Chapter 5 - Smoke Behind the Steel Door
Lucia coughed and dropped to her knees.
“Fire?”
“No,” Marco said. “Too fast.”
He pulled his jacket over his mouth and moved to the door.
Giovanni grabbed the metal box and shoved the flash drive, ledger, DNA envelope, key card, and photograph back inside.
Emilio tore off his coat and pressed it into Clarissa’s hands.
“Breathe through this.”
She stared at him.
“Do it!”
Vincent began pounding on the steel door. “Help!”
Giovanni grabbed him by the shoulder. “Stop making noise.”
“What?”
“If someone trapped us in here, they know exactly where we are.”
That shut him up.
Marco crouched by the bottom hinge. “This room has fire suppression.”
Lucia looked up through watering eyes. “Then why isn’t it working?”
“Because this isn’t smoke from a fire.”
Clarissa’s eyes widened. “Gas?”
Marco sniffed carefully through cloth. “I don’t smell chemical.”
Giovanni pointed toward a ceiling vent. “Can you reach it?”
Emilio dragged the heavy conference chair onto the table, climbed, and ripped the vent grille loose with both hands.
Above it was a maintenance shaft barely wide enough for a person.
“Lucia first,” Giovanni said.
Lucia objected. “Dad—”
“Now.”
Emilio hoisted her up.
She crawled into the shaft, scraping her palms on metal.
Clarissa went next.
Then Vincent.
Giovanni lifted the evidence box to Emilio.
“You take this.”
Emilio looked down at him. “What about you?”
“I’m not dying in a bank before your mother is buried.”
For the first time that morning, something like trust passed between father and son.
Emilio climbed.
Marco went after him.
Giovanni came last.
The shaft ran above three private rooms and opened into a utility corridor.
They dropped through another vent one by one.
Lucia landed first.
A man in a maintenance uniform was waiting with a gun.
She froze.
He raised it.
Before he could fire, Emilio dropped from the vent directly onto him.
They crashed into a rolling cart.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Clarissa kicked it away.
The man drove an elbow into Emilio’s ribs and reached for a knife.
Marco landed behind him and ended the fight with one brutal strike to the wrist and another to the jaw.
The attacker collapsed.
Emilio lay on his side, gasping.
Lucia stared at him.
“You jumped on a man with a gun.”
He winced. “You’re welcome.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Giovanni pulled the attacker’s wallet.
Fake identification.
No surprise.
But inside the uniform pocket was a hotel receipt from St. Maarten.
Emilio snatched it.
The room number matched the key card in Helena’s box.
Clarissa looked sick.
Giovanni said, “Your father sent him.”
“No.”
“You keep saying no to things that keep becoming yes.”
Clarissa looked at the unconscious attacker. “Rafael doesn’t use strangers for important work.”
Marco checked the man’s neck for a pulse. “Then who does?”
Clarissa turned toward Vincent.
The lawyer backed away.
“Don’t look at me.”
She whispered, “Blue Heron.”
Vincent’s face drained.
Emilio noticed.
“What is Blue Heron?”
Clarissa answered without taking her eyes off Vincent.
“Not a consulting company.”
Vincent shook his head. “Stop.”
“It’s a laundering channel.”
“Clarissa.”
“For people who want money to disappear without Rafael seeing it.”
Giovanni’s voice was flat. “Who controls it?”
Clarissa swallowed.
Before she could answer, Vincent bolted down the utility corridor.
Marco started after him.
A gunshot cracked from the stairwell.
Vincent spun and dropped face-first onto the tile.
Lucia screamed.
At the far end of the corridor stood a shooter in a black cap.
He fired again, then vanished through the emergency door.
Marco ran after him.
Giovanni knelt beside Vincent.
Blood spread beneath the lawyer’s shoulder.
Vincent’s eyes fluttered open.
He grabbed Giovanni’s sleeve.
“The foundation…”
“Who took the money?”
Vincent struggled to breathe.
Then he whispered the last name anyone expected.
“Emilio.”
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
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