Chapter 5 - The Glass HouseThe room seemed to shrink around us, the glittering Manhattan skyline outside turning into a distant, cold background.
"Clara found out about Marcus," Savannah said, her voice trembling slightly for the first time. "She realized her own brother was embezzling money from the foundation to cover his massive bad debts in European real estate. She knew that if she went to the police, Marcus would burn Vance Global to the ground to cover his tracks."
"So she tried to hide the files," I realized, the pieces of the nightmare finally coming together after two agonizing years.
"She called me that night," Savannah said. "She told me to meet her at the beach house at midnight. She said she had everything wrapped in an encrypted drive inside Leo’s silver baby keepsake box. But when I arrived..."
She stopped, taking a shaky breath.
"When you arrived, the house was already burning," I finished for her, my knuckles turning white against the marble counter.
"I saw the flames from the driveway," Savannah choked out. "I ran toward the front door. The smoke was thick, black, blinding. I heard Clara screaming from the second floor. I tried to get up the stairs, but the floor collapsed. Then... I saw Leo."
I took a step toward her, my heart hammering like a war drum. "Leo was on the ground floor?"
"He was trapped under a fallen timber near the conservatory," she said, tears finally spilling down her cheeks. "I dragged him out through the broken terrace glass. He was clutching that little wooden music box. I carried him to the edge of the woods just as the gas line exploded."
I fell back against the couch, the room spinning. For two years, I had believed I was the one who pulled Leo out of the flames after rushing back from Manhattan. The trauma had blurred my memory; the police had told me I dragged him from the porch.
"It was you," I whispered. "You saved his life."
"I dragged him to your car at the end of the driveway just as you pulled up," Savannah said softly. "You were screaming Clara's name. You were completely frantic. You didn't even see me in the shadows. I was terrified... terrified that Marcus’s people were watching. So I ran."
"Why didn't you go to the police?" I demanded, my voice cracking.
"Because the police chief was sitting in Marcus Thorne's VIP box at the Met three nights later!" she said, her voice rising in sudden anger. "Who was I, Julian? A disgraced, broke twenty-two-year-old girl with a blacklisted family! If I came forward, Marcus would have finished what he started. He would have killed Leo."
Suddenly, a metallic click echoed from the hallway.
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It wasn't a door opening. It was the sound of a security override on the master control panel in the foyer.
The floor-to-ceiling glass panel behind us shattered into a million exploding crystals as a flash-bang grenade rolled across the hardwood floor.
