My mom texted, “We used your Amazon account to furnish your sister’s new apartment / Chapter 37 / 55

Chapter 37 - The Frozen Pass

The service tunnel was an endless ribcage of concrete arches and rusted conduit pipes, slicing straight through the bedrock between France and the Canton of Geneva. Water dripped from overhead stalactites, icy and sharp against our faces as we pushed forward through the damp gloom.

Every sound was amplified tenfold: the slap of our boots against wet gravel, the ragged rhythm of our breathing, and the distant, muffled echoes of boots pursuing us along the tracks behind.

"They're clearing the catwalk," Henrik warned, checking his thermal scanner. "Four heat signatures. Moving fast. They have dogs."

A low, haunting bay reverberated against the tunnel walls, sending an icy shiver down my spine.

"Briana, keep your pace," I urged, grabbing her cold hand.

"I'm not slowing down, Sylvia," she said through chattering teeth. Her face was smudged with soot and grease, but her eyes held a fierce determination I had never seen back when she was demanding designer furniture on my credit card. "I helped put you in this nightmare when I took Arthur’s money and Mom’s side. I am getting you out of it."

Two hundred yards ahead, a shaft of pure moonlight cut through the darkness like a silver pillar. It poured down from a massive industrial ventilation chimney carved into the mountainside. An iron ladder ascended into the vertical shaft, its rungs frosted with condensation.

"Up," Henrik commanded. "I’ll set a sensor delay at the base."

Briana scrambled up the ladder first. I followed immediately, my boots slipping on the slick metal rungs. Below us, Henrik planted two magnetic disruption charges along the steel tunnel door, then scrambled up behind me with mechanical efficiency.

Fifty feet up, the roar of the tunnel gave way to the howling rush of an Alpine blizzard. We hauled ourselves over the concrete lip of the vent and collapsed onto a snowbank.

The view took my breath away. Beneath us, glittering like an ocean of diamonds against the dark silhouette of the Alps, lay the valley of Geneva. Lake Geneva curved gracefully in the distance, bathed in moonlight and city lights, a peaceful fortress of sovereign wealth and ancient law.

Behind us, a dull *thud* shook the mountain as Henrik’s charges detonated, collapsing the iron ventilation hatch beneath tons of rock and snow, cutting off the hunters entirely.

Henrik wiped snow from his visor and checked his GPS. "We have two miles downhill to the secondary road. Our transport is waiting at the village of Hermance. You still have the key, Sylvia?"