Chapter 5 - BLACKOUT
Somebody screamed.
Maybe Selene.
Maybe me.
In the darkness, a table crashed.
“Don't move!” one of the security men shouted.
I heard Julian running.
“Julian!” Arthur yelled.
Then the emergency lights flickered on.
Dim red strips lit the floor.
Julian was gone.
So was Selene.
My father swore under his breath.
Daniel checked his phone.
“Building security system just went offline.”
“Backup?”
“Someone killed it manually.”
Nina looked stunned.
“From where?”
“Maintenance control.”
I pushed myself upright.
“We need to get downstairs.”
My father put a hand on my shoulder.
“You need a hospital.”
“I need to make sure he doesn't disappear.”
“Elena—”
“Dad.”
I looked at him.
“Please.”
He knew that tone.
He had taught it to me.
Never ask twice when the first answer should have been yes.
He sighed.
“Daniel, get a doctor here. Now.”
Then he turned to security.
“Stairs.”
We moved into the emergency stairwell.
Every step sent pain through my back.
My father's jaw tightened each time I flinched, but he didn't tell me to stop again.
Thirty floors below us was a private parking garage.
Julian kept three cars there.
Selene had one.
If they reached the garage before we did, they could be gone.
By the twenty-second floor, Daniel's phone reconnected.
“Cameras are back.”
“Garage?” Victor asked.
Daniel watched the feed.
“Selene's there.”
“And Julian?”
A pause.
“No.”
We stopped.
My father looked at me.
“Separate directions.”
I understood immediately.
Julian wasn't following Selene.
“Where's his office?” I asked.
“Forty-second floor.”
Nina stared at me.
“You think he went up?”
“He doesn't run when he's scared.”
“What does he do?”
I thought of our marriage.
How every threat made Julian crueler.
How every mistake sent him hunting for documents, phones, people he could control.
“He cleans.”
Victor turned toward the stairs.
“Then he's destroying evidence.”
We started climbing.
At the thirty-eighth floor, my knees almost gave out.
My father caught me.
“You're done.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
He looked furious.
Not at me.
At himself.
“You shouldn't have had to survive this long enough to make that call.”
That hit harder than anything Julian had done.
I whispered, “I chose this marriage.”
“You chose a man who lied about who he was.”
“So did I.”
Victor looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Daniel shouted from above.
“Mr. Marlowe!”
We ran.
The forty-second-floor door was open.
Smoke rolled into the stairwell.
A fire alarm began screaming.
Julian's executive office was burning.
And standing at the far end of the hall, holding a metal case, was my husband.
He saw me.
Then smiled.
“You should've stayed on the floor, Elena.”
May you like
He raised a gun.
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