Part 35
My heart raced as the darkness seemed to close in around us, making every breath feel heavy.
We stood perfectly still in the office, the only light coming from the faint moonlight filtering through a high skylight.
The scraping sound stopped, replaced by the slow, deliberate sound of footsteps walking down the main aisle.
"I know you're in here," a voice called out, echoing through the vast space of the warehouse.
The voice was calm, cultured, and terrifyingly familiar—it was Julian, my husband's former business partner.
The man who had given the eulogy at his funeral, the man who had promised to protect us after he passed.
"You've run a long way, Sarah," Julian continued, his voice getting closer with every word.
"But you can't run from the family business. Your husband understood that, even at the very end."
Derek gripped my arm, his hand warm and steady despite the freezing terror gripping my chest.
He leaned close to my ear, his breath warm against my skin. "We need to move. There's a back exit through the boiler room."
I nodded in the dark, stuffing the ledger and the USB drive into my backpack with silent, frantic movements.
May you like
We slipped out of the office through a small side door, moving into the shadows of the secondary storage rows.
Behind us, we heard the door to the private office being violently kicked open, followed by a curse from Julian.
