Chapter 11 - THE LAST DANCE
The ballroom erupted into chaos.
Cross ordered officers to evacuate the guests through the garden doors while Julian raced toward Celeste. She was barely conscious in the wheelchair, unaware of the device beneath her seat.
Elena followed him.
“Don’t touch it,” Cross shouted through the earpiece. “The movement sensor may be active.”
Julian knelt in front of his grandmother.
“Can you hear me?”
Celeste’s eyes opened.
“Isabella…”
“She’s not going to hurt you.”
Celeste looked beyond him.
“She already has.”
Isabella stood near the staircase surrounded by her attorney and security officers.
For the first time that evening, she appeared genuinely frightened.
“I did not place that device,” she said.
No one believed her.
Cross examined the bomb from a distance.
“Timer reads seven minutes.”
“We need the bomb squad,” Julian said.
“They’re twenty minutes away.”
Elena saw a wire running from the device into the wheelchair’s electronic control unit.
“It’s connected to the chair.”
Vivian approached.
“This model has a removable battery beneath the left arm.”
Cross shook his head.
“If disconnecting the battery interrupts the circuit, it may detonate.”
Celeste reached toward Elena.
“The locket.”
Isabella still had it.
Elena looked across the ballroom.
“Give it to her,” she said.
Isabella’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because she asked for it.”
“There’s a bomb beneath her chair.”
“Then you have nothing left to lose.”
Isabella approached slowly and placed the complete locket in Celeste’s hand.
Celeste pressed a hidden catch along its edge.
A tiny key slid out.
“The chair,” she whispered.
Vivian examined the wheelchair.
A keyhole was concealed behind the right wheel.
She inserted the key.
A metal panel opened, revealing a manual release switch that disconnected the seat from the motorized base.
Cross understood.
“We can lift her away while leaving the device in place.”
The timer showed four minutes.
Julian and Elena positioned themselves on either side of Celeste.
Cross stabilized the base.
“Lift slowly.”
They raised the chair’s seat.
The bomb remained attached to the motor unit.
The movement sensor flashed red but did not detonate.
They carried Celeste across the ballroom.
Officers evacuated the last guests.
The timer reached two minutes.
Cross ordered everyone outside.
Elena looked toward Isabella.
She was gone.
So was the evidence box.
Elena ran toward the service corridor.
Julian followed despite Cross’s warning.
They found Isabella in the kitchen passage carrying the document pages in one hand and a small remote in the other.
“Stop,” Elena said.
Isabella turned.
“You should be leaving.”
“You planted the bomb.”
“No.”
“You have the remote.”
“I took it from the woman who placed it.”
“My sister.”
Isabella glanced toward a dark doorway.
A figure moved beyond it.
The young woman from the surveillance footage stepped into view.
She wore a black evening gown and held a pistol.
Elena felt as if the world had split into two reflections.
The resemblance was not perfect. The woman’s hair was shorter, and a faint scar crossed her left eyebrow.
But the face was unmistakably related to hers.
“Elena,” the woman said.
“That’s my name.”
The stranger smiled bitterly.
“It was supposed to be mine.”
Isabella held up the remote.
“Emilia, lower the gun.”
“So you can abandon me again?”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me a false name, an institution and twenty-five years of silence.”
Elena stepped closer.
“You killed Mara.”
Emilia’s eyes shifted.
“She stole my life.”
“She saved a baby.”
“The wrong baby.”
Pain cut through Elena.
“You believe Isabella?”
“I believe the records. Mara chose you. Celeste protected you. Samuel searched for you. No one came for me.”
“We didn’t know you were alive.”
“You knew enough to inherit everything.”
The timer in the ballroom reached thirty seconds.
Cross’s voice sounded through Elena’s earpiece.
“Get out now.”
Isabella lifted the remote.
“This can disable the bomb.”
“Then do it,” Julian said.
Isabella pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
Emilia laughed.
“That remote only starts the second device.”
A deep mechanical click sounded beneath the kitchen floor.
The second bomb was directly below them.
Julian grabbed Elena.
They ran toward the garden exit.
Isabella followed.
Emilia remained in the corridor holding the missing final page.
“Elena!” she called.
Elena looked back.
Emilia raised the document.
“Ask Celeste why your name appears beside the word replacement.”
The first explosion shattered the ballroom windows.
Julian threw Elena behind a stone column.
Fire burst through the corridor.
May you like
When Elena opened her eyes, the kitchen entrance was gone.
Emilia had disappeared into the smoke.
