Chapter 9 - The Fire in the Glass Tower
Midnight on the eve of the wedding.
The Gallow Tower was a fortress of silent shadows. Upstairs in the bridal suite, Victoria Vance was finishing her final preparations, her father and his financial associates finalizing the last remaining digital signatures to transfer total voting rights of Gallow Development into the Vance family trust.
Down on the second-floor medical suite, Layla sat awake in the dark.
She hadn't packed bags. She had packed survival.
Earlier that evening, old Maria the housekeeper had slipped into her room through a service elevator, her eyes wide with terror.
“Miss Layla, you have to run,” Maria had whispered frantically, pressing a set of master keys and a burner phone into Layla’s hand. “I overheard Miss Victoria talking to her enforcer, Viktor. They aren't taking you to a safehouse. They’re cutting the brakes on the service elevator, and they’ve rigged a gas leak in the sub-basement. They’re going to burn the tower down with you inside, and blame it on a syndicate hit.”
Layla had looked at Maria, thanked her with tears in her eyes, and immediately put the plan into motion.
She didn't use the elevator. Using the narrow, concrete service stairs—designed for staff and emergency evacuations—Layla carried her seven-month pregnant body down, step by agonizing step, fighting through the contractions brought on by pure adrenaline and stress.
As she reached the third floor, a sudden, violent explosion rocked the building.
The lights flickered and died. Emergency red backup strobes flashed blindingly along the concrete walls. Smoke began billowing up from the lower levels, smelling sharply of accelerated propane.
They had started the fire.
Layla coughed, covering her mouth with a damp cloth, pushing herself forward toward the underground delivery bay where an old maintenance van was parked with its keys in the ignition—a route Maria had secretly cleared for her.
Meanwhile, on the top floor, the alarms wailed deafeningly.
Dominic Gallow slammed his fist into the wall of his private office, coughing as thick black smoke poured into the penthouse.
“Mr. Gallow! We have to evacuate!” his head of security shouted, bursting through the doors. “The sub-basement is fully engulfed! The service elevators are rigged! It’s a complete sabotage!”
Dominic froze. His heart stopped beating.
Layla.
He had left her locked on the second floor. In his blind rage over the forged documents, he had forgotten the most important rule of his life: Protect the bloodline.
“Where is she?” Dominic roared, grabbing his security chief by the lapels. “Where is Layla?”
May you like
“Sir, the second-floor medical suite is filling with smoke! We can’t get down the main stairs, the fire doors are locked from the outside!”
Dominic’s face turned the color of ash. He shoved the guard aside, pulling a heavy iron fire ax off the wall cabinet, and ran toward the service corridor like a man possessed.
