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HE CHOSE THE MAID’S CHILD OVER A BILLION-DOLLAR EMPIRE—And Exposed His Fiancée’s Darkest Secret! / Chapter 5 / 6

Chapter 5 - The Trap Cranks Shut

The smell of gasoline filled the penthouse. Adrian was tied securely to a concrete pillar, his body bruised and bleeding. Elena and Lily were bound together on the floor nearby.

Celeste stood by the exit, a silver lighter flicking open and closed in her hand. "Goodbye, Adrian. You could have had the world. Instead, you chose a maid."

She dropped the burning lighter onto the gasoline-soaked carpet.

Flames erupted instantly, roaring to life and creating a wall of fire that raced toward the helpless trio. Celeste and her men vanished through the emergency exit, locking the heavy steel doors from the outside.

"Adrian!" Elena cried out, the heat already blistering her skin. Lily was screaming, terrified by the black smoke filling the room.

Adrian strained against the thick zip-ties binding his wrists. His muscles tore, blood dripping down his arms, but the plastic wouldn't break. "Elena! The stuffed rabbit! Look inside the rabbit!" Adrian yelled.

Elena looked down at Lily’s one-eyed stuffed rabbit, which was lying just inches away from her feet.

"My mother... she always kept a spare key to my security handcuffs inside Lily's favorite toy. She told me it was a secret game!" Adrian shouted, choking on the smoke.

With desperate effort, Elena used her teeth to rip open the worn fabric of the stuffed rabbit’s belly. Her tongue hit something metal. She spat out a small, specialized titanium key tool.

Moving with agonizing slowness due to her crushed fingers, Elena managed to slide the tool into the lock mechanism of Adrian's specialized security ties.

Click.

Adrian’s hands broke free. He instantly sliced through the rest of his bounds, rushed over to Elena and Lily, and cut them loose.

The fire was now blocking every exit. The ceiling was beginning to collapse.

"We can't go down!" Adrian yelled. "We have to go up!"

Adrian carried Lily while supporting Elena, forcing their way through a burning side door that led to the building’s rooftop helipad. As they burst out into the cool night air, the penthouse below them exploded in a massive fireball.

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

But they weren't safe yet.

Waiting on the helipad was a private helicopter, its rotors spinning furiously. Standing outside the chopper door, shocked to see them alive, was Celeste Whitmore and Lord Alistair Voss.

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