Chapter 5 - Gabriel’s Emergency ReleaseThirty seconds remained.
Sofia dropped beside the chamber.
Her injured fingers searched beneath the bed frame until they found a recessed metal plate shaped like a falcon’s wing.
The wedding ring fit into its center.
She twisted it.
Nothing happened.
Daniel examined the symbol.
“It requires two keys.”
“The recorder?”
“Try it.”
Sofia pressed the recorder against the second groove.
The chamber lights went dark.
The countdown froze at twelve seconds.
Then every lock in Suite 2901 released simultaneously.
Celia stumbled through the opening.
Sofia caught her mother with one arm despite the pain in her shoulder.
For a moment, neither woman spoke.
Celia touched her daughter’s face as though confirming she was not another manufactured image.
“You look like Gabriel.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“I spent half my life blaming him for not saving you.”
“He tried.”
“He lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“Was it necessary?”
Celia’s expression filled with sadness.
“Necessary lies still injure the people they claim to protect.”
Daniel looked away.
The sentence belonged to him too.
A security alarm sounded beyond the corridor.
Lucille’s private officers had entered the hidden suite.
Daniel opened a maintenance hatch behind the medical cabinets.
“Move.”
They entered a narrow passage that led toward the twenty-ninth-floor service elevator.
Celia struggled after years of medication and confinement. Sofia supported her while Daniel guarded the rear.
Gunfire struck the metal wall behind them.
The officers were no longer trying to recover the recorder peacefully.
At the elevator junction, Daniel accessed a surveillance feed.
A black armored vehicle had stopped outside the tower. Federal agents waited across the street, but corrupt police units blocked their entrance, citing an active hostage situation.
Lucille controlled the public story.
Adrian was being presented as the victim.
Sofia was described as an unstable spouse who attacked her husband and disappeared into restricted building areas.
Celia laughed bitterly.
“She used the same diagnosis on me.”
A new video appeared on the tablet.
A girl sat inside a black sedan parked in the underground garage.
She looked approximately seven years old.
Her dark hair was pulled into a neat braid. A bronze falcon pendant rested against her white coat.
Ava.
Sofia touched the screen.
Her daughter stared toward the garage camera as if she could feel someone watching.
Lucille’s voice came through the vehicle’s speaker.
“Your mother is dangerous. She may try to take you.”
Ava answered quietly.
“Which mother?”
Sofia’s breath caught.
Celia looked at her.
“They raised her with another woman.”
The driver opened the sedan door.
Ava stepped out beside a tall blonde woman named Miriam Cole, director of a private Manhattan academy funded by Voss Meridian.
Miriam held Ava’s hand.
The child did not resist.
To Ava, Miriam was likely the only mother she remembered.
Sofia felt hope and grief arrive together.
Daniel traced the garage route.
“They’re moving her to the east service exit.”
“We stop them.”
“You can barely walk.”
“She is my daughter.”
“She doesn’t know you.”
“That is why Lucille believes I’ll hesitate.”
Daniel contacted the federal team through an encrypted channel. The commander promised to intercept the vehicle if they could provide visual confirmation and prevent Lucille’s officers from using Ava as a shield.
They reached the service elevator.
The doors opened.
Adrian stood inside.
Blood covered one side of his face. He held a gun with both hands.
Behind him, Lucille’s security chief pressed another weapon against his back.
Adrian looked at Sofia.
“My mother says you have the recorder.”
“Your mother stole our daughter.”
His eyes shifted.
“She told me Ava died.”
“You signed the transfer.”
“I signed blank medical forms.”
“You signed away my body without reading.”
“I was afraid.”
“Of losing me?”
“Of losing the tower.”
The honesty made him appear smaller.
The security chief ordered Sofia to drop the recorder.
Instead, Adrian turned suddenly and fired backward.
The bullet struck the chief’s shoulder.
Daniel pulled Sofia and Celia behind the elevator wall as more shots erupted.
Adrian fell against the controls.
The elevator began descending.
He looked at Sofia through the narrowing doors.
“Lucille is taking Ava to the first building your father designed.”
“Where?”
Adrian’s voice weakened.
“The Marlowe Children’s Institute.”
The doors closed before he could say more.
Celia gripped Sofia’s wrist.
May you like
“That institute burned down the same night Gabriel died.”
👉 Ava was being moved to the building where Gabriel’s murder began—and Adrian’s last warning suggested the fire had concealed something far larger than his death.
