Chapter 4 - The Fire and the False Savior
The smoke was thick, acrid, and smelled of burning plastic and chemical accelerants. I slammed my shoulder against the office door, but the electronic lock was jammed shut by the facility’s automated containment protocols.
"Damn it!" I yelled, looking around the room for a weapon. I grabbed the heavy mahogany desk chair, raised it above my head, and shattered it against the reinforced glass window of the door. It took three violent hits before the glass webbed and finally gave way, showering the floor with sharp fragments.
I crawled through the broken frame, cutting my forearm against a jagged edge, but I didn't feel the pain. My only thought was Sophia.
The corridor was a chaotic nightmare. Red emergency lights strobed through the dense grey smoke. Alarms shrieked overhead, a mechanical scream that amplified the panic rising in my chest. Staff members in white coats rushed past me, covering their mouths, completely ignoring me as they fled toward the emergency exits.
I ran against the flow of the crowd, heading toward Exam Room Three.
When I reached the door, I found it thrown wide open. The interior of the room was in ruins. Medical trays had been overturned, surgical instruments scattered across the floor like silver bones.
Sophia was gone.
"Sophia!" I screamed, my voice cracking from the smoke. "Sophia!"
A weak groan came from behind a tipped-over examination table. I rushed over and flipped the table. Isabella lay there, her white coat stained with soot and blood. A deep gash ran along her hairline, and she was clutching her side in obvious agony.
"Isabella! Where is she? Where is my daughter?" I demanded, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"Richard..." she gasped, coughing violently as the smoke grew thicker. "He took her... when the alarm went off. He knew the facility's self-destruct sequence had been triggered. He didn't care about the research anymore. He just wanted the prototype. He took Sophia out through the subterranean loading bay."
"Who started the fire, Isabella?"
She looked up at me, her eyes filled with a terrifying realization. "The board. They found out you discovered the files. They are purging the entire project. They're erasing the evidence, Edward. They're erasing us."
"Can you walk?" I asked, looking down the corridor where the flames were now visibly licking at the ceiling tiles.
"No," she whispered, her eyes fluttering shut. "My leg... it's broken. Leave me, Edward. Save her. I deserve this... for what I did to you. For what I did to those children. But please... don't let Richard get to the estate. The baby... he's going after the baby next."
I looked at the woman I had once loved, the woman who had betrayed my trust in the most profound way possible. A part of me wanted to leave her to the flames. But I wasn't like them. I wasn't a monster who discarded human lives when they were no longer useful.
I scooped Isabella up in my arms, ignoring the protest of my screaming muscles, and carried her toward the nearest emergency exit. The heat was becoming unbearable, the air thin and toxic. We burst through the exit doors into the cold night air just as a massive explosion rocked the rear of the building, sending a column of orange fire skyward.
I laid Isabella down on the damp grass a safe distance away. In the distance, the faint sound of sirens echoed through the trees, but they were too far away. They would never arrive in time.
I ran toward the parking lot. The armored SUV was gone. But parked near the edge of the tree line was a black, unmarked sedan—the vehicle used by the security guards. The keys were still in the ignition.
I jumped into the driver's seat, threw the car into reverse, and tore down the gravel road, heading back toward the main estate.
My mind was a whirlwind of tactical calculations. Richard had a head start. He had Sophia, and he was heading to my mansion to secure the baby. He knew that once he had both children, he held all the cards. He could force me to sign over the entire Drummond legacy, or he could simply eliminate me and frame it as a tragedy—a wealthy man driven mad by a sudden, scandalous revelation, killing his family before setting his own life ablaze.
Ten minutes later, I roared through the iron gates of my estate. The gates had been left wide open, the security system completely deactivated.
The mansion stood dark against the night sky, its windows like empty eye sockets.
I slammed the brakes, leaving the sedan idling on the gravel driveway, and drew a compact pistol from the glove compartment—a weapon I kept for personal security but had never dreamed I would have to use in my own home.
I stepped onto the front porch. The heavy oak front door was slightly ajar.
Inside, the grand foyer was dead quiet. The ambient lighting was off, the only illumination coming from the pale moonlight filtering through the massive stained-glass windows above the staircase.
"Mrs. Higgins?" I called out softly, keeping my back to the wall as I moved deeper into the house.
No answer.
I crept toward the library—the room where Mrs. Higgins had been instructed to keep the baby safe.
As I approached the threshold, I saw a flickering light coming from inside. The scent of expensive cigars drifted out into the hallway.
I rounded the corner, my gun raised, ready to shoot.
"I wouldn't do that, Edward," a familiar voice said.
Sitting in my favorite leather armchair was not Richard.
It was my brother, Thomas Drummond.
He was a man I hadn't seen in five years, a man who had supposedly exiled himself to Europe after a bitter dispute over our father's will. He sat there casually, a crystal glass of Scotch in one hand, a burning cigar in the other.
And lying on the sofa next to him, fast asleep in his blue blanket, was the baby. Standing behind the sofa was Richard, holding a trembling Sophia by the arm, a heavy silver revolver pressed against her ribs.
"Thomas," I breathed, lowering my weapon slightly in sheer disbelief. "What are you doing here?"
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Thomas smiled, a slow, malicious grin that looked entirely out of place on his aristocratic face. "Did you really think Richard worked for the board, Edward? Or that Isabella was acting alone? The board members are old, dying relics. They don't have the stomach for real execution anymore. They needed a proxy. Someone younger. Someone who shared the Drummond blood, but actually possessed the ruthlessness to use it."
Thomas took a slow sip of his drink and pointed at the baby. "Meet my retirement plan, big brother. And meet your true replacement."
