"Do You Want Me to Stop Working?": When a Feared Paralyzed Underworld King Terrified Everyone in His Estate, a Desperate Night Maid Triggered Total Destruction

Agent Vance paused, turning back with a raised eyebrow. "Got something to confess, Danny? Decided saving yourself twenty years in a federal penitentiary is better than playing tough guy?"

"You want my hard drives?" I asked, my tone dropping into a cool, transactional register. "You want the financial architecture of the entire Midwest operation served to you on a silver platter without a four-year court battle?"

Vance’s eyes gleamed with hungry ambition. "Where are they?"

"In my private study safe," I said steadily. "The biometric lock requires my thumbprint and a six-digit voice override. My guards won't let your men up there without a firefight, and you know as well as I do that blowing the door will trigger the internal self-destruct circuit, wiping the solid-state drives clean."

Agent Vance glared at me, weighing the risk. Finally, he nodded to his men. "All right. Two of you stay with him. The rest of you, secure the perimeter. Vance and I are going to the study."

The two tactical officers hauled me roughly out of my wheelchair, transferring me into a standard transport chair, and wheeled me toward the grand elevator. As we ascended to the third floor, my heart hammered against my ribs.

I wasn't worried about the hard drives—those were already configured with a dead-man’s switch that routed everything to an offshore proxy if disconnected improperly.

I was worried about Emma.

If she was still hiding in the medical wing or trying to escape through the service stairs, the FBI sweep team would intercept her within seconds. And if Agent Vance realized an unauthorized civilian was wandering around a federal crime scene during an active raid, her life would be inextricably tangled in my war.

We stepped out onto the third-floor landing. The heavy oak doors of my private study were wide open, agents already rifling through my desk, tossing confidential papers onto the floor.

"Open the safe, Danny," Vance ordered, stepping close with his sidearm drawn.

I rolled my chair up to the mahogany bookcase concealing the wall safe. I pressed my thumb against the biometric scanner and spoke the override code in a clear, measured tone.

Click.

The heavy steel door swung open, revealing the dark interior cavity.

Instead of reaching for the hard drives, my hand slipped slightly behind the shelf, my fingers brushing against a secondary emergency panic button—the one connected to the estate’s auxiliary power grid and the underground drainage tunnel security gates.

If I cut the power, the entire building plunges into total blackout for exactly ninety seconds before the backup generators kick in.

It was a reckless, desperate gamble. But it was the only way to clear the hallways long enough for someone to slip out through the service stairs.

I caught the eye of the tactical officer standing closest to the master control panel by the window.