Chapter 17 - Dead Man's HandThe interior of the Jeep Cherokee smelled of copper and adrenaline. We were tearing down a desolate stretch of backroad, running completely dark without headlights. David drove with night-vision goggles strapped to his face, navigating by the light of the stars.
Taylor was zip-tied to the back seat, her perfect corporate demeanor entirely shattered. She looked small, defeated, and terrified.
"So, what's the play?" David asked, his voice tight with pain as he navigated a sharp turn. "We can't outrun Evelyn's network forever. She's got judges and state troopers on her payroll."
"We don't outrun her," I said, pulling my burner phone from my pocket. "We break her."
I looked back at Taylor. "That dead man's switch I told you about? It wasn't a bluff."
Taylor’s eyes widened. "But you said..."
"I said the USB drive I had in the tunnel was a decoy," I corrected her. "The switch itself is very real. David set it up before we ever left Amarillo."
David let out a dark chuckle from the driver's seat. "Cloud-based, heavily encrypted. I linked it to the servers of three major news networks, the FBI field office in Dallas, and the SEC. Every fake shell company, every bribe Evelyn ever paid, and the medical records detailing Arthur's surgeries."
"When does it go off?" Taylor whispered, realizing the absolute finality of her situation.
"It requires a biometric thumbprint from my phone every twelve hours," I said, looking at the countdown timer on the screen. It read: 00:15:32. "Fifteen minutes. And I'm not going to press it."
"She'll kill you," Taylor pleaded, straining against the zip-ties. "She will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"
"She won't have the money to pay for the gas," I replied coldly. "Once this data drops, her accounts will be frozen by the federal government within the hour. The Vance empire dies tonight."
David suddenly slammed on the brakes. The Jeep skidded to a halt in the middle of the desert road, dust billowing around us.
He ripped off the night-vision goggles and stared at the dashboard. A small red light was flashing frantically on his radio scanner.
"Mark," David said, his voice dropping an octave. "I tapped into Evelyn's private security frequency. They aren't looking for us in the canyon anymore."
My blood ran cold. "Where are they going?"
David looked at me, his eyes wide with a terror I had never seen in my brother before.
"They pinged the GPS on Taylor's smartwatch," David said. "Evelyn knows we left the canyon. And she just cross-referenced our trajectory with the nearest 24-hour locations."
I grabbed Taylor’s wrist, ripping the expensive smartwatch off her arm and tossing it out the window. But it was too late.
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"The Starlite Diner," I whispered, panic seizing my chest in an iron grip. "Lily."
"Hold on," David roared, slamming the Jeep into gear and flooring the accelerator.
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