Chapter 3 - The Hidden Drive
Max led them deeper into the abandoned subway tunnels beneath the city.
The air grew colder, and the distant rumble of subway trains shook the concrete floor.
Arthur held Lily’s hand tightly, marveling at how confidently she walked without her cane.
Her eyes darted around the darkness, taking in the world she had been forced to ignore for so long.
They eventually reached a makeshift camp illuminated by glowing lanterns.
Max offered them bottled water and dry blankets.
Arthur wrapped a blanket around Lily, his mind racing to make sense of the chaos.
He asked Max why Evelyn was hunting them now, after five years of silence.
Max pulled a crumpled, dirt-stained photograph from his pocket.
He handed it to Arthur, pointing at a small object in the background of the picture.
It was a silver flash drive resting on Arthur’s old office desk.
Arthur’s eyes widened in shock as a suppressed memory rushed back to the surface.
The night of the car crash, Arthur had unknowingly taken that drive from Evelyn’s coat pocket.
He had thought it was his own work drive and had hidden it in Lily’s favorite stuffed bear.
Max explained that the drive contained the bank accounts and encrypted ledgers of the entire syndicate.
Evelyn could not return to her bosses without it.
She had waited five years, hoping Arthur would accidentally reveal its location.
When he never did, she decided it was time to take drastic measures.
Arthur realized the stuffed bear was currently sitting on Lily’s bed in their apartment.
He told Max about the bear, and the boy’s face went completely pale.
Max said Evelyn’s men were probably tearing the apartment apart right at this very moment.
If they found the drive, Arthur and Lily would be completely useless to them.
And in the syndicate’s eyes, useless people were dead people.
Arthur knew they had to get to the apartment before Evelyn did.
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It was a suicide mission, but it was their only leverage.
He grabbed a heavy steel pipe from the ground, testing its weight in his hands.
