Chapter 38 - The Breached Vault
The air inside the subterranean hangar instantly turned thick with acrid white smoke, choking sulfur, and the deafening concussions of high-explosive rounds ricocheting off the ancient concrete walls. Muzzle flashes painted the brutalist pillars in violent, flickering shades of amber and crimson, casting long, frantic shadows as the Moretti loyalists traded heavy fire with Vance’s elite mercenaries.
Gabriel fired in controlled, devastating bursts, his bullets finding their mark through the smoke with lethal precision as two armored operatives crumpled into the blood-stained frost. He sprinted across the open tarmac, keeping his body low, his eyes scanning the dense haze for any sign of Arthur Vance. The old man had vanished into the chaos the moment the support pillar collapsed, retreating behind the massive, blast-proof vault doors set deep into the rear cliffside of the facility.
"Boss! They're sealing the inner archive!" Dante’s voice crackled through the short-range comms, heavy with strain as he laid down a suppressing wall of lead from behind a concrete barricade. "If those hydraulic doors close all the way, we'll never get inside!"
Gabriel didn't hesitate. He lunged toward the massive circular vault door, which was slowly grinding shut with a high-pitched metallic shriek, driven by emergency pneumatic pistons. Through the narrowing gap, he could see Arthur Vance standing safely inside the illuminated inner sanctum, holding a heavy leather-bound ledger in his hand—the original founding registry of the syndicate.
"Clara! Take Lily to the jet! Keep moving!" Gabriel shouted over the roar of gunfire.
"I'm not leaving you!" Clara yelled back, firing a precise three-round burst that dropped a mercenary lunging from the shadows toward Gabriel's blind spot. She shoved Lily up the metal boarding stairs of the Gulfstream into the secure cabin, securing the heavy hatch before turning back to face the front line with a weapon in her hands.
Gabriel reached the threshold of the vault just as the heavy steel door had only inches left to close. Without a second thought, he hurled his entire body forward, jamming his tactical rifle horizontally between the thick hydraulic gears. The heavy steel crushed the weapon into twisted shrapnel, but the sudden mechanical obstruction jammed the massive pistons with a deafening screech of grinding metal.
With a surge of primal adrenaline, Gabriel jammed his boots against the doorframe and heaved with all his might, forcing the heavy steel slab wide enough for him to slip through into the freezing, dimly lit interior of the inner sanctum.
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Inside, Arthur Vance stood waiting by a massive mahogany desk, holding the open ledger in one hand and a heavy-caliber revolver in the other, his pale eyes gleaming with dark, absolute triumph.
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