Chapter 37 - The Abandoned Terminal
The Vance Shipping Terminal was a relic of my grandfather’s early empire. It sat on a desolate, fog-drenched stretch of the Boston harbor, completely isolated from the city’s residential zones. Massive, rusted shipping containers formed a labyrinthine maze of steel corridors, leading to a cavernous, concrete warehouse that used to process international freight.
It was the perfect place for an ambush.
We arrived at 2100 hours, giving us exactly two hours to prepare the battlefield. My father’s security team, operating with flawless military efficiency, established a lethal perimeter. They placed high-powered thermal spotlights in the rafters, rigged non-lethal flashbang tripwires at the primary entry points, and took elevated sniper positions on the catwalks overlooking the main warehouse floor.
In the very center of the warehouse, resting conspicuously on a metal shipping crate under a single, dramatic spotlight, was a blinking, heavy-duty server tower. It looked incredibly important. In reality, it was a decoy loaded with David’s aggressive Trojan virus.
I stood on the catwalk next to my father, wearing a lightweight Kevlar vest over my dark clothing. I was holding a tablet that displayed the live feeds from our hidden perimeter cameras.
"Are you absolutely sure about this, Clara?" my father asked quietly, his eyes scanning the dark, foggy harbor below. "Once they breach those doors, there is no turning back. It will be a warzone."
"I am sure," I replied, my voice steady and resolute. "Julian thought he could terrorize me into submission. I am going to show him exactly what happens when you corner a woman who has already survived hell."
At exactly 22:45, the perimeter alarms chimed a silent, flashing red warning on my tablet.
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"We have movement," I whispered into my comms headset. "Multiple thermal signatures approaching from the harbor side. They came by boat to avoid the road sensors."
"Hold your fire, men," my father ordered over the encrypted radio channel. "Let them enter the kill box."
