Chapter 5 - The Fire on the Forty-Second Floor
The first explosion sounded beneath Vivian’s feet.
Not large enough to tear through the building.
Large enough to make the forty-second floor shake.
Ceiling lights flickered.
Then darkness swallowed the conference room.
Zachary grabbed Vivian’s hand.
“Mom!”
Emergency lights flashed red along the corridor.
Malcolm opened the door.
Smoke was already spilling from the stairwell.
“Everyone out.”
The fire alarm screamed through the building.
Employees poured from offices.
Vivian looked toward the elevators.
Locked.
Donald shouted, “Stairs!”
A security officer ran toward them.
“East stairwell is blocked. Fire started near the server floor.”
Vivian’s stomach dropped.
The servers.
Project Monarch.
Financial records.
Evidence.
“This wasn’t random.”
“No,” Malcolm said.
The officer pointed toward the west stairwell.
“Go!”
Vivian, Zachary, Donald, Malcolm, and nearly sixty employees began descending.
Forty-two floors.
Smoke followed them.
On thirty-seven, Vivian heard someone crying.
On thirty-four, an older accountant collapsed.
Zachary helped carry him.
On thirty-one, Vivian’s phone vibrated.
Barry again.
She ignored it.
At twenty-nine, he called again.
Then again.
Finally Vivian answered while moving.
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“Stairwell.”
“Which one?”
“Why?”
“Vivian, answer me!”
“West.”
“Get out at twenty-four.”
She stopped.
People pushed past her.
“What?”
“Don’t go below twenty-four.”
“Why?”
“I got a message from Charles.”
Barry’s voice broke.
“He said if I wanted to keep my family, I should tell you not to reach the lobby.”
Vivian’s blood froze.
“What is in the lobby?”
“I don’t know.”
A fire marshal shouted from below.
“Keep moving!”
Vivian looked at Malcolm.
“Barry says something is wrong downstairs.”
Donald swore.
The security officer grabbed his radio.
Static.
Then a voice.
“Possible suspicious package in main lobby. Redirecting evacuation to parking structure.”
Malcolm stared at Vivian.
“Barry was right.”
They exited on twenty-four and crossed through an internal conference center toward another emergency route.
Vivian was beginning to understand Charles’s strategy.
He did not need to kill her.
He needed chaos.
Fear.
Destroyed records.
A company that appeared unstable.
Markets panicking.
Shareholders selling.
A predator waiting.
When Vivian finally reached the street, hundreds of Crestview employees crowded behind police barriers.
Smoke poured from several upper windows.
News helicopters circled.
Zachary stood beside her, breathing hard.
His white shirt was streaked with soot.
Vivian hugged him.
He resisted for half a second.
Then clung to her.
“I thought—”
“I know.”
She closed her eyes.
For one moment, she allowed herself to be simply his mother.
Then someone shouted her name.
Barry pushed through the crowd.
No jacket.
Tie loosened.
Face pale.
He reached Zachary first.
“Are you okay?”
Zachary stepped away.
Barry froze.
Then looked at Vivian.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
Blood ran from a cut near Vivian’s temple.
Barry reached toward her.
She moved back.
His hand stopped in the air.
Police officers approached.
One of them spoke to Vivian privately.
The suspicious package in the lobby had contained no explosive.
It contained photographs.
Photographs of Vivian.
Zachary.
Donald.
Dorothy.
Even Malcolm.
Each photograph had a black X drawn across the face.
Except Vivian’s.
On hers, someone had written one sentence.
YOU TOOK MY COMPANY ONCE. NOW I TAKE YOURS.
Charles.
Vivian felt anger settle inside her.
Not panic.
Anger.
She turned toward Barry.
“What did you promise him?”
Barry looked at the ground.
“Everything.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted access to Crestview’s acquisition pipeline.”
“And you gave it?”
“Yes.”
Donald stepped forward.
“You idiot.”
Barry did not argue.
“He knew about Laurel and me. He had recordings. Photos.”
Vivian laughed without humor.
“So you gave a man who stole from us access to our company because you were afraid your wife would discover you were sleeping with your assistant?”
Barry flinched.
“It started before I knew Charles was involved.”
“That changes nothing.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Barry looked at her.
“I thought I could control it.”
“And Laurel?”
His expression hardened.
“She lied to me.”
Vivian stared.
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“I knew she was ambitious. I knew she wanted influence. I did not know she was drugging you.”
“You helped pressure me to sign the restructuring agreement.”
“Yes.”
“You allowed people to believe I was unstable.”
Barry closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You transferred money.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought Charles back into our company.”
Barry looked like a man confessing at his own funeral.
“Yes.”
Zachary spoke quietly.
“Then you did know enough.”
Barry turned.
“Zach—”
“Don’t.”
The word was cold.
Barry’s face broke.
Vivian almost felt sorry for him.
Almost.
Then Laurel appeared between two detectives.
Her hands were not cuffed.
Not yet.
She saw Barry.
Relief flashed across her face.
“Barry!”
He looked at her with open disgust.
Laurel stopped.
“You told them?”
“I told them enough.”
Her face twisted.
“You coward.”
Barry stepped toward her.
“You drugged my wife.”
Laurel laughed.
“Your wife?”
Vivian watched.
Laurel’s composure disappeared completely.
“You spent two years telling me you couldn’t stand her.”
Barry went silent.
“You told me she was cold. Controlling. You told me Crestview should have been yours from the beginning.”
“Laurel.”
“You said once she signed away her shares, we’d finally be free.”
Zachary looked at his father.
Barry lowered his head.
Laurel turned toward Vivian.
“And now he’s pretending he cares about you because Charles scared him?”
Vivian said nothing.
Laurel continued.
“You want the truth, Vivian?”
An officer told her to stop speaking.
She ignored him.
“Barry didn’t know about the poison.”
Barry looked up.
Laurel smiled bitterly.
“But he knew I was making you sick.”
Silence.
Vivian felt the world narrow.
“What did you say?”
Laurel looked at Barry.
“Tell her.”
Barry’s face had gone completely white.
“Tell her how I said the supplements were making her tired.”
Vivian stared at him.
“You knew?”
Barry whispered, “I thought they were sedatives.”
Zachary took a step backward.
Barry continued quickly.
“I thought Laurel was giving you something mild to keep you calm during the negotiations.”
Vivian could barely speak.
“You knew someone was putting drugs in my food.”
“I didn’t know it could hurt you.”
“You knew.”
“I was desperate.”
“You knew.”
Barry reached toward her.
Vivian slapped him.
The sound cut through the street noise.
Barry did not move.
Vivian’s voice shook.
“You stood beside me every morning.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You watched me forget appointments. You watched me fall asleep at dinner. You watched me become afraid of my own mind.”
Barry’s eyes filled too.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
Vivian stepped back.
“You are not sorry because you hurt me.”
She looked at the burning windows above them.
“You are sorry because the fire reached you.”
That night, investigators arrested Laurel Bennett on charges related to financial fraud, unlawful drugging, and conspiracy.
Barry was not arrested.
Yet.
Vivian returned to Beverly Hills with Zachary.
At two in the morning, she stood inside her dressing room.
Empty jewelry boxes waited on the vanity.
She opened the drawer where she had once kept her wedding photographs.
Inside was a sealed envelope she had forgotten existed.
Her father’s handwriting was on the front.
For Vivian, if Crestview ever stops feeling like yours.
She opened it.
Inside was a copy of a trust agreement dated twenty-one years earlier.
Vivian read the first page.
Then the second.
Then she sat down.
Her father had quietly placed a controlling block of Crestview founder shares into a trust.
A trust that Barry had apparently never discovered.
May you like
And the sole beneficiary was not Vivian.
It was Zachary.
