Chapter 16 - Fire on Fifth Avenue
The fire began at 2:13 in the morning.
I know the exact time because June woke twelve seconds before the alarm.
Her cry came through the nursery monitor, sharp and offended, and I sat up in bed before the first siren sounded inside the penthouse.
Then smoke rolled beneath the bedroom door.
“Elias!”
He was already moving.
The door opened before I reached it. Elias appeared barefoot, dressed in black pants and a T-shirt, a gun in one hand and a wet towel in the other.
“Nursery.”
“I know.”
We ran.
Sprinklers had not activated.
That frightened him more than the smoke.
“System was disabled,” he said.
“Can we fix it?”
“Not now.”
The hallway glowed orange near the service corridor.
Marco, still pale from the hospital, came through the smoke with two guards.
“Fire started on forty-six and forty-eight simultaneously.”
“Our floor is forty-seven,” I said.
Elias looked at me.
“Which means this isn’t a fire.”
“It’s a cage.”
He nodded once.
We reached the nursery.
Ivy and June were screaming.
For the rest of my life, I would remember that sound.
I grabbed Ivy.
Elias lifted June.
The flames were not yet inside the room, but smoke thickened near the ceiling.
“Main stairwell?” he asked.
Marco shook his head. “Blocked below us.”
“Elevators?”
“Locked.”
“Roof?”
“Access door isn’t responding.”
Elias cursed.
I wrapped Ivy in a blanket.
“This building is supposed to be a fortress.”
“It is.”
“Then why are we trapped?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Because whoever did this knows the fortress.”
Again, an enemy inside.
Or someone who had designed the security system before Elias took control.
Gabriel.
The name passed through all of us without being spoken.
Marco ran to a wall panel.
“Emergency descent rig.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“A system for lowering people to the terrace two floors down.”
“You have ropes hanging outside your penthouse?”
Elias glanced at me.
“I have contingency plans.”
“Apparently not enough.”
“Complain later.”
“I’m planning to.”
That made his mouth twitch.
Even then.
Even with fire approaching.
He took June in one arm and used his free hand to pull open a concealed cabinet.
Harnesses.
Masks.
A compact breathing system.
“Who designed this?” I asked.
“My father.”
Of course.
Marco fitted a harness around me.
“You go first with Ivy.”
“No.”
“Ava.”
“Elias goes first with June.”
Elias stared.
“Why?”
“Because if the line fails, you’re heavier.”
Marco barked a laugh despite himself.
Elias looked offended.
“That is your logic?”
“That and I trust you to make sure the landing is safe.”
His expression softened.
“Fine.”
A glass door opened onto the terrace.
Cold wind slammed into us.
Manhattan spread below, distant and glittering.
Forty-seven floors down.
My stomach turned.
“Absolutely not.”
“You survived an overpass,” Elias said. “You can survive a harness.”
“An overpass did not have a forty-seven-story drop.”
“Technically we’re only going down two.”
“That does not help.”
He secured June beneath his coat in a specialized infant wrap Marco had somehow produced.
I stared.
“You have baby evacuation equipment?”
“I do now.”
Something inside me broke open at that.
He had changed his fortress because my daughters existed.
Elias stepped over the edge.
I stopped breathing.
Then he disappeared.
The line moved steadily.
Marco held a radio.
“Landing.”
Relief nearly dropped me to my knees.
My turn.
Ivy was strapped against my chest.
I kissed her forehead.
“Mommy has made several questionable decisions recently.”
Marco attached the descent device.
“This is not one of them.”
“That remains to be seen.”
I climbed over.
Wind tore at my hair.
For one terrible second, my feet left the building and there was nothing beneath me except air.
Then the line lowered.
I looked down.
Big mistake.
“Do not look down,” Elias called from below.
“I figured that out!”
Ivy stopped crying.
Apparently she enjoyed terror.
When my feet hit the lower terrace, Elias caught me.
He checked Ivy first.
Then me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
We still had to escape the building.
Fire alarms screamed.
Residents were evacuating other floors.
Smoke filled stairwells.
Elias kept one hand at my back while June rested against his chest.
At the thirty-ninth floor, an explosion shook the building.
People screamed.
The emergency lights failed.
For several minutes we moved in darkness, following glow strips along the stairs.
When we finally reached the lobby, firefighters rushed past us.
Outside, snow fell through smoke.
News cameras were already there.
Someone had tipped them off.
I stood beneath an emergency blanket holding Ivy while Elias held June.
A photographer shouted, “Ava! Was this retaliation?”
Another yelled, “Elias, are the twins yours?”
I laughed.
I actually laughed.
Maybe I was hysterical.
Maybe I was exhausted.
Elias looked at me.
“What?”
“They still think you’re their father.”
He looked at June.
“Could do worse.”
The words landed unexpectedly.
I stared.
He seemed to realize what he had said.
Neither of us spoke.
Then a firefighter approached Marco.
“We found the origin points.”
Marco listened.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Accelerant was placed inside two maintenance closets.”
“So?”
“Both closets require Vance family biometric access.”
Elias went still.
“Mine?”
“No.”
The firefighter handed over a report.
“Secondary legacy profile.”
Gabriel.
I felt the cold more sharply.
Our convoy took us to a secure townhouse on the Upper East Side.
The moment we entered, Elias ordered every Vance legacy credential erased.
A technician shook his head.
“We tried after the transfer in Montreal.”
“What transfer?”
“The system restored Gabriel’s profile remotely.”
Elias’s face became stone.
“From where?”
“Unknown.”
My mother arrived thirty minutes later.
She took one look at our smoke-stained clothes and hugged me before asking permission.
This time I let her.
For three seconds.
Then I stepped back.
“Did Gabriel build that penthouse security?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know the emergency systems?”
“Yes.”
“Could he set the fire?”
“If he is alive.”
“He is.”
Elias turned.
“You sound certain.”
I held up my phone.
A message had arrived while firefighters were checking Ivy.
A photograph.
Gabriel Vance, older than in the pictures, sitting in a hospital room.
Alive.
A newspaper dated that morning lay on the table beside him.
Under the photo was a sentence.
YOU HAVE MY GRANDDAUGHTER’S EYES.
Elias read it twice.
Then another message appeared.
Not addressed to me.
To him.
SON, YOU HAVE KEPT HER ALIVE LONG ENOUGH.
BRING AVA TO MONTREAL.
COME WITHOUT THE CHILDREN.
My mother whispered, “No.”
I looked at Elias.
“No one is taking me anywhere.”
He nodded.
“Agreed.”
Then a third message arrived.
This one contained a live video still.
Caleb was tied to a chair.
Victor stood behind him.
And Gabriel Vance sat across from both of them.
Three men who had controlled pieces of my life without permission.
May you like
A final line appeared beneath the image.
OR I LET VICTOR FINISH WHAT HE STARTED UNDER THE OVERPASS.
