A damp, cold draft rushed up from below.

We descended the concrete steps into the darkness.

At the bottom, Marcus flipped a switch.

Fluorescent lights flickered to life, humming loudly.

The basement was vast, filled with racks of blinking black server towers.

A loud hum filled the room, vibrating through the concrete floor.

“Marcus, get the accelerant,” Charles said.

Marcus walked over to a metal cabinet and pulled out two red plastic canisters of industrial solvent.

He unscrewed the caps.

The pungent smell of fuel immediately began to overpower the ozone.

“This is madness, Charles,” I said, my voice trembling.

“You can’t cover this up.”

“The whole town knows what you did.”

Charles turned to me, his face twisted in rage.

“The town knows nothing,” he said.

“They know what I tell them to know.”

“Without the data on these servers, there is no case.”

“There are no transaction records.”

“There are no bribes.”

“There is only the word of an ungrateful daughter-in-law and a washed-up gardener.”

He splashed gasoline over the first rack of servers.

The fuel dripped down the blinking blue and green lights.