Chapter 4
Marcus caught me before I reached the lobby.
"Grace, stop!"
I fought his grip.
"Daniel is upstairs!"
"And Blake wants you inside."
"I know."
"That means walking in is exactly what he expects."
A fire engine screamed around the corner.
Then another.
Agents pushed through the shattered lobby doors.
The building's alarm remained silent.
Blake had disabled it.
Smoke rolled across the ceiling above the reception desk.
A firefighter approached us.
"Fire is concentrated on the forty-first floor. Elevators are locked. Stairwell B is blocked."
"Forty-second floor," I said. "There is a hostage."
His expression tightened.
"We are going up."
"So am I."
"No."
I looked at Marcus.
"Blake will not speak to anyone else."
"That does not make you fireproof."
My mother grabbed my shoulders.
"Please, Grace."
I saw terror in her eyes.
She had already lost my father.
She believed she might lose Daniel.
Now I was asking her to risk losing me too.
"I have to go," I whispered.
"No. You do not have to keep saving everyone."
"Mom—"
"You have done enough."
A firefighter handed Marcus a breathing mask.
"They found a service elevator on backup power."
Marcus made a decision.
He pointed at me.
"You stay behind me. You follow every command. If I tell you to leave, you leave."
My mother shook her head.
I hugged her.
She held me so tightly I could barely breathe.
"Bring him back," she whispered.
"I will."
Marcus, two agents, three firefighters, and I entered the service elevator.
My wedding dress was blackened at the hem.
I tore away the long train with both hands.
White silk ripped across the floor.
No one spoke as the numbers climbed.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Thirty-eight.
The elevator stopped at forty.
The doors opened into darkness.
Heat struck us instantly.
Smoke drifted through the hallway.
Sprinklers had failed.
Emergency lights flashed red.
We moved toward the stairwell.
The forty-first floor was an open executive records department.
Fire consumed rows of locked cabinets.
The flames were too organized.
Separate sections burned at the same intensity.
"This was set deliberately," one firefighter said.
Marcus nodded.
"Find the hostages. We preserve what we can later."
A blast of heat rolled across the floor.
We climbed to forty-two.
The door was chained from the other side.
A firefighter cut it.
The metal fell away.
The executive floor looked untouched.
No smoke.
No flames.
Only darkness and the soft glow of the city through floor-to-ceiling windows.
My phone rang.
Blake.
I answered.
"We are here."
"We?"
He sounded amused.
"You never follow instructions."
"Where is Daniel?"
"The boardroom."
We moved down the hall.
Marcus signaled for agents to split up.
The firefighters stayed near the stairwell.
The boardroom door stood open.
Daniel sat in a chair at the far end.
His wrists were tied.
His mouth was covered.
A thin cable ran from the chair to a small metal box beneath the table.
Marcus held me back.
"Do not move."
Daniel shook his head violently.
His eyes were fixed on me.
I saw bruising along his temple.
But he was alive.
"Daniel, we are getting you out."
He made a frantic sound through the tape.
Marcus examined the cable.
"Possible trigger."
A bomb technician was still several floors below.
We could not touch the chair.
My phone rang again.
I answered.
"Untie him."
Blake laughed.
"You always were impatient."
"Your father has been arrested. Your company is finished. There is nowhere for you to go."
"I am not going anywhere."
A light turned on inside the private office behind us.
Blake stood beside the window.
He held a pistol at his side.
Marcus raised his weapon.
"Drop it!"
Blake pressed the gun beneath his own chin.
Everyone froze.
"If I release this pressure switch," Blake said, lifting his other hand, "the device under Daniel's chair activates."
Marcus narrowed his eyes.
"Show me the switch."
Blake opened his left hand slightly.
A small black trigger rested beneath his thumb.
Daniel began to shake.
I stepped forward.
Marcus blocked me.
Blake smiled.
"Hello, wife."
"We are not married."
"That wounded me more than the federal investigation."
"What do you want?"
"The stock certificate."
"My mother has it."
"She brought it to the building."
I stared at him.
He knew.
He had eyes outside.
Or someone inside the investigation was feeding him information.
"Let Daniel go."
"Bring me the certificate."
"It is only paper. The ownership transfer is already recorded."
"Not if the original agreement is proven fraudulent."
"How?"
Blake's gaze moved toward Daniel.
My brother closed his eyes.
"He will testify that Elena forced him to forge Thomas Bennett's signature."
I looked at Daniel.
He shook his head.
"You kidnapped him to create a witness?"
"I rescued him from a gambling debt."
"He does not gamble."
Daniel stopped shaking.
That tiny reaction told me something.
I looked at him again.
"Daniel?"
His eyes filled with shame.
Blake saw it.
"He did not tell you."
My stomach tightened.
"Tell me what?"
"Your perfect little brother lost eighty thousand dollars at the Belmont Club. Then he stole from your mother's company to cover it."
Daniel made a broken sound.
Blake continued.
"I found out. I offered him a way to repay the money."
"You forced him to forge documents."
"I gave him employment."
"You used him."
"I use everyone, Grace. The difference is that most people are honest about wanting something in return."
Daniel lowered his head.
I wanted to be angry with him.
But he sat tied to a chair above a burning floor because Blake had identified his weakness and turned it into a weapon.
That was what the Harringtons did.
They found shame.
Then they built cages around it.
"Daniel made a mistake," I said.
Blake's smile disappeared.
"A mistake worth eighty thousand dollars."
"That does not make him yours."
"No. Fear made him mine."
Marcus spoke calmly.
"Blake, place the trigger on the floor and step away."
"You arrested the wrong Harrington."
"You are not helping yourself."
"I am not trying to help myself. I am trying to save what belongs to me."
"The company belongs to Elena Cruz."
Blake's eyes flashed.
"My grandfather built that company."
"Your father stole the money that kept it alive."
"My father was weak."
The words came without hesitation.
No loyalty.
No affection.
William had been arrested less than an hour earlier, and Blake had already abandoned him.
"What about Patricia?" I asked.
His jaw tightened.
There it was.
His mother mattered.
"She will be protected."
"By you?"
"By the records that are currently burning."
Marcus glanced toward the hallway.
Firefighters were fighting to contain the flames below us.
Blake's plan was bigger than destroying evidence.
He intended to make himself useful to investigators.
He would sacrifice William.
Then offer selected information.
Then emerge as the new head of whatever remained.
But he needed my mother's shares erased.
I looked at the cable beneath Daniel's chair.
Then at the trigger in Blake's hand.
The device was too visible.
Blake liked control.
He liked fear.
But he disliked risk.
I remembered the rehearsal dinner.
He had refused to light a cigar because he hated being near open flames.
He would not stand on balconies.
He never drove faster than the speed limit.
He was not brave.
He was performing bravery because he believed we could not test him.
I stepped around Marcus.
"Grace."
I ignored him.
Blake raised the gun.
"Stop."
I kept walking.
His thumb pressed harder against the trigger.
"You think I will not do it?"
"I think you never intended to."
"Try me."
"The cable runs into a conference speaker."
His expression shifted.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
I continued walking.
"The metal box is probably empty."
Daniel looked beneath the table.
Then back at me.
Blake lifted the gun toward my chest.
"One more step."
I took one more.
Marcus shouted my name.
Blake's thumb lifted.
Nothing happened.
Silence.
Daniel stared at the box.
Blake stared at the trigger.
I crossed the remaining distance and slapped the gun away from my body.
Marcus tackled him.
The weapon skidded across the floor.
Agents pinned Blake against the window.
I ran to Daniel.
The cable was connected to a portable speaker.
No explosives.
I tore the tape from his mouth.
He gasped.
"I am sorry."
I cut the rope with a knife Marcus handed me.
Daniel collapsed into my arms.
"I am so sorry, Grace."
"We will deal with everything later."
"They made me sign things."
"Who?"
"Blake. Patricia. A lawyer named Roth."
A terrible cracking sound came from below.
The floor trembled.
A firefighter rushed into the room.
"The fire breached the west support area. Everyone out now!"
Agents dragged Blake toward the stairwell.
He twisted around.
"You have no idea what your mother did!"
Daniel clung to me.
Smoke poured into the hall.
We moved toward the stairs.
Then Blake stopped fighting.
He started laughing.
Marcus shoved him forward.
"What is funny?"
Blake looked directly at me.
"The certificate was never in Elena's purse."
I froze.
"Keep moving," Marcus ordered.
Blake smiled through the smoke.
"Ask her what she was really carrying."
The lights went out.
For several seconds, the forty-second floor disappeared into total darkness.
Someone slammed into me.
Daniel's hand slipped from mine.
A gunshot exploded.
Glass shattered.
When the emergency lights returned, Blake was gone.
A broken window opened onto the night.
A maintenance cable swung outside.
Marcus rushed to the edge.
Far below, a dark figure descended toward the adjoining parking structure.
Blake had planned another escape.
But that was not what terrified me most.
Daniel gripped my arm.
"Grace, he was telling the truth."
"About what?"
"The certificate."
"What do you mean?"
He looked sick.
"Mom gave it to me three weeks ago."
My heart stopped.
"Where is it?"
May you like
Daniel swallowed.
"I gave it to Patricia."
