Chapter 7 — The Price of Saving Ethan
Smoke swallowed the ceiling.
Fire alarms shrieked through the institute.
Andrew held Daniel against his chest, the broken glass pressed beneath his jaw.
“Give me the registry!”
Lillian stood near the stairs, blood running from her forehead.
“You’ll never survive long enough to use it.”
Andrew smiled.
“Then none of us will.”
Ethan’s hand weakened inside mine.
I pressed both palms against the wound below his shoulder.
The bullet had entered high in his chest.
Too close to his heart.
“Stay with me,” I whispered.
His lips moved.
“What?”
“Your blouse.”
I stared at him.
“Of all the things—”
“The clean black blouse.”
A faint smile touched his face.
“You never finished buttoning it.”
I looked down.
Two buttons were still undone.
A laugh escaped me through tears.
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
His eyes began to close.
“No. Ethan, look at me.”
He forced them open.
Across the room, Ortiz moved slowly toward Rebecca.
Andrew noticed.
“Stop.”
Ortiz froze.
He pushed the glass harder against Daniel’s throat.
A line of blood appeared.
“Registry. Now.”
Lillian held the drive in her hand.
“You don’t want this exposed because your father’s name is on every page.”
“My father is dead.”
“And you built your career from his crimes.”
“I became the best surgeon in New York.”
“You became a man who hurts women because power is the only thing that makes you feel alive.”
Andrew’s face twisted.
For the first time, I saw him without charm.
Without control.
Without the perfect posture and careful smile.
He looked small.
“You think she loved you?” Lillian asked. “She flinched every time you touched her.”
“Be quiet.”
“She loved someone else while sleeping beside you.”
Andrew looked toward Ethan.
The movement was slight.
But Daniel used it.
He slammed his heel down on Andrew’s foot and drove his head backward.
The glass fell.
Ortiz fired.
The bullet struck Andrew’s shoulder.
He collapsed behind the laboratory door.
Daniel ran toward us.
“We need to move.”
“Ethan can’t walk.”
Daniel checked the wound.
“The bullet may have damaged the upper lung.”
“I’m fine,” Ethan said weakly.
“No,” Daniel replied. “You’re rich. That’s not the same thing.”
Ethan almost laughed.
Together, Daniel and I lifted him.
Ortiz freed Rebecca.
Lillian stood by the burning hallway.
“There’s an emergency exit through the surgical wing.”
“You’re coming with us,” I said.
She shook her head.
“The registry must be uploaded before the building systems fail.”
“Give it to Ethan.”
“No network is safe.”
“Then bring it outside.”
“I can transmit it from the original trial server.”
Daniel looked at the flames.
“That server is in the west wing.”
“Yes.”
“The west wing exploded.”
“Part of it.”
I understood immediately.
“You’re planning to die here.”
Lillian didn’t answer.
I lowered Ethan carefully against the wall.
Then I walked toward her.
“Ava,” Daniel warned.
I ignored him.
My mother looked older than she had in the photographs.
Not because of the gray hair.
Because of the exhaustion in her eyes.
“You think dying makes this right?” I asked.
“No.”
“You think it proves you loved me?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I don’t know how to live after what I became.”
The answer broke something inside me.
For years, I had believed survival meant enduring.
Staying quiet.
Waiting for danger to pass.
Now I saw the same belief inside her.
Only she had turned survival into revenge.
“You learn,” I said.
She stared at me.
“You wake up the next day and learn again. You tell the truth. You face what you did. You let people hate you if they need to.”
“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“This isn’t about forgiveness.”
“Then what is it about?”
“Stopping.”
The ceiling cracked above us.
Daniel shouted, “We have less than two minutes!”
I held out my hand.
“Choose me.”
Tears rolled down Lillian’s face.
She gave me the drive.
Then the laboratory door opened behind her.
Andrew struck her with a metal pipe.
She fell.
He grabbed the drive from my hand and ran into the smoke.
I dropped beside my mother.
She was conscious but dazed.
“Go,” she whispered.
“No.”
“The server room.”
Daniel lifted her.
Ortiz and Rebecca took Ethan.
I ran after Andrew.
The west wing burned like the inside of a furnace.
Sprinklers sprayed weak streams of water.
Doors hung from broken hinges.
I followed a trail of blood from Andrew’s shoulder.
It led to an underground server room.
He stood beside a computer terminal, inserting the drive.
“Stop.”
He looked over his shoulder.
Blood covered half his shirt.
“You should have stayed upstairs.”
“What are you doing?”
“Deleting everything.”
“You can’t delete copies.”
“There are no copies.”
“My mother said—”
“Your mother lies as easily as I do.”
The screen displayed the registry.
Hundreds of names appeared.
Doctors.
Executives.
Politicians.
Donors.
At the top was William Vaughn.
Below it was another name.
Jonathan Carter.
Ethan’s father.
Andrew smiled when he saw my expression.
“Now you understand.”
“That doesn’t make Ethan guilty.”
“It makes his empire dirty.”
“Then let the truth come out.”
“And watch him lose everything?”
“If he is the man I believe he is, he’ll accept it.”
Andrew laughed.
“You love him.”
I said nothing.
His smile disappeared.
“You loved him while wearing my ring.”
“I was afraid of you while wearing your ring.”
“I gave you everything.”
“You gave me bruises and called them love.”
“I protected you from people worse than me.”
“You became the worst person in the room.”
His face twisted.
He reached for the delete command.
I grabbed the pipe he had dropped and struck his injured shoulder.
He screamed.
The drive fell.
We both reached for it.
Andrew caught my hair and pulled me backward.
Pain tore through my scalp.
He slammed me against the server rack.
“You were nothing when I found you.”
I drove my elbow into his ribs.
“I survived before you.”
He struck me across the face.
“You needed me.”
“I needed help.”
He wrapped his hand around my throat.
“And who helped you?”
My vision blurred.
Then a voice came from the doorway.
“She helped herself.”
Ethan stood there.
Pale.
Bleeding.
Barely upright.
He held Andrew’s fallen gun.
My heart stopped.
“You should be outside.”
“So should you.”
Andrew released me and turned.
“You won’t shoot.”
Ethan raised the weapon.
“No,” he said. “But she might.”
He slid the gun across the floor toward me.
It stopped near my hand.
Andrew stared at it.
Then at me.
“Pick it up,” Ethan said.
I looked at the gun.
For months, I had imagined Andrew powerless.
I had imagined him begging.
I had imagined hurting him the way he hurt me.
I picked up the weapon.
Andrew’s face changed.
“Ava.”
I aimed at his chest.
He took one step backward.
“You know you’re not a killer.”
“No,” I said. “I’m not.”
Then I fired into the server control panel.
Sparks exploded.
The emergency doors slammed shut around Andrew, trapping him inside the sealed equipment chamber.
“What did you do?” he shouted.
“Fire containment system,” Ethan said.
A transparent barrier descended between us.
Andrew struck it with both fists.
Smoke poured into his side of the chamber.
I removed the registry drive from the terminal.
A ventilation fan activated above him.
The smoke began clearing.
He would live.
He would also be trapped until police arrived.
Andrew stared at me through the barrier.
“You’ll regret this.”
I looked at the man who had controlled my life for two years.
“No.”
For the first time, I believed it.
Ethan swayed.
I caught him.
“You walked through a burning building after being shot.”
“I had a terrible assistant who never taught me time management.”
Tears blurred my vision.
He touched my cheek.
“Ava.”
“Yes?”
“Upload the files.”
Using the emergency satellite terminal, I sent the registry simultaneously to federal investigators, six newspapers, and three international human rights organizations.
The upload reached ninety-eight percent.
Then the screen froze.
CONNECTION TERMINATED.
The building shook again.
Andrew laughed behind the glass.
“You still lose.”
A second message appeared.
REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.
May you like
Someone outside the institute was deleting every uploaded copy.
Then Ethan collapsed in my arms.
