Chapter 7 - THE ASHES OF AN EMPIRE
“Emma, what did he write?” Luca’s voice was calm, but the tension in the small, airtight vault was suffocating.
He took a step toward me.
I backed up until my spine hit the cold steel wall. I gripped the letter so tightly the old paper crinkled in my hands.
I looked at the towering filing cabinet in the center of the room. A billion dollars in untraceable bearer bonds, property deeds, and offshore accounts. The wealth of an entire criminal empire, hidden by my father.
“He…” I stammered, my heart racing. “He wrote that we can’t give the money to the Bellinis.”
Luca frowned. “I know that. But how do we get out of here?”
My father let out a desperate, garbled sound from his wheelchair. He banged his good left hand against the armrest, staring fiercely at the filing cabinet.
He was urging me to do it.
Burn it.
“Luca,” I said, my voice trembling. “My dad built a fail-safe into this vault. Under the bottom drawer.”
Luca’s eyes lit with hope. He quickly knelt on the floor and pulled the heavy bottom drawer of the cabinet out. He reached underneath.
I heard a sharp click.
“I feel a lever,” Luca said, looking up at me. “Does it override the door?”
I closed my eyes. A tear slipped down my cheek.
“No,” I whispered. “It’s an incinerator.”
Luca froze.
The silence in the vault was heavier than the steel door locking us in.
“An incinerator,” Luca repeated slowly.
He looked at the thousands of documents inside the cabinet.
“Emma, if I pull this lever, it destroys everything. The entire Moretti fortune. My father’s legacy.”
“It’s blood money, Luca!” I pleaded, stepping forward. “My father wrote that if the Bellinis trap us, we have to burn it. Without this money, Dominic can’t pay off his cartel debts. The cartel will destroy the Bellini family for us. It’s the only way to end the war without shedding more blood.”
Luca stood up slowly.
He looked at me, his dark eyes entirely unreadable.
“You want me to burn a billion dollars?”
“I want to save our lives!” I cried. “When Dominic gets here, he’s going to force me to transfer the funds and then kill us anyway. If the money is gone, we have leverage. We can tell them the cartel is coming for them.”
Luca stared at the open drawer.
He had spent his entire life being groomed to inherit this wealth, to lead the syndicate, to protect his family’s power.
He looked at my father, the broken man who had sacrificed his mind and body to keep this secret.
Then, Luca looked at me.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t argue.
He reached down, grabbed the red lever beneath the cabinet, and yanked it hard.
A deep, mechanical rumble shook the floor of the vault.
From the vents in the ceiling, a chemical foam began to spray directly into the filing cabinet. Within seconds, a brilliant, terrifying flash of intense heat erupted inside the metal drawers.
It wasn't a traditional fire. It was a chemical burn, designed to vaporize paper in an instant without consuming the oxygen in the room.
I shielded my eyes from the blinding white light.
Through the glass window of the vault door, I saw Elena’s face contort in absolute horror. She realized what we were doing. She pounded her fists against the thick glass, screaming something we couldn't hear.
In less than thirty seconds, the fire died out.
A thick cloud of white smoke vented out through the ceiling extractors.
Luca pulled out a drawer.
It was filled with nothing but fine, gray ash.
A billion dollars. Gone.
Luca leaned heavily against the cabinet, wiping sweat from his forehead. He looked at me, a strange, breathless smile touching his lips.
“Well,” Luca panted. “I guess I’m broke.”
I let out a wet laugh, wiping my tears. “I can probably get you a job scrubbing floors. I have connections.”
For a brief second, in that steel tomb, it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted.
But the relief didn’t last.
Outside the vault window, the corridor lights suddenly flickered.
Elena backed away from the glass, raising her gun.
Four massive men in tactical gear stepped into the hallway, led by Dominic Bellini.
His shoulder was heavily bandaged from where Luca had shot him, and his face was twisted in pure, murderous rage.
Dominic walked up to the glass. He looked past Luca and saw the smoking filing cabinet.
He realized the money was gone.
The veins in Dominic’s neck bulged. He screamed in fury, slamming his heavy fists against the reinforced glass.
Then, Dominic turned to Elena.
He didn’t say a word. He just raised his pistol and shot the eighty-year-old cook in the chest.
Elena gasped, her eyes wide with shock, and collapsed onto the cold floor.
Dominic turned back to the glass window.
He pointed to the electronic keypad on the wall.
He pressed a red button.
Inside the vault, the ventilation fans abruptly whined and powered down.
The air circulation stopped.
Dominic smiled a sickeningly cruel smile, tapped his watch, and mouthed three words through the glass.
Thirty minutes left.
He turned and walked away, leaving his men to guard the door.
May you like
They were going to let us suffocate in the dark.
TITLE: THE OXYGEN RUNNING OUT
