Chapter 8 - The Final TwistThomas immediately sprinted toward the hearth. “The damper! Is the flue damper open?!”
He thrust his arm up into the dark brick throat of the fireplace, feeling for the iron lever. “It’s closed! It’s rusted shut!”
“Use the poker!” Richard screamed, rushing to Thomas’s side, forgetting every ounce of his aristocratic pride as he grabbed a heavy iron fire poker from the stand.
Together, the billionaire and his vengeful assistant slammed the iron rod upward into the chimney mechanism. With a violent screech of tearing metal, the heavy iron flap gave way.
A massive rush of cool night air roared down the chimney, instantly altering the air pressure inside the sealed room. The draft began drawing the invisible, warm air toward the hearth and pulling it up toward the sky.
“It’s working!” Maya yelled, waving her hands to direct the panicking guests toward the fresh air drafting down the chimney base. “Get near the hearth! Stay low!”
Outside, the sharp wail of police sirens suddenly broke through the night. Dozens of red and blue lights began flashing through the tiny cracks in the iron window shutters.
“Vance!” Thomas shouted up toward the speaker. “The police are here! Your broadcast was traced!”
The intercom remained silent for a long moment. Then, Vance’s voice returned, but the dry, triumphant composure was gone.
“It doesn't matter,” Vance muttered, sound of tires screeching on gravel echoing through his microphone. “Richard Caldwell’s legacy is dead. The entire world knows what he is. You can survive the night, Richard... but you will spend the rest of your life in a federal cell!”
The intercom went dead with a loud burst of static.
Ten minutes later, the heavy iron shutters were manually cut open by emergency rescue teams using hydraulic saws. Blinding white floodlights poured into the smoke-filled room as armed officers and hazmat teams flooded the banquet hall.
The guests were rushed out onto the lawn, wrapped in thermal blankets, medical teams frantically checking their vitals.
Maya sat on the back of an ambulance, a oxygen mask resting over her face. She watched as police officers placed silver handcuffs around the wrists of Richard Caldwell, taking him into custody on federal fraud and evidence tampering charges stemming from Thomas’s leak.
Thomas Reed stood nearby, voluntarily putting his hands behind his back as a detective approached him. He looked over at Maya and gave her a small, respectful nod. He was going to prison for hostage-taking, but his father’s name had finally been cleared.
Victoria Caldwell sat in a separate police cruiser, weeping hysterically as investigators bagged her emerald ring as evidence in an attempted assassination conspiracy.
Maya took a deep breath of the cold, clean night air. Her hands had finally stopped shaking. She pulled her black phone from her pocket. The video that started it all was still on the screen.
Then, her phone vibrated.
An unknown number appeared on the display.
Maya hesitated, then pressed answer and brought the phone to her ear.
“You have a remarkable survival instinct, Maya,” a calm, familiar voice whispered through the speaker.
Maya’s blood turned to liquid ice. “Dr. Vance?”
“Vance is currently being arrested at the main gate,” the voice said smoothly.
Maya froze. The voice on the phone... wasn't Vance’s dry, clinical tone.
It was a voice she had heard earlier that night. Soft. Polite. Unassuming.
“Sarah?” Maya whispered, looking around the chaotic driveway filled with flashing police lights.
“Dr. Vance was a useful idiot,” Sarah’s voice purred in her ear. “He thought he was executing his revenge. He had no idea I was working for someone else entirely.”
“Who?” Maya demanded, her grip tightening on the phone until her knuckles turned white. “Who are you working for?!”
Across the crowded driveway, sitting inside a dark, unmarked black sedan parked just outside the police perimeter, a window slowly rolled down an inch.
Through the tinted glass, Maya caught a glimpse of a woman’s hand resting on the door frame.
On her index finger gleamed a massive, unmistakable spark of light—a flawless, blood-red ruby ring.
“The Caldwell empire didn't belong to Richard, Maya,” Sarah whispered softly into the phone before hanging up. “It belonged to his first wife. The one he thought died twenty years ago. Tell Richard... she says hello.”
May you like
The line went dead.
The black sedan shifted into gear, its taillights vanishing quietly into the dark, rainy night, leaving Maya standing alone in the flash of sirens, holding the key to a truth that was only just beginning.
