Pick up a mop and go clean the latrines, kid, this range isn't for street trash, the range master sneered, shoving fifteen-year-old Malik Holloway away from the custom training rifle.
The text from Grizz came through late that night, a single, urgent message: “AEGIS ON LOCKDOWN. MARCUS MOVING HEAVY ASSETS. YOUR DAD’S SAFE. SUBTERRANEAN VAULT. ACT FAST.”
My blood ran cold. I immediately called Maya.
“He knows,” I said without preamble. “Grizz says Aegis is on lockdown. He’s emptying Dad’s old safe.”
Maya swore under her breath. “He must have realized we accessed the safety deposit box. He’s trying to clean house.”
“Grizz said ‘subterranean vault’,” I explained. “What is that?”
“Dad always had a private, reinforced vault beneath the main range floor at Aegis,” Maya replied, her voice strained. “He kept all his sensitive project files there, off-grid hardware. Marcus must have realized it wasn’t cleared out.”
I could picture it: the polished concrete floors of the main range, the heavy steel targets. Somewhere beneath it, a hidden chamber.
“Marcus has got heavy private security in place,” Grizz added when I called him directly. “Ex-mercenaries, all armed. They’re purging everything. He’s looking for something specific, Malik. Something that can incriminate him beyond a shadow of a doubt.”
“What could it be?” I asked.
“Aaron’s encrypted hard drive,” Grizz answered immediately. “He kept a secure, standalone drive with all his contingency plans, his private audit logs. If Marcus gets his hands on that, he’ll destroy it. It’s the last piece of the puzzle.”
The image of Darius in the alley, his eyes wide with fear when Grizz mentioned “Aaron’s protocols,” came back to me. Dad had planned for this. He’d known Marcus would come after his legacy.
“We have to get it,” I said, a fierce determination replacing my fear.
“It’s not going to be easy,” Grizz warned. “The place is crawling. Motion sensors, pressure plates, camera feeds on a closed loop. And those mercs… they’re not playing games. Marcus isn’t paying them to be gentle.”
“I don’t care,” I stated, my resolve hardening. “Dad left that for us. For you. He trusted us.”
Grizz was silent for a moment. “Okay, Malik. Meet me in thirty minutes. Behind the old warehouse, two blocks east of Aegis Tactical. Don’t bring anything that can be traced. Just you.”
I hung up, my hands clammy but my mind focused. The full scale of Marcus’s desperation was becoming clear. He wasn’t just trying to steal; he was trying to erase Dad completely. And he was willing to use armed mercenaries to do it.
The encrypted hard drive. That was the key. Whatever was on it, it had to be the final nail in Marcus’s coffin. We had to get it before it disappeared forever into the gray market.
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