Chapter 20: Beneath the Foundation
The hallway ceiling collapsed.
Daniel carried Ethan while Claire and Mara followed him toward the stairs.
Smoke filled the third floor.
Victoria and Caleb disappeared through another corridor.
The main stairwell was blocked.
Claire remembered an old service elevator used to transport supplies.
They reached it, but the power had failed.
Mara found a maintenance ladder behind the shaft.
One by one, they climbed toward the basement.
Another explosion shook the building.
Ethan slipped.
Claire caught his wrist.
For a terrifying second, he hung above the darkness.
Daniel reached down and pulled him onto the platform.
They entered the basement through a broken access panel.
The exit door had been sealed with concrete.
“They planned this,” Mara said.
A faint knocking came from behind the wall.
Daniel grabbed a metal pipe and struck the concrete.
The knocking answered.
Someone was trapped on the other side.
They broke through enough of the wall to see a woman inside a narrow room.
Her hair was tangled.
Her face was bruised.
But Daniel recognized her immediately.
“Lily!”
Ethan pushed toward the opening.
“Mommy!”
Lily began sobbing.
Daniel widened the hole while Claire helped pull her through.
The building shook again.
Lily could barely stand.
“Victoria took the archive,” she said.
“Where?”
“She gave it to Owen.”
A final explosion tore through the upper floors.
The basement wall cracked, revealing an old drainage tunnel.
They escaped moments before the building collapsed.
Outside, news crews were already arriving.
Owen Mercer stood among them.
He wore an expensive dark suit and an expression of practiced concern.
When he saw Lily, his face changed.
Then he looked at Ethan.
May you like
For the first time, father and son stood only twenty feet apart.
Owen whispered, “That boy is mine.”
