The heavy oak door slammed shut behind Dr. Harrison Cole, his muffled curses echoing down the marble-tiled corridor of the Falcone estate. Carmine didn't even blink. He kept his Smith & Wesson steady until the estate's heavy security gates groaned, signaling the disgraced surgeon’s departure.

Outside the office, the hiss of ignited thermite echoed through the vast expanse of the factory floor, followed by the blinding white-hot glare of chemical fire eating through steel girders.

"Carmine! Get that door open with charges!" Gabriel ordered, stepping in front of me to shield me from the blinding light.

"I'm trying, Boss! The locking mechanism is digitally encrypted!" Carmine shouted, slamming a heavy breaching charge against the thick glass pane of the door.

Silas and Evelyn were already slipping through a hidden steel panic hatch behind the desk.

"After them!" I yelled, pointing at the hatch.

"No," Gabriel grabbed my arm, his face hard as granite. "If we chase them into the tunnels without knowing the layout, we walk straight into another bomb. We get out through the roof hatch or we don't get out at all."

The heat in the small office was rising rapidly. The air smelled of scorching metal and sulfur.

I looked down at the black box Silas had left on the desk. The master ledger.

"Maya, leave it!" Gabriel shouted, grabbing my hand to pull me toward the emergency ladder leading to the roof.

"If I leave it, we never find out the truth about my mother!" I yanked my hand back, stepping up to the desk.

My mother's voice echoed in my memory—not from a boardroom or a syndicate meeting, but from our cramped kitchen years ago: “Maya, everything has a structure. If something is woven together by human hands, it can be unraveled by human hands. You just have to find the anchor knot.”

I looked at the black box. It wasn't rigged with explosives. That was a bluff. It was secured with a mechanical tension lock—the exact same locking mechanism used on industrial textile looms from 1984.

"Carmine! Blow the door now!" I screamed.

Carmine detonated the breaching charge. BOOM! The bulletproof glass shattered inward in a shower of glittering shards.

"Go! Move!" Carmine yelled, gesturing toward the open corridor.

Gabriel grabbed my waist, hoisting me over his shoulder despite my protests, and sprinted through the smoke-choked hallway just as the ceiling above the office collapsed in a cascade of white-hot fire.

We burst through the rusted roof access doors onto the rain-slicked gravel of the rooftop just as the entire central tower of the textile factory imploded inward in a spectacular column of orange flame and black smoke.

As we hit the ground near our armored SUVs, the night sky lit up like daylight.

Gabriel set me down, pulling me into his arms to check for burns or injuries. His chest was heaving, his dark eyes burning with adrenaline and fury.

"You are out of your mind," Gabriel breathed, his voice a mix of terror and awe.

"I got the box," I said, holding up the heavy black metal case dripping with rainwater.