Part 7: The Locked Time
The red digital display of the timer blinked mercilessly: 04:59... 04:58... 04:57...
Four minutes and fifty-nine seconds. That was all we had left before the entire basement structure of The Golden Lion collapsed under a mountain of concrete and bricks.
Victor stared at the red light on the wall, his hand holding the gun trembling slightly. The powerful villain who thought he had pulled the strings for thirteen years was reduced in a single blow to a pawn sacrificed by his own mother.
"She... she would never do this," stammered Victor, taking a step back away from Luuk. "I'm her son! I did everything she asked!"
"She cares about no one, Victor!" I screamed, using his confusion to take a step closer to Luuk. "She doesn't care about you, she didn't care about Julian, and she doesn't care about Luuk! The only thing that matters to her is the Vance name and the money!"
Luuk looked at me, tears streaming down his dirty cheeks. "Who are you?" he whispered. "Grandma always said my mother was dead... that she didn't want me."
My heart broke into a thousand pieces. The physical threat of the bomb was nothing compared to the devastating pain of those words.
"They lied to you, Luuk," I said as tears streamed down my own cheeks. "I am your mother. For thirteen years, I thought I'd lost you. I never stopped loving you, even when I didn't know you existed."
Luuk stared at me. There was such immense maturity in his gaze—the kind of maturity only developed by children raised in the shadow of secrets.
"Shut your mouth!" shouted Victor, aiming his gun at me again. "It doesn't matter anymore who is who! We're all going to die! Unless..."
He looked at the plastic bag in my hand.
"The documents," Victor said feverishly. "If I enter the birth certificate and the PIN of the digital Vance register into my satellite phone, the funds will be transferred directly to me personally. Not to my mother! Then she'll have nothing left! Hand them over!"
"And then?" I asked rigidly. "Then you run away and leave us here to blow up?"
"Once the funds are transferred," Victor said quickly, pointing to the timer, "an automatic signal goes to the security system. The basement door lock springs open! It's a built-in safety feature of the building! It's the only way we're getting out of here alive."
I looked at the display. 03:12... 03:11...
I knew he could be lying. But I also knew the heavy oak door at the top of the stairs was hermetically sealed. Without the override, there was no way we were getting out.
"First untie him," I said rigidly, pointing to Luuk.
Victor hesitated, but panic overtook him. He pulled out a pocket knife and slashed the ropes around Luuk's wrists and ankles in one swift motion. Luuk almost fell out of the chair, but I ran over and caught him.
For the first time in thirteen years, I held my son. His small body shook violently, his arms automatically wrapping around my neck. The feeling of his breath against my neck made everything I had been through worth it in a single second.
"I'll never leave you alone again," I whispered in his hair. "I promise."
"The papers! Now!" shouted Victor.
I pulled out the plastic bag and drew out the original birth certificate. At the bottom was a unique twenty-four-digit cryptographic code Julian Vance had registered thirteen years ago.
Victor snatched the certificate from my hands and began entering the code like a madman into a rugged military smartphone.
01:45... 01:44...
The basement began to shake. Dust and small pebbles fell from the arched ceiling above. Heavy, dull thuds sounded above us—the walls of the superstructure were already beginning to collapse.
"Come on... come on..." muttered Victor, his thumb flying across the screen.
00:59... 00:58...
The screen of Victor's phone lit up green. A loud, mechanical click echoed through the hallway. At the top of the stairs, the sound of heavy steel pins retracting from the doorframe rang out.
"It worked!" shouted Victor. He dropped the phone, didn't look back at us, and ran up the stairs toward the door like a possessed man.
"Luuk, run!" I screamed, grabbing his hand.
We bolted after Victor up the stairs. Victor pushed the door open. Daylight—or rather, the flickering light of the burning upper floor—greeted us.
But the moment Victor stepped across the threshold, a dry crack rang out.
Victor stiffened. He stared with wide eyes at his chest, where a red spot was rapidly expanding. He fell backward onto the stone steps like a brick, right in front of our feet.
At the top of the stairs, in the doorway opening, stood Helena Vance. In her hand, she held a small, silver pistol with a silencer. Smoke still curled from the barrel.
She looked ice-cold down at her own son's body.
"A Vance shares his inheritance with no one," she said softly.
Then she aimed the barrel of the gun straight at my forehead.
00:12... 00:11...
The timer behind us beeped at a frantic frequency. The entire building shook on its foundations.
"Give me the phone, Emma," said Helena. "And die like a good mother."
