Chapter 12 - The Iron Gate
The heavy iron crowbar struck the control desk above with a dull, echoing thud.
For one agonizing second, nothing happened. The blinking red light on the console continued its steady, hypnotic rhythm. Then, a sharp digital alarm shrilled through the sub-corridor.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Heavy steel fire-shutters dropped with terrifying speed across every major archway and corridor in the main mansion. Above us, on the surveillance monitors, we watched Julian freeze in the middle of the basement hallway, his hunting knife raised as the exit routes sealed shut around him with pneumatic precision.
“What is this? Who’s there?” Julian roared, spinning around in the confined corridor, slamming his fists against the impenetrable steel shutters that now trapped him inside the lower level.
He didn't know about the sub-corridor beneath his feet. He believed the system had suffered a catastrophic technical glitch, or worse—that the federal authorities had finally breached the property perimeter.
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“Hold tight, sweet boy,” I whispered to Leo, my arms aching as I pulled him back from the grate into the shadowed safety of the brick tunnel.
The emergency purge sequence had indeed activated a silent distress protocol, transmitting the estate’s encrypted GPS coordinates and live security feeds directly to a decentralized federal server in the nearest city. But until the cavalry arrived, Julian was trapped in the basement with Clara, and the locked steel doors wouldn't hold his fury forever.
