The entire room shook violently, knocking me off my feet and sending Lily tumbling to the floor.

A second explosion followed, much louder this time, and the center of the heavy steel door bowed inward.

The thick metal groaned and warped under the immense pressure of shaped charges.

Suddenly, the locking mechanism shattered, and the door was kicked open through a cloud of thick gray smoke.

Marcus stood in the doorway, his face covered in soot and blood, a heavy asNextlt rifle slung over his shoulder.

He looked like an avenging angel rising from the ashes of hell.

“Cover your faces!” he roared, tossing two small gas masks across the room.

I scrambled to catch them, securing one tightly over Lily’s face before strapping the other onto myself.

The sweet-smelling gas was already making me dizzy, but the filtered oxygen from the mask hit my lungs like a jolt of electricity.

Marcus ran to the computer terminal, pulling a small device from his vest and plugging it into the data port.

“What are you doing?” I yelled, my voice muffled by the rubber mask.

“We have to go!”

“Not without the leverage,” Marcus replied, his fingers flying across his portable decryptor.

“Your mother didn't just lock you in here to kill you.”

“She locked you in here because this terminal holds the central ledger for the Vanguard Trust.”

“If I can download it, we can freeze her out completely.”

I watched anxiously as a progress bar inched across his screen, the gunfire in the hallway outside growing closer.

“Hurry, Marcus!” I pleaded, pulling Lily close to my side.

“Almost got it,” he muttered, his eyes glued to the terminal.

“There's a hidden directory buried deep in the system files.”

“It's heavily encrypted, but my override is bypassing it.”

The computer chimed, and a folder popped open on the screen.

It contained hundreds of financial records, blackmail files, and assassination orders disguised as corporate restructurings.

But one file stood out, separate from the rest, simply labeled 3.mp4.

“What is that?” I asked, pointing to the screen.

Marcus clicked on the file named 3.mp4 without hesitating.

A video started playing, showing grainy, black-and-white footage of a dark hospital room.

I gasped as I recognized the man lying in the hospital bed.

It was my father, Arthur Cross, hooked up to a ventilator in his final days.

The timestamp on the video was from ten years ago, the night he supposedly died of a sudden heart attack.

The door to his hospital room opened, and my mother walked in.

She stood over him for a moment, her face displaying the same chilling calmness she had shown on the balcony.

Then, she reached out and deliberately turned off the life support machines.

I watched in absolute horror as my father struggled for breath, while Eleanor simply stood there and watched him die.

“She killed him,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face beneath the mask.

“She murdered my father to take control of the company.”

Marcus yanked his device from the terminal, securing the copied files in his pocket.

“Now we have the proof to destroy her,” he said, his eyes blazing with vengeance.

“Let's get out of here.”

We ran toward the ruined vault door, stepping over the smoldering debris.

But as we crossed the threshold into the hallway, the sound of heavy boots echoed from both directions.

We were completely surrounded.