREAKING POINTZ
The air in the office instantly shattered into chaos. Before the two armed men could raise their weapons, Victoria fired two quick shots into the chest of the lead guard. The heavy ballistic vest he wore absorbed the force, but the sheer kinetic impact drove him backward into the wall.
"Danielle, MOVE!" Victoria screamed, diving behind her heavy oak desk as the second guard opened fire, showering the room with drywall dust and flying wood splinters.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't care about the agony screaming through my broken tibia or the heavy fiberglass cast weighing down my left leg. I grabbed a heavy bronze legal scales-of-justice statue from the side table, swung my body around the filing cabinet with all the physical force I possessed, and smashed the statue directly into the knee joint of the guard standing closest to me.
The metal struck bone with a sickening crack. The guard shrieked in pain, dropping his weapon as he collapsed onto his good leg.
"Run!" Victoria shouted, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the private rear emergency exit that led to the service stairwell.
Behind us, Beatrice’s chrome revolver cracked through the air. A bullet shattered the doorframe inches from my head, spraying wood shards into my face.
"You're not escaping me again, you little bitch!" Beatrice screamed, her voice echoing down the narrow concrete stairwell as Victoria and I stumbled through the heavy steel fire doors.
"Take the lift!" Victoria urged, shoving me toward the industrial freight elevator at the end of the maintenance hallway. "I’ll hold them at the door!"
"I am not leaving you!" I shouted back, tears of pain and adrenaline burning my eyes. "We do this together!"
"If they take you, they win, Danielle!" Victoria yelled, her gun leveled at the fire door, which was already shuddering under the heavy kicks of Beatrice’s remaining guard. "The financial keycodes to their offshore accounts are on the encrypted drive in your coat pocket! You hold the key to putting their entire syndicate in federal prison forever! GET ON THE ELEVATOR!"
Victoria slammed the heavy metal gate of the freight elevator shut and hit the manual override button for the basement parking garage.
The elevator shuddered and began its slow, mechanical descent into the depths of the building. As the floor line sank, I watched through the metal wire mesh as the fire door burst open. Victoria fired twice, but Beatrice stepped into the hallway, raising her revolver and firing three rapid shots.
Victoria collapsed against the wall, clutching her shoulder, red blood blooming across her white blouse.
"NO!" I screamed, hammering my fists against the elevator's steel mesh gate. "VICTORIA!"
The elevator dropped out of sight, plunging me into cold darkness as it creaked down to the subterranean parking level. Tears blurred my vision as the sheer terror of the situation threatened to paralyze me. Victoria was hurt. Mason was in jail. Beatrice was coming down the stairs, and I was trapped in a empty, cavernous basement garage with a leg that barely functioned.
Think, Danielle, THINK! I commanded myself, wiping the tears aggressively from my cheeks. You squeezed through that laundry room door in the rain. You survived three years of their mental torture. You are not dying in a concrete basement.
The elevator doors hit the basement floor with a heavy mechanical clunk.
The subterranean garage was vast, dark, and filled with echoing shadows. Row after row of concrete pillars supported the thirty stories of building above.
I hauled myself out of the elevator cab, using a wooden mop handle left behind by the custodial crew as an improvised crutch. Every step was an agony that made my vision turn black at the edges, but I forced my body to move forward, ducking behind a heavy black SUV parked fifty feet away.
Seconds later, the emergency stairwell door at the end of the garage burst open.
Beatrice stepped out onto the concrete floor. She had discarded her raincoat, her hair was disheveled, and her eyes were wild with an unhinged, psychopathic focus. In her right hand, she held her gun; in her left, she held a remote detonator unit.
"I know you can hear me, Danielle!" Beatrice’s voice echoed off the concrete pillars, twisted and booming. "You think you’re so smart with your university degree and your high-tech career! You thought you could just walk away from my family and take everything we built?"
She began walking slowly down the central lane of the garage, her heavy leather boots clicking rhythmically on the oil-stained concrete.
"Mason was weak," Beatrice sneered, her voice bouncing off the walls so I couldn't pinpoint her exact distance. "He actually fell in love with you. He begged me not to hurt you too badly. He wanted to keep you in that house like a little caged bird forever. But I knew... I always knew you were dangerous. You had that look in your eyes from the day he brought you home to Austin. That arrogant look of a woman who thinks she’s free."
I squeezed myself tight against the tire of the black SUV, holding my breath, my hand clutching the encrypted USB drive Victoria had given me.
"Richard is already in Nassau," Beatrice continued, getting closer. "Mason will take the fall for the domestic charges—a few years in a minimum-security facility, Harrison Pike will buy off the judges. And you? You are going to be a unfortunate casualty of an tragic office break-in by unknown street criminals. The police will find your body right here."
Her footsteps stopped. She was standing on the other side of the SUV I was hiding behind.
I could hear her slow, deliberate breathing. I could smell her expensive lavender perfume mixing with the sharp odor of burnt gunpowder and gasoline.
"Come out, Danielle," Beatrice whispered softly, right above me. "Let’s finish this like family."
Through the dark reflection of the SUV’s tinted rear window, I saw her reflection. She was raising the gun, preparing to step around the rear bumper and fire directly into my hiding spot.
My mind raced. I looked down at the mop handle in my hand. I looked at the heavy industrial emergency fire extinguisher mounted on the concrete pillar eighteen inches to my left.
I didn't wait for her to round the corner.
With a desperate, primal scream, I swung the mop handle with all my remaining strength, slamming the heavy wooden end directly into the yellow safety pin of the industrial fire extinguisher.
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The pin snapped. The pressurized valve burst open.
A massive, roaring cloud of dense, white chemical fire-retardant powder erupted from the nozzle, blasting directly into Beatrice’s face and eyes at short range.
