Chapter 6 - BURIED ALIVE
At 3:00 AM, the wind suddenly stopped. The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating. Elena walked to the front door and pushed. It didn't budge. She pushed harder, throwing her shoulder against the wood. Nothing.
"What's wrong?" Elias asked, stepping up behind her.
"We're buried," Elena whispered. She shined the flashlight out the window. There was no outside. The snow had drifted so high it completely covered the diner, sealing them inside an icy tomb.
Panic threatened to rise again, but this time, the billionaires looked to Elena for instructions. "The vents," she realized, her blood running cold. "If the snow covers the exhaust vents, the air will run out. We’ll suffocate."
"What do we do?" Julian Croft asked, his previous arrogance entirely gone.
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"We dig," Elena commanded. "With whatever we have. Plates, spatulas, baking trays. We have to break through the kitchen window and tunnel up to the roof vent."
In a surreal scene, the world's most powerful men took off their Rolexes and ruined their manicured hands, using pie tins and spatulas to dig through packed ice alongside a waitress. They formed a bucket brigade, passing clumps of freezing snow back into the diner. It was grueling, agonizing work. Muscles tore, hands bled, but nobody stopped. They were fighting for their lives.
