Chapter 4 - A Debt Written in Fire
Flames climbed through the medical wing faster than an ordinary fire should have moved.
The mansion's suppression system failed in three separate zones. Smoke doors remained open. Emergency pumps lost pressure. Someone had prepared the building to burn from within.
Alejandro ordered the servants evacuated to the south courtyard while his men fought the fire. He refused to leave until Rocco physically blocked the corridor.
Sarah carried Emma through a passage crowded with coughing staff. Heat rolled along the ceiling. Somewhere behind them, glass burst.
Emma clung to her mother's neck.
My backpack, she cried.
Leave it.
Bunny is inside.
Sarah had dropped the stuffed rabbit into the backpack before the library meeting. Now it lay in the sitting room beside the laundry wing, two corridors from the fire.
We will get another bunny.
No, Emma sobbed. Daddy gave me that one.
Sarah stopped.
Emma's father, Daniel Parker, had died eleven months earlier in what police called a warehouse accident. The rabbit was the last gift he had bought before his death.
Sarah turned back.
A guard seized her shoulder.
You cannot go that way.
My daughter's bag is there.
The wing is filling with smoke.
Alejandro appeared behind them, a wet cloth over his mouth.
What is in the bag?
Her rabbit, Sarah said. It was from her father.
Alejandro looked toward the smoke.
Rocco swore because he recognized the decision before it was spoken.
No, boss.
Alejandro handed his pistol to Rocco and entered the corridor.
Sarah stared after him.
He had survived poison less than an hour ago. His breathing was still unstable. Yet he disappeared into smoke for a child's toy.
Thirty seconds passed.
Then forty.
The ceiling near the passage cracked.
Rocco shouted Alejandro's name.
A shape emerged through the smoke.
Alejandro carried the pink backpack under one arm. His white shirt was blackened at the shoulder. He stumbled once but did not fall.
Emma reached for him.
He handed her the bag.
She pulled out the rabbit and hugged it.
Thank you, Mister Lion.
Alejandro stared at her.
Sarah expected anger. Instead, he laughed, a short rough sound that no one in the corridor had heard from him in years.
Then he began coughing.
Doctor Crane rushed forward with an oxygen mask. Alejandro pushed him away.
Not you.
Crane froze.
Until we know who knew about the blood sample, no one touches me medically.
The fire was contained after midnight. Two rooms were destroyed, including the secure laboratory. One guard suffered burns. No one died.
The missing blood vial mattered more than the damage.
Doctor Crane insisted the sample had been labeled and locked in a refrigerated cabinet. Only he and his assistant knew the access code. The assistant, a young nurse named Paula, had vanished during the evacuation.
Her phone was found in a sink. Her car remained outside.
Rocco's men searched the estate.
At one in the morning, they discovered Paula unconscious inside an empty linen cart. A cloth soaked in sedative had been tied over her mouth. When she woke, she remembered entering the lab, turning toward a noise, and seeing someone wearing a gray housekeeping uniform.
Maribel again.
But Maribel had been in the ballroom under guard at that time.
Someone was using duplicate uniforms, planted evidence, altered footage, and stolen access codes to turn everyone against everyone else.
Alejandro gathered the household leaders in the dining room.
No one sat at the head of the table. The chair remained empty because Alejandro stood behind it.
He placed the recovered pink bow, a silver cuff link found near the service tunnel, and Paula's sedative cloth on white plates.
These are not clues, he said. They are instructions. Someone is telling us where to look.
At Maribel, Gabriel said. At Luca. At me. At Sarah.
At anyone except the person doing it, Bianca added.
Alejandro looked at Doctor Crane.
Why steal my blood?
To identify whether the substance worked, Crane said. Or to prevent us from identifying it.
Could it reveal something else?
Crane hesitated.
Any medical sample can reveal many things.
Such as?
Medication. Illness. Genetic markers.
Luca looked up.
Genetic markers?
A silence passed between the brothers.
Alejandro noticed.
Explain.
Luca shook his head.
Nothing.
Bianca looked at him with sudden suspicion.
You asked me last month whether Alejandro had ever taken a paternity test.
Sarah wished she could disappear. This was family history servants were not meant to hear.
Alejandro's voice dropped.
Why did you ask her that?
Luca's face tightened.
Because Father's old papers suggested one of us was not his biological son.
Rocco shifted uneasily.
Alejandro and Luca had built the current Moretti empire together after their father died. Blood was not merely private in their world. Blood determined inheritance, alliances, and command.
Which one? Alejandro asked.
The papers did not say.
Where are they?
Missing.
Bianca closed her eyes.
You should have told us.
I was trying to verify it before tearing the family apart.
Alejandro looked toward the fire-damaged corridor.
Someone stole my blood on the same night they tried to kill me.
Perhaps the assassination was not about territory or money, Gabriel said. Perhaps it was about succession.
Emma had fallen asleep in Sarah's arms near the doorway. Alejandro ordered a guard to escort them to a guest room in the protected east wing.
Sarah refused.
We are leaving.
The gates remain locked.
Then unlock them.
No.
Her fear became anger.
My daughter used her last medicine to save you. Since then, someone has shot at us, planted her bow, and set the house on fire. We are not part of your family war.
Alejandro stepped closer.
You became part of it when the assassin decided to frame you.
That is not a choice I made.
No, he said. It is a choice I made for you when I allowed you to remain in this house after the first attack.
Sarah stared at him.
Alejandro saw the hatred growing in her eyes and knew he deserved it.
But he also knew something she did not.
Twenty minutes earlier, one of his men had searched Sarah's employee file.
Her late husband, Daniel Parker, had not died in an ordinary warehouse accident.
The warehouse had belonged to a Moretti shell company.
Daniel had been found carrying a photograph of Alejandro's private study and a handwritten code for the service tunnel.
Alejandro placed the photograph on the table.
Sarah looked down.
The color left her face.
Where did you get that?
It was found on your husband's body.
She shook her head.
No. The police gave me his things. That was not there.
Because my men removed it before the police arrived.
Emma stirred in her arms.
Sarah lowered her voice.
Are you telling me my husband worked for you?
Alejandro answered carefully.
I am telling you he died inside one of my warehouses while carrying a code that could open the tunnel used tonight.
Sarah's knees weakened.
Daniel had told her he repaired industrial refrigeration systems. He had come home with grease on his hands and exhaustion in his eyes. He had never mentioned the Morettis.
Alejandro turned the photograph over.
May you like
On the back, in Daniel's handwriting, were five words.
If I die, protect Emma.
