Chapter 66 The Fractured Shield
Aria POV
The high-pitched screech of the alarm was bouncing off the white walls of our cell, and the red emergency lights were strobing so fast that it made my head spin while I watched the panic through the glass wall. Grayson had managed to get his fingers into the seam of the electronic door just as the power flickered, and he was straining so hard that the muscles in his back looked like they were going to tear through his shirt, but eventually the lock gave way with a loud pop and the heavy panel slid back just enough for us to squeeze through. We stumbled into the hallway which was a mess of papers and discarded medical supplies, and since the guards had all vanished toward the sound of gunfire coming from the lower levels, we ran toward a heavy set of double doors that was labeled as the main security hub.
"Get inside and lock it behind us, because I can't keep my feet under me for much longer and we need to see what’s happening outside this basement," Grayson gasped, and he slumped against a bank of server racks while I slammed the deadbolt home and turned toward the massive wall of monitors that was still glowing in the dark room.
I sat down at the main console and my hands were shaking so much I could barely type, but I forced myself to remember the administrative bypass codes I had learned during those long nights at Apex when the senior clerks were too lazy to do their own data entries. The system was fighting me at first and a series of red 'access denied' boxes popped up across the screens, but I managed to find a backdoor through the maintenance logs and suddenly the monitors flickered to life, showing a dozen different camera angles from across the city. I swiped through the feeds until I found the one for the Nightfang clubhouse, and the breath left my lungs when I saw the familiar gates of the estate being battered by a customized semi-truck while dozens of Iron Fang riders circled the perimeter like sharks in a feeding frenzy.
"Grayson, you need to see this, because they aren't just protesting or making a show of force this time, they’re actually trying to level the place," I said, and I pulled the feed up to the main screen so he could see the muzzle flashes coming from the upper windows of the clubhouse where his men were trying to hold the line.
"They’re using the Syndicate’s tactical frequency to jam our communications, which is why the pack didn't call me when the first wave hit," Grayson muttered, and he leaned heavily on the back of my chair while he pointed at a second monitor that was showing the glass-fronted lobby of Hart Industries.
The corporate tower was crawling with men in grey paramilitary gear who were systematically rounding up the employees and forcing them into the elevators, and it didn't look like a standard police action or a legal seizure of assets. It was a hostile takeover in the most literal sense, and I could see my former coworkers being shoved onto the floor while the gunmen started spray-painting over the security cameras to hide what was happening in the executive suites. The scale of the attack was too perfect to be an accident, and the coordination between the bikers at the clubhouse and the soldiers at the tower made it clear that we were witnessing a total erasure of the Harts' presence in the city.
"This is exactly what the Silverfangs do, because they wait until you're distracted by a minor threat like the Iron Fangs and then they hit every single pillar of your life at the same time to ensure you can't recover," Grayson explained, and he winced as he touched the scar on his chest which was starting to throb with a dull, bruised light again. "They knew I was being held here, and they knew the pack would be split thin trying to decide whether to protect the business or the home, so they’ve essentially turned the city into a kill box for anyone carrying my name."
"I can get us into the garage system from here, and if I can trick the elevator into thinking we’re a maintenance crew, we might be able to get out of this building before the Silverfangs realize the cell is empty," I told him, and I started typing a series of commands that bypassed the facility's lockdown protocols.
"How do you even know how to do that? I thought you were just filing shipping manifests and checking bakery invoices," Grayson asked, and he sounded genuinely surprised even though he was currently bleeding and struggling to breathe.
"I was bored and the senior managers always left their terminals logged in when they went out for three-hour lunches, so I spent a lot of time poking around the network just to see how things worked," I replied, and I felt a small surge of satisfaction as the screen turned green and showed that the garage doors were now in 'manual override' mode. "I'm not just a baker, Grayson, and if we're going to survive this night, you need to start realizing that I've been learning how your world operates from the shadows for a long time."
I stood up and grabbed a heavy security jacket from a hook on the wall to cover my zip-tied wrists, and I helped Grayson toward the door while the sounds of the battle downstairs grew louder and more frantic. We stepped back into the hallway and moved toward the service elevator, and as the doors opened, I caught a glimpse of a monitor I had missed before, which showed a grainy image of a white van pulling away from the hospital where Nana had been staying.
"Wait, Grayson, look at the timestamp on that camera by the hospital loading dock," I whispered, and I felt a cold chill run down my spine as I realized the van was headed in the opposite direction of both the clubhouse and the tower.
"They're taking her to the old refinery in the valley, because that’s the only place left in this city that isn't under Syndicate or Nightfang surveillance," he said, and he gripped my hand as the elevator started to descend toward the garage where the final part of our nightmare was waiting for us.
The elevator bell dinged as we reached the bottom floor, and the doors slid open to reveal a garage filled with smoke and the smell of leaked gasoline, but before we could move, a dark figure stepped out from behind a concrete pillar and leveled a shotgun directly at my chest.