Chapter 6 - The Boiler Room
Emma didn't aim for the chest. She just pointed the gun and squeezed the trigger.
The gunshot cracked through the smoke.
The bullet hit the heavy mahogany dresser just inches from Mrs. Voss’s head, shattering the wood. The head housekeeper screamed, dropping the iron poker and diving to the floor, her hands covering her ears.
Emma didn't wait to see if she got back up.
She grabbed the sheet-rope with both hands, bracing her feet against the radiator, and slowly, agonizingly, lowered Thomas Carbone out the window.
The strain on her back was excruciating. Her pregnant belly tightened painfully, but she locked her jaw, feeding the sheets out inch by inch until the tension finally went slack.
She looked over the edge. Thomas was resting safely on the grass patio below, the sheets pooled around him.
Emma didn't climb down after him.
She couldn't.
Alessandro was still trapped in the basement with Julian’s men and a raging fire. He didn't know Thomas was safe. He didn't know Emma was his sister.
Emma tied the remaining sheet to the radiator, ensuring Thomas couldn't be pulled back up.
She grabbed the gun, took a deep breath of clean air from the window, and sprinted for the adjoining bathroom.
She opened the wooden paneling and squeezed herself into the small, metal service elevator. She hit the button for the basement.
The ancient motor groaned, and the cramped car descended slowly into the dark.
It smelled intensely of smoke and sulfur.
When the elevator jerked to a halt, Emma pushed the metal grate open.
The basement was a chaotic nightmare. Thick grey smoke billowed from the far end of the corridor, where the massive iron doors of the boiler room had been blown off their hinges. Alarms blared deafeningly.
"Check the vault!" a voice shouted through the haze.
Emma crept out of the elevator, keeping low to the ground to breathe. She clutched the gun tightly, her heart hammering.
Through the smoke, she saw three armed men trying to pry open a heavy steel vault door set into the concrete wall.
Standing behind them, perfectly calm despite the chaos, was Julian Carbone.
"The explosion damaged the locking mechanism!" one of the men yelled over the alarms. "We can't get it open!"
"Blow it again," Julian ordered coldly. "Alessandro is dead in the boiler room. The confession is all that matters now. Get the safe open."
Emma’s blood turned to ice.
Alessandro is dead.
She looked down the dark corridor toward the ruined boiler room. Flames licked the concrete walls, casting a hellish orange glow.
Julian hadn't just trapped Alessandro; he had blown the room to kill him.
Tears stung Emma’s eyes, but she forced them back. She couldn't cry. Not yet.
Suddenly, a heavy, metallic clang echoed from the boiler room.
Julian’s men stopped prying at the safe. They raised their rifles, aiming down the smoky corridor.
From the flames and the smoke, a figure emerged.
It was Alessandro.
His suit jacket was gone. His white shirt was charred and soaked with blood from a deep gash on his forehead. But his dark eyes were blazing with a terrifying, absolute fury.
In his right hand, he held a heavy steel pipe wrenched from the ruined boiler.
"Julian," Alessandro roared, his voice cutting through the alarms like thunder.
Julian stepped back, his composed mask finally shattering. "Shoot him!" he screamed at his men.
But before the guards could fire, Emma stepped out from behind a concrete pillar.
She raised the gun and fired two shots into the ceiling.
The deafening blasts in the concrete basement caused the guards to instinctively flinch and duck.
It was the distraction Alessandro needed.
He lunged forward with terrifying speed. He swung the steel pipe, shattering the nearest guard’s rifle in half and knocking the man unconscious with a brutal backhand swing.
The second guard panicked, raising his weapon, but Alessandro was already inside his guard, driving the steel pipe into the man's ribs.
Julian didn't wait to help his men. The coward turned and sprinted down the corridor toward the underground parking garage.
Alessandro dropped the pipe and grabbed a discarded rifle from the floor, turning to pursue his uncle.
"Alessandro!" Emma screamed over the alarms.
He spun around, the rifle raised, stopping just in time when he saw her.
"Emma?" Alessandro gasped, lowering the weapon. "What are you doing down here? Where is my father?"
"He's safe!" Emma yelled, coughing from the smoke. "I lowered him out the window! He's on the patio!"
The sheer, overwhelming relief that washed over Alessandro's bloody face was profound. He looked at Emma, realizing the pregnant maid had just saved his father's life and distracted an armed death squad for him.
"The safe," Alessandro coughed, pointing to the steel vault door Julian’s men had been trying to open. "Julian blew the boiler room to kill me because I found the key."
He held up a heavy brass key, covered in soot.
"Open it," Emma urged. "Before the fire reaches us."
Alessandro slid the key into the damaged lock. With a horrible grinding sound, the heavy steel door swung open.
Inside the small vault were stacks of cash, gold bars, and a single, heavy black ledger.
Alessandro grabbed the ledger and flipped it open.
"This isn't my father's confession," Alessandro said, his brow furrowing in confusion. "These are Julian's private accounts. He's been embezzling from the family for years."
Emma stepped closer. "Then where is the proof about your mother?"
"I don't know," Alessandro said, frustrated.
Emma remembered the silver locket she had found under the floorboards. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the velvet pouch.
"Your father had this hidden in his room," Emma said, handing it to Alessandro. "Along with something else."
Alessandro opened the pouch. He stared at the silver locket, his eyes widening.
"This was my mother's," Alessandro whispered. He popped the clasp open.
He saw the photograph. But as he looked closely at the delicate silver backing behind the picture, he noticed a tiny, engraved set of numbers.
34-12-88.
"It's a combination," Alessandro realized. "Not to this safe. To the master vault in Manhattan."
He looked at Emma, realizing the profound depth of his father's planning. Thomas hadn't kept the proof in the house where Julian could find it. He had hidden the combination inside the locket, trusting that one day, his son would find it.
But as Alessandro closed the locket, he noticed the folded paper Emma was still holding in her other hand.
"What is that?" he asked.
Emma’s breath caught. The smoke was thickening, the heat becoming unbearable, but the weight of the paper in her hand felt heavier than the collapsing mansion.
May you like
She slowly handed the birth certificate to Alessandro.
"I think," Emma whispered, tears finally falling, "it’s the reason your father fought so hard to stay alive."
