Chapter 4: The Fire Behind the Locked Door
Hunter rose with Leo in her arms.
“Lorenzo.”
“I know.”
He pulled his gun and tried the nursery door.
Locked.
Marco threw his shoulder against it.
The door did not move.
The nursery had been built as a safe room, reinforced to protect Leo from attackers.
Now it had become a trap.
Smoke thickened near the ceiling.
Leo began to cough.
Lorenzo fired twice into the lock, but the bullets flattened against the reinforced mechanism.
“Stand back,” Marco ordered.
He shot the hinges.
Nothing.
Hunter moved toward the windows.
“They don’t open,” Lorenzo said.
She looked down.
Three stories below, winter waves crashed against the cliffs.
“There must be an emergency release.”
“In the security panel.”
The panel was dead.
Marco pulled out his phone.
“No signal. Whoever cut the power activated the jammer.”
Leo coughed again.
Hunter wrapped part of her skirt loosely over his mouth and pressed him close.
Lorenzo tore a heavy curtain from the wall and shoved it beneath the door to slow the smoke.
“Ventilation shaft,” Hunter said.
“Too narrow.”
“For us.”
Her eyes dropped to Leo.
Lorenzo understood.
“No.”
“The shaft leads somewhere.”
“No.”
“He cannot breathe in here.”
“I am not putting my son inside a wall.”
Hunter’s voice broke.
“He will die if we wait.”
The word struck all three men silent.
Marco ripped the decorative cover from the ventilation grate. Behind it, a narrow metal shaft disappeared into darkness.
Hunter moved to the changing table and grabbed several receiving blankets.
“We wrap him tightly. Tie a cord around the blanket. Lower him slowly.”
“To where?” Lorenzo demanded.
“The laundry room is below this wing,” Hunter said. “I cleaned the vents yesterday. The main shaft drops behind the second-floor linen closet.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“You are certain?”
“No.”
The smoke reached chest level.
Leo’s cough weakened.
Hunter stepped closer to Lorenzo.
“You have to trust me.”
His face tightened with panic.
The most powerful man in the room looked suddenly helpless.
Hunter had seen that expression before.
In the hospital mirror, while holding Lily.
She placed Leo into his arms.
“Say something to him.”
Lorenzo looked down at his son.
“I will come for you,” he whispered.
Hunter shook her head.
“Not later. Tell him what he needs now.”
Lorenzo bent his forehead against Leo’s.
“You are not alone,” he said. “Do you hear me? Your father is here.”
Hunter wrapped Leo securely, leaving his face uncovered. Marco found a length of electrical cable inside the wall and fastened it around the blanket.
They slid the baby carefully into the shaft.
Lorenzo held the cable.
His hands shook.
“Slowly,” Hunter said.
The line descended.
Ten feet.
Fifteen.
Then it stopped.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened.
“He’s caught.”
Hunter dropped to the floor and reached into the shaft.
“Pull him back.”
“No,” Marco said. “The cable may snag around him.”
Leo began crying somewhere inside the wall.
The sound was faint but alive.
Hunter looked at the opening.
Then she began climbing into it.
Lorenzo grabbed her arm.
“You will not fit.”
“I’m smaller than you.”
“You could fall.”
“Then hold the cable.”
Hunter squeezed into the shaft.
Metal tore her sleeve and scraped her shoulder. She lowered herself inch by inch, bracing her knees against the narrow sides.
The smoke in the shaft burned her eyes.
Below, Leo cried.
“I’m coming,” she whispered.
Her foot found the edge where the shaft narrowed.
Leo’s blanket had caught on a protruding screw.
Hunter stretched downward.
Her fingers brushed fabric.
“Almost.”
Above her, Lorenzo held her wrist with one hand and the cable with the other.
“Hunter.”
“I have him.”
She freed the blanket.
The baby dropped six inches.
Hunter caught him against her chest.
The shaft wall shifted beneath her weight.
Metal groaned.
“Pull us up,” she called.
Lorenzo and Marco hauled on the cable.
Hunter rose slowly.
The shaft buckled.
For one terrible second, her body slipped.
Lorenzo lunged farther into the opening and caught the back of her uniform.
Marco grabbed Lorenzo around the waist.
Together, they pulled Hunter and Leo into the nursery.
By then, smoke filled half the room.
A violent impact shook the door.
Then another.
Men shouted outside.
On the third strike, the reinforced door burst inward.
Guards rushed in wearing masks.
Lorenzo seized Leo from Hunter and carried him into the hall.
Hunter tried to follow, but her knees collapsed.
Marco caught her before her head struck the floor.
When Hunter woke, she was in a guest bedroom with an oxygen mask over her face.
Lorenzo sat beside the bed.
Leo slept in his arms.
Hunter removed the mask.
“Is he all right?”
“The doctor says his lungs are clear.”
“A different doctor?”
“Yes.”
She almost smiled.
“What happened?”
“The smoke system was activated manually. The nursery power was cut from the security office.”
“Who was inside?”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Hunter looked at him.
“Marco?”
“He disappeared during the evacuation.”
She remembered Marco entering the nursery moments before the blackout.
Her heart sank.
“He betrayed you.”
“I don’t know yet.”
Lorenzo’s voice was calm, but his eyes were not.
“Marco was my best man at my wedding. He carried Sophia out of the hospital when I could not walk. He has protected me since I was seventeen.”
“Then maybe someone forced him.”
Lorenzo looked down at Leo.
“In my world, betrayal always has a reason. Money. Fear. Family. Ambition.”
“Or grief.”
His eyes lifted toward hers.
Hunter continued softly.
“Grief makes people do things that don’t make sense.”
A guard entered.
“Mr. Rossi, we found Bellini.”
“Where?”
“In the east garage.”
“Alive?”
“Yes. Barely.”
Lorenzo stood.
Marco had been beaten and locked inside the trunk of a car.
Someone had stolen his security badge and used it to enter the control room.
Before losing consciousness, Marco had seen the attacker’s face.
May you like
When Lorenzo reached the garage, Marco grabbed his sleeve and forced out two words.
“Your uncle.”
