Chapter 4 - The Escape from the Sky
The standoff in the study was suffocating. Outside, the blizzard howled against the reinforced glass windows, a symphony of white chaos. Inside, the only sound was the heavy breathing of desperate people.
"Put the gun down, Edward," Victoria said, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You won't shoot me. You don't have it in you. You're a businessman, not a killer."
"You don't know what I am anymore, Victoria," Edward said, his hand steady, his eyes locked onto hers. "You spent ten years pretending to love me while you built a throne out of my partner's grave. I have nothing left to lose."
"Actually, you do," Samantha smiled cruelly. She nodded to the second armed guard, who stepped forward and aimed his weapon at the heavy mahogany desk.
"You think we didn't see the wet footprints leading under the desk, Edward?" Samantha mocked. "Tell your little pet to come out, or my man dumps a magazine through that wood."
Edward’s heart stopped. He looked down. A small pool of water from Leo’s melting socks had seeped out from under the desk’s privacy panel.
"Don't," Edward breathed, his confidence instantly evaporating.
"Three..." Samantha began to count, her voice cold and hollow. "Two..."
"I'm here!"
Leo scrambled out from under the desk, his small body shaking, but his eyes fierce. He stood in front of Edward, throwing his arms out as if he could protect the giant man behind him. "Don't hurt him! I’ll go with you! Just don't hurt Mr. Edward!"
"Good boy," Samantha laughed, reaching out to grab Leo’s collar.
"No!" Edward lunged forward, but the first guard lunged as well, slamming the butt of his rifle into Edward’s temple.
The world went black for a second. Edward collapsed onto the carpet, his gun spinning out of his hand. He tasted copper. His vision blurred, he saw Victoria picking up his gun from the floor, her expression completely detached.
"Where is the girl, Leo?" Victoria asked, kneeling in front of the shaking boy. "Tell us, and we won't hurt Edward."
Leo looked at Edward, who was struggling to push himself up from the floor, blood trickling down his forehead. Leo’s eyes filled with tears, but he shook his head. "I won't tell you."
"We don't need him to tell us," the guard who had searched the hallway called out, walking back into the study. In his arms, he held Lily, who was wrapped in her pink blanket, her eyes wide with terror but too weak to scream.
"Excellent," Samantha said, snatching Lily from the guard’s arms. "Let's go. Before his security team realizes the elevator override has been tripped."
"What about Edward?" Victoria asked, looking down at her fiancé on the floor.
Samantha pulled a small, silver vial from her coat pocket. She handed it to Victoria. "A double dose of insulin. By the time they find him tomorrow, the coroner will rule it a diabetic coma brought on by stress. No wounds, no investigation. Just a tragic end to a stressed-out billionaire."
Victoria took the vial. She looked at Edward, her eyes flashing with a brief moment of hesitation. "You brought this on yourself, Edward. You should have kept walking."
She knelt beside him, unscrewing the cap of the pre-filled syringe.
Edward struggled to move, but his limbs felt like lead. The blow to his head had severely disoriented him. He watched the needle tip glint in the firelight.
Suddenly, a loud, piercing shriek echoed through the room.
Leo had broken free from Samantha’s grip. With the desperate, wild strength of a child fighting for his life, he lunged at Victoria, biting her wrist as hard as he could.
"Ah!" Victoria screamed, dropping the syringe. It rolled under the heavy velvet sofa.
In the confusion, Edward’s hand found the leg of his heavy brass desk lamp. With a desperate heave, he swung it upward, striking the guard closest to him in the kneecap. The guard screamed, collapsing to the floor.
"Run, Leo! Run!" Edward roared.
Edward grabbed Leo’s hand, pulled himself up, and bolted toward the study’s secondary exit—a hidden door behind the bookshelf that led to the penthouse’s maintenance stairwell.
Samantha fired two shots. The bullets shattered the glass of the bookshelf, showering them with splinters, but Edward managed to slam the heavy steel door shut behind them, throwing the manual deadbolt.
They were in the dark, freezing concrete stairwell.
"Lily..." Leo sobbed, looking back at the door. "They have Lily!"
"We have to get to the security office on the twentieth floor," Edward gasped, wiping the blood from his eyes. His head was pounding. "If we can get there, we can lock down the entire building. They won't be able to leave with her."
They began to fly down the stairs, their footsteps echoing like thunder in the concrete shaft.
Behind them, they could hear the muffled thuds of the guards throwing their weight against the steel door. It wouldn't hold for long.
They reached the thirty-first floor, then thirty. Edward’s lungs burned. His body, softened by years of luxury, was screaming in protest. But he kept his grip tight on Leo’s hand.
Suddenly, the door below them on the twenty-eighth floor clicked open.
Two of Samantha’s guards stepped into the stairwell, their flashlights blinding Edward.
"Nowhere to go, Clayton," one of them sneered, raising his weapon.
Edward pulled Leo back, but looking up, he saw the door of the twenty-ninth floor opening as well. Victoria and Samantha were coming down.
They were trapped.
Edward looked at the heavy metal fire door of the twenty-eighth floor. It led to the unfinished mechanical level of the building—a vast, dark maze of giant HVAC pipes, electrical generators, and open steel beams overlooking the city.
"In here!" Edward whispered, throwing his weight against the mechanical room door. It clicked open, and he pulled Leo inside, slamming it shut just as a bullet sparked off the concrete wall behind them.
They stepped into a nightmare of roaring machinery and freezing wind.
Because this level was unfinished, several of the massive exterior glass panels had not yet been installed. The blizzard was howling directly into the building, coating the metal walkways and giant pipes with a thick, treacherous layer of ice.
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They were fifty stories in the air, standing on a slippery, open-air metal scaffold, with a sheer drop into the freezing abyss of Manhattan below.
And behind them, the door was opening.
