Chapter 10 - The Attorney Behind the Fire Door
I ran toward the stairs.
Ryan caught my arm.
“Where are you going?”
“To open the engine room.”
“You cannot.”
“Helen is inside.”
“So is Leonard.”
“And Daniel was inside. You were willing to burn all of them.”
His fingers tightened.
“You do not understand what Helen has done.”
I pulled free.
“Then explain while we move.”
Smoke rolled from the lower passage.
Daniel followed me.
Vanessa remained beside Emily, torn between escape and curiosity.
Ryan came after us with the remote.
The engine-room door had switched to fire containment mode. A red indicator glowed above the handle.
Daniel opened a wall panel.
“Manual release is on the other side.”
“Can you bypass it?”
“Not from here.”
Leonard struck the door weakly.
“Clara.”
Helen coughed somewhere behind him.
I pressed my palm to the glass.
“Move away from the entrance.”
Daniel pulled a short emergency ax from the wall.
Ryan raised the remote.
“If you break the door, the fire reaches the passage.”
“If we leave them, they die.”
“Leonard tried to kill you.”
“Helen did not.”
Ryan’s expression twisted.
“Helen spent twelve years hiding the truth about our fathers.”
“That does not make her disposable.”
“It should.”
I looked at the man I had married.
“You think everyone becomes disposable once they stop serving you.”
“That is how power works.”
“No. That is how fear works.”
Daniel swung the ax into the access panel beside the door.
Metal buckled.
The yacht rolled, throwing him against the wall. He recovered and struck again.
The panel broke open.
Wires sparked.
“Which one?” I asked.
“Blue pair with the white stripe.”
Ryan lunged toward him.
I stepped in the way.
He stopped before colliding with my belly.
The hesitation was small but real.
“You still care whether you hurt the baby,” I said.
His face closed.
“I care what the baby inherits.”
Daniel cut the wires.
The lock disengaged.
We pulled the door open.
Heat and smoke rushed out.
Leonard crawled through first, coughing violently.
Behind him, Helen Avery emerged with one arm wrapped around her chest.
Her silver hair was blackened with soot. She wore a dark waterproof jacket over a business suit.
I caught her before she fell.
“You were receiving the recording?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who was?”
“I routed it.”
“To whom?”
“A federal escrow server.”
Ryan laughed from the hallway.
“There is no such thing.”
Helen looked at him.
“There is when the evidence concerns maritime attempted murder, trust fraud, and the bombing of a private aircraft.”
Ryan went still.
Leonard pushed himself upright against the wall.
“You said the server was destroyed.”
“I said what you needed to hear.”
She looked at me.
“Your mother built the protocol after your father’s plane crashed.”
“Why did it activate tonight?”
“The necklace required two triggers. Physical submersion and Ryan’s verbal threat.”
I stared at him.
My mother had prepared for the exact possibility of someone trying to kill me near water.
“How could she know?”
Helen’s face tightened.
“Because the same method was used on another Mercer heir.”
Leonard lowered his eyes.
“Who?” I asked.
No one answered.
Smoke poured from the engine room ceiling.
Daniel grabbed a fire extinguisher and began suppressing the flames near the auxiliary line.
Helen took my hand.
“We need to reach Locker Three.”
“What is in the red envelope?”
“Your mother’s full statement. The original trust amendment. And a passenger manifest from your father’s final flight.”
“Ryan said his father died with mine.”
“He was listed on the manifest.”
“Listed?”
Helen looked at Ryan.
“Michael Hale never boarded the plane.”
Ryan’s face emptied.
“You are lying.”
“I watched him leave the hangar.”
“Where is he?”
“I do not know.”
Ryan grabbed Helen by the shoulders.
“You let me believe he was dead.”
She winced.
I struck his wrist away.
“Do not touch her.”
He stared at me, breathing hard.
Helen continued.
“Michael called your mother thirty minutes before takeoff. He warned her Leonard had changed the flight plan.”
Leonard shook his head.
“No.”
“She recorded the call.”
“Where?” Ryan demanded.
“In Locker Three.”
The yacht’s engines slowed.
Daniel looked toward the control display.
“We’re approaching the marina.”
Through a porthole, I saw the distant coastline.
But we were not heading toward a public dock.
Ryan had redirected us toward an abandoned industrial pier beyond the marina lights.
Three black vehicles waited there.
Leonard saw them too.
“You called them.”
Ryan shook his head.
“I did not.”
Helen gripped my hand.
“Those are not police.”
“Who are they?”
“The investors Leonard stole from.”
Leonard’s confidence finally broke.
“They found us.”
A laser point appeared on Ryan’s white shirt.
Then another settled on Leonard’s chest.
A voice boomed from the pier through a loudspeaker.
May you like
“Bring Clara Mercer and the red envelope to the bow.”
📖 Find out who is waiting at the abandoned pier—and why they want Clara alive but Leonard and Ryan dead in CHAPTER 11. 👇
