Chapter 4 - Smoke on the Twenty-Third Floor
The fire alarm screamed.
Red emergency lights flashed across the ballroom.
Guests panicked.
Charles ran.
“Stop him!” Reyes shouted.
One of Adrian’s bodyguards tackled Charles near the ballroom doors.
He hit the carpet hard.
The remote skidded beneath a table.
Upstairs, someone yelled through the radio.
“Smoke! We have smoke!”
Elena’s heart dropped.
“Marissa.”
Marissa’s face went gray.
“The office.”
Reyes grabbed her radio.
“Evacuate the floor! Fire department is on the way.”
Charles twisted beneath the guard.
“You have no idea what you’re doing!”
Reyes crouched beside him.
“You just remotely triggered something during the execution of a warrant.”
“I triggered the building alarm.”
“Then why is there smoke upstairs?”
Charles didn’t answer.
Reyes cuffed him.
Bianca rushed toward them.
“Dad!”
Charles looked at his daughter.
For the first time that night, his face showed real panic.
“Get out of here.”
“What did you do?”
“Bianca, leave.”
“What did you do?”
The ballroom filled with the sound of alarms and shouted instructions.
Hotel staff opened emergency exits.
Guests spilled into corridors.
Adrian reached for Elena.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“Marissa said there were files upstairs.”
“The police have it.”
“She also said cameras.”
“Which is exactly why you’re staying down here.”
Elena looked toward Marissa.
The young woman was shaking violently.
“Something else is in that safe,” Elena said.
Marissa met her eyes.
“What?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“Marissa.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I never saw inside it.”
“But?”
Marissa looked at Charles.
He was being pulled to his feet.
Then she whispered.
“I heard him arguing with someone about a drive.”
“What drive?”
“A silver flash drive.”
Charles froze.
That reaction gave them the answer.
Adrian saw it.
Reyes saw it.
Elena saw it.
Reyes turned to the officers.
“Move him downstairs.”
Charles resisted.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“No,” Reyes said. “You made several.”
The elevators had automatically shut down, so officers took him toward the service stairs.
Bianca stood alone.
Her friends were gone.
Her cheek was red from Elena’s slap.
Mascara had begun smearing beneath her eyes.
She looked at Elena.
“Happy?”
Elena stared at her.
“Do I look happy?”
“You destroyed my family.”
“No. I was serving drinks twenty minutes ago.”
Bianca’s face twisted.
“You planned this.”
“I planned to learn how your staff was being treated.”
“You wanted this.”
“I wanted the truth.”
Bianca stepped closer.
“You think you’re better than me because you married Adrian Vale?”
Elena’s expression changed.
“No.”
She pointed toward the service staff helping evacuate guests.
“I think you forgot they were human.”
Bianca stared at her.
Elena continued.
“You didn’t slap me because you thought I was Elena Vale.”
Bianca said nothing.
“You slapped me because you thought I was nobody.”
The words landed harder than the slap.
Bianca looked away.
A firefighter rushed into the ballroom.
Reyes met him at the door.
Seconds later, her radio spoke.
“Fire contained.”
Everyone paused.
Another message followed.
“Looks like a small incendiary device inside the hidden office.”
Reyes’s eyes went straight to Charles.
Elena felt Adrian’s hand tighten around hers.
Then:
“Safe survived.”
Charles stopped walking.
Reyes picked up her radio.
“Open it.”
“Working on it.”
Bianca suddenly looked at Marissa.
“What’s on that drive?”
Marissa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“You heard something.”
“Your father said if it ever got out, half the people in this ballroom would turn on him.”
Bianca laughed bitterly.
“They already have.”
Marissa shook her head.
“He wasn’t talking about tonight.”
Everyone fell silent.
“What was he talking about?” Elena asked.
Marissa swallowed.
“He said it would prove Sterling Events wasn’t his company.”
Bianca stared at her.
“What?”
Marissa continued.
“He said the company belonged to someone else.”
Bianca shook her head.
“That’s impossible.”
Then Adrian spoke.
“No.”
His eyes were fixed on Charles.
“It isn’t.”
Elena turned toward her husband.
“You know something.”
Adrian didn’t answer immediately.
“Adrian.”
He looked at her.
“My father tried to buy Sterling Events twenty-two years ago.”
Bianca frowned.
“So?”
“He stopped the deal after discovering ownership documents that didn’t match.”
Charles went completely still.
Adrian’s voice became quieter.
“He believed Charles stole the company.”
Bianca stared at her father.
“From who?”
Charles looked away.
The radio crackled.
“We got the safe open.”
Nobody breathed.
Reyes lifted the radio.
“What’s inside?”
A long pause.
Then the detective said:
“A flash drive.”
Marissa covered her mouth.
“And a birth certificate.”
Bianca’s face emptied.
Reyes frowned.
“Whose?”
May you like
The answer came through the speaker.
“Bianca Sterling’s.”
