Chapter 2 - The Camera and the Spark
The fumes of the gasoline were thick, sweet, and suffocating, burning the back of my throat like liquid fire. My vision swam as gasoline seeped through my gray dress, soaking down to my skin.
Alistair took a step closer, his face twisted into a grotesque mask of rage and desperation. He held the silver Zippo between two calloused fingers. His hand shook, but his eyes were entirely unhinged.
"I'm done playing games with you, Marin!" he bellowed, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls of the empty warehouse. "You sign the transfer deeds right now, or I flick this wheel! They'll think it was a tragic industrial accident—an abandoned facility, a stray spark, a tragic end to an ungrateful girl!"
Beside the heavy metal exit door, Sloan folded her arms, her designer heels clicking against the stained concrete. "Just sign it, Marin," she chimed in, her tone dismissive, as if she were asking me to sign a birthday card. "You're ruining everything. Dad needs that money for the company, and I have a deposit due on my new condo in Miami. You don't even know what to do with eight million dollars anyway."
My mother, standing in the shadow of a rusted support beam, clutched her Louis Vuitton purse against her chest like a shield. She wouldn't meet my eyes. "Marin, please," she whimpered. "Think of the family. Alistair said if we don't clear his debt by Friday, they'll seize our house. Do you want your mother living on the street?"
I looked at the three of them. The three people who had spent twenty-one years demanding my silence, my money, my self-respect, and now, my very life.
I felt no fear. Only a cold, crystalline clarity.
I slowly raised my chin, lifting my gaze past Alistair’s trembling shoulder, up toward the dark junction of the roof trusses thirty feet above his head.
Nestled behind a thick steel beam, practically invisible to anyone who hadn't installed it personally, was a tiny black cylinder. A military-grade, 4K night-vision security camera with an integrated high-fidelity microphone.
It was one of six new units I had personally hired a private security firm to install two days after Grandpa Thad’s funeral. The camera wasn't connected to a local hard drive in the office. It was broadcasting a live, encrypted stream directly to a secure cloud server—and straight to the desktop monitor of Detective Marcus Vance at the Columbus Police Department, as well as Grandpa’s attorney, Richard Declan.
And three minutes ago, when Alistair dragged me through the side door, I had activated the panic alert on my phone in my pocket.
"Alistair," I said, my voice remarkably steady despite the burning in my lungs.
"What?!" he snarled, bringing the open flame of the Zippo closer to my shoulder. The heat radiated against my wet sleeve.
"You really should have checked the building permits before you broke into this property tonight," I whispered.
Alistair blinked, a flicker of confusion breaking through his rage. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Grandpa Thad didn't just leave me the deeds to these warehouses, Alistair," I said, a slow, sharp smile spreading across my face. "He upgraded them. This entire facility is monitored 24/7 by a high-definition commercial surveillance network. Right now, there are three police cruisers pulling into the alley behind you."
Sloan’s head whipped around toward the small frosted window near the top of the door.
In that exact instant, the night outside erupted in a violent strobe of flashing red and blue lights. The wail of police sirens tore through the quiet industrial park, echoing thunderously outside the warehouse walls.
Alistair’s face went corpse-pale. "You... you set me up?!"
"You set yourself up the moment you poured gasoline on my dress," I spat.
"Break the door down! NOW!" a booming voice commanded over a bullhorn outside. "Columbus PD! Drop your weapons and put your hands on your head!"
Panic erupted. Sloan shrieked, backing away from the door as heavy iron battering rams began to pound against the reinforced metal frame. My mother dropped her purse, screaming in terror.
May you like
Alistair looked at the lighter in his hand, then at me. A terrifying, animalistic desperation flashed in his eyes. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me!"
He swung his hand forward, snapping his thumb across the Zippo's flint.
