Chapter 13 - Twenty-Seven Floors

I entered the tower wearing a vest and a wire.

Ortiz hated the plan.

Grant refused to speak to anyone else.

Federal negotiators positioned teams on lower floors.

The stairwell smelled of concrete dust.

Every step upward felt like walking into a memory.

At the twenty-seventh floor, wind tore through unfinished walls.

Luis sat near the edge.

Grant stood behind him.

“You came.”

“Let him go.”

Grant laughed.

“You really think this is about him?”

He wanted the original nursery videos.

He believed Claire had hidden copies.

I told him prosecutors already had everything.

“Then why are they offering Preston a deal?”

“Because Preston is talking.”

Grant’s face tightened.

Good.

I kept going.

“Vanessa is talking.”

His jaw moved.

“Morris is talking.”

“Shut up.”

“Your mother planned for you to lose.”

Grant raised the gun.

Luis flinched.

I stopped.

Grant said Evelyn had hated him.

I said Evelyn had feared him.

He shouted that she gave everything to a baby who was not even his son.

There it was.

The humiliation beneath the greed.

Noah represented Grant’s loss of control.

He hated the child because Evelyn chose to protect Noah instead of reward him.

“You threw him.”

Grant’s eyes flickered.

“The line was supposed to hold.”

“You put a baby outside a fifth-floor window.”

“It was supposed to look real.”

“It was real to Noah.”

He screamed at me.

“You ruined everything when you caught him.”

My wire carried every word.

Ortiz had the confession.

But Luis was still in danger.

Grant pushed the chair.

I lunged.

The chair tipped.

Luis screamed.

I caught the backrest.

My injured shoulder exploded with pain.

For one second, half of Luis’s body hung over twenty-seven floors of open air.

Grant ran.

Officers stormed the floor.

I dragged Luis back.

Grant disappeared into the stairwell.

A shot echoed below.

Then another.

Silence.

Ortiz found Grant on the twenty-fourth floor.

He had been shot.

Not by police.

By Preston Vale.

Preston had escaped federal transport during a staged medical stop.

He had come to kill Grant before Grant could expose him further.

Preston fled.

Grant survived long enough to speak.

He looked at Ortiz.

“Vale planned the window.”

Then he looked at me.

“But I let him.”

His eyes closed.

He died before reaching surgery.

The man who built the lie was dead.

The man who designed it was still running.

And Preston had one person left he needed to silence.

May you like

My Wife Accused the Maid of Attacking Our Baby—Then My Daughter’s Silver...

The Whitmore mansion fell silent when baby Noah suddenly began choking in the nursery.Before anyone understood what was happening,...

The Police Handcuffed My Sons’ Maid for Theft—Then the Security Footage...

When Daniel Crawford came home at 9:47 that night, the iron gates of his estate were wide open.Police lights washed the long grave...

My Future Mother-in-Law Destroyed My Dead Mother’s Wedding Dress—Then On...

PART 2: https://metro.treeiq.biz/blog/my-future-mother-in-law-destroyed-my-dead-mother-s-wedding-dress-then-one-whisper-at-the-alt...

Vanessa.