Chapter 6 - The Escape to Manhattan
The tension inside the subterranean vault was suffocating. Dominic stepped smoothly in front of Olivia and Professor Whitman, his broad frame completely shielding the fourteen-year-old girl from the armed mercenaries.
"You won't leave this valley alive, Marcus," Dominic said, his deep voice dropping into an icy, lethal register that made the mercenaries tense.
Marcus laughed, an arrogant, metallic sound. "The board meets tomorrow morning at nine, Dominic! Once I present William's clean energy canister as my own discovery, the shareholders will vote me in as permanent CEO! And you... you will be blamed for William's murder!"
Olivia looked down at the iron table behind Dominic's back. Her sharp eyes noticed a small bronze lever built into the underside of the central leg—a secondary emergency release her father had described in his diary.
Without making a sound, Olivia reached her hand behind Dominic’s knee and pulled the bronze lever sharply upward!
CLACK-CRASH!
A heavy iron security grate slammed down from the ceiling vault, pinning two of Marcus’s mercenaries beneath its steel bars and separating Marcus from Dominic’s group!
"Run!" Dominic growled!
Dominic grabbed the metal canister from the table, took Olivia’s hand, and led her and Whitman through a narrow escape tunnel hidden behind the rear bookshelf!
They sprinted through two hundred yards of dark stone tunnels, emerging out onto a muddy riverbank half a mile down the valley, where Dominic’s private helicopter was already idling in the clearing!
They boarded the aircraft just as Marcus’s remaining guards broke through the woods. The helicopter lifted off into the misty gray sky, banking sharply toward the Manhattan skyline.
Inside the cabin, Professor Whitman wiped sweat from his forehead, his hands trembling. "That was madness! Absolute madness!"
Olivia sat beside Dominic, clutching her father's leather journal against her chest. She looked out the window at the distant skyscrapers of New York glowing in the afternoon light.
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Dominic looked at her, his sharp gray eyes filled with fierce, protective devotion. He reached out, taking her hand in his broad palm.
"Tomorrow morning, Olivia," Dominic promised, his deep voice solid as granite, "we end this."
