THE MILLIONAIRE’S STOLEN DAUGHTERS: THE PENTHOUSE OF LIES

“Four.”

The numbers hung in the red-lit air like a death sentence.

I didn't think about Elias. I didn't think about the gun Julian held.

I thought about the service elevator.

If Rachel and Carolina reached the lobby, they would be right above the sub-basement when the explosives detonated. The shockwave would tear the elevator car apart.

“Julian, the elevator!” I screamed.

“Three.”

Julian didn't hesitate. He didn't shoot Elias. He swung the rifle around and fired a single shot directly into the main elevator control panel on the wall.

Sparks showered across the marble. The panel exploded in a shower of wires and broken plastic.

By destroying the local node, Julian triggered the building’s emergency failsafe. The elevators would instantly lock their emergency brakes, stopping the cars mid-shaft to prevent a free-fall during a catastrophic event.

“Two.”

Elias laughed, pulling a secondary detonator from his coat pocket. “Braking the cars just traps them in the shaft! You all die anyway!”

“One.”

I threw myself to the marble floor, covering my head.

The explosion didn't sound like a bomb in a movie. It was a deep, guttural, earth-shattering boom that vibrated through the very steel bones of the building. The floor beneath me violently lurched upward, then dropped an inch.

The massive floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse shattered instantly, raining thousands of shards of glass onto the Persian rugs. The wind from the Manhattan night howled into the room.

The building groaned, a terrifying, metallic shriek of stressed steel.

It didn't collapse. Elias hadn't brought enough explosives to drop a modern skyscraper. But he had brought enough to destroy the sub-basement and cripple the foundation. The building titled slightly, a sickening shift of gravity that sent furniture sliding across the marble floor.

The red emergency lights flickered, then died completely.

We were in total darkness, save for the ambient light of the city bleeding through the shattered windows.

I coughed, waving the thick, acrid concrete dust away from my face.

“Julian?” I gasped, pushing myself up onto my knees.

“I’m here,” Julian grunted from the darkness. He had been thrown against the kitchen island.

I heard a frantic scrambling sound near the private elevator doors.

Elias Thorne.

The doctor had survived the blast and was trying to pry the broken elevator doors open with his bare hands to escape down the shaft.

Answer One: Elias’s plan was a massive cover-up, detonating the server room to destroy the evidence and attempting to trap us in the penthouse. Open Two: Are Rachel and Carolina safe in the shaft? And how do we escape a crippled, burning skyscraper?

Julian pushed himself up, raising the rifle. But it was jammed with concrete dust from the explosion. He tossed it aside and pulled the chef’s knife from the shoulder of the groaning mercenary on the floor.

He marched toward the elevator doors.

“It’s over, Elias,” Julian growled, grabbing the doctor by the collar of his expensive coat and dragging him back into the room.

Elias fought back, clawing at Julian’s face. “You’re nothing! You’re a street rat! I made you!”

Julian didn't yell. He didn't scream. He spun Elias around and slammed him hard against the only remaining pane of reinforced glass.

“You didn't make me,” Julian said, his voice deadly calm. “You sold me. My mother made me.”

Julian raised the heavy handle of the chef’s knife and brought it down hard on Elias’s temple. The doctor slumped to the floor, completely unconscious.

“Mom!” Julian yelled over the howling wind, running back to me. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” I lied, my ribs screaming in pain. “We have to get to the girls. They’re stuck in the service shaft.”

I stumbled toward the kitchen corridor. The service elevator doors were jammed tight.

I pounded on the heavy metal. “Rachel! Carolina!”

Faintly, through the thick steel and the groaning of the building, I heard a voice.

“Mom?!” It was Rachel. Her voice was muffled, panicked, but she was alive.

“We’re here!” I shouted, pressing my face against the door. “Are you hurt?”

“We’re okay! The brakes caught! But smoke is coming up the shaft from the basement!” Rachel yelled back.

My heart seized. The explosion had started a fire in the sub-basement, and the elevator shaft was acting as a chimney. If they stayed in that car, they would suffocate in minutes.

“We have to pry the doors open,” Julian said, wedging his fingers into the seam of the heavy metal doors. He pulled with all his massive strength, his muscles bulging, but the doors wouldn't budge. They were magnetically locked by the failsafe.

Reversal: Julian’s quick thinking had saved them from the blast, but the failsafe had now trapped them in a chimney of toxic smoke.

“It’s no use,” Julian choked, coughing as smoke began to seep through the cracks into the penthouse. “The magnetic lock won't release without power.”

“There has to be a manual release,” I panicked, feeling around the frame.

“There is,” a weak voice croaked from the floor.

I turned.

My brother Daniel was pulling himself across the floor, clutching his side. He had survived the blast, lying near the body of his brother James.

Daniel coughed violently, spitting blood onto the marble.

“When we faked the deaths… James and I did contract work on these high-rises,” Daniel gasped, dragging himself toward the elevator panel. “The magnetic lock has a mechanical shear pin. Inside the wall panel.”

Daniel reached the wall. His hands were shaking, covered in blood. He pulled a small flathead screwdriver from his pocket—a habit he’d had since he was a mechanic twenty years ago.

He jammed the screwdriver into the seam of the control panel cover and pried it off. He reached deep into the wiring cavity, feeling blindly in the dark.

“Daniel, the smoke is getting thicker!” I yelled, pulling my cardigan over my mouth.

“I got it,” Daniel grunted. He twisted his wrist sharply.

A loud, metallic CLACK echoed in the shaft.

The magnetic lock disengaged.

Julian instantly jammed his hands into the door seam and pulled. The heavy metal doors slid open with a screech.

The elevator car was sitting exactly one floor below us.

Thick, black smoke was billowing up around the edges of the car.

I dropped to my stomach, reaching down into the open shaft. Through the escape hatch on the roof of the elevator car, I could see Rachel standing on Evelyn’s shoulders, boosting Carolina up.

“Take my hand!” Julian shouted, reaching down beside me.

Carolina burst through the escape hatch, coughing violently, her face covered in soot. Julian grabbed her by the arms and hauled her up onto the penthouse floor.

Rachel was next. I grabbed her wrists, pulling with a strength I didn't know I possessed, dragging my daughter up into the smoke-filled room.

“Evelyn!” I screamed down the shaft.

Evelyn was standing on the floor of the elevator car, struggling to reach the hatch. The smoke inside the car was blindingly thick now.

“I can’t reach!” Evelyn cried out, her voice fading.

Julian didn't hesitate. He dropped feet-first through the open doors, hanging onto the ledge of the penthouse floor with one hand, dangling his muscular body down into the shaft.

“Grab my legs!” Julian roared.

Evelyn jumped, catching Julian’s ankles.

With a guttural roar of sheer power, Julian pulled himself up, dragging Evelyn with him. He hauled her over the ledge just as a massive fireball erupted at the bottom of the shaft, sending a wave of searing heat up the tunnel.

Julian rolled away from the edge, slamming the heavy doors shut, cutting off the draft.

We collapsed on the floor, gasping for clean air, a tangled mess of coughing, crying survivors.

I looked around the dark, ruined penthouse.

Rachel was holding me tight. Carolina was sobbing into Evelyn’s arms. Julian was sitting against the wall, breathing heavily, the silver pocket watch gleaming on his wrist.

And my brother Daniel was slumped against the wall panel. His eyes were closed. He had a massive piece of shrapnel from the explosion buried in his stomach.

I crawled over to him, tears streaming down my face.

“Daniel,” I whispered, touching his cheek.

He opened his eyes slowly. He looked at me, then at Rachel, Carolina, and Julian.

“I brought them back, Marina,” Daniel whispered, a weak, sad smile on his lips. “I finally brought them back.”

He closed his eyes, and he didn't open them again.

Suddenly, the wail of fire truck sirens pierced the night outside the shattered windows. Floodlights from police helicopters swept through the penthouse, illuminating the dust and the destruction.

We were bruised. We were broken.