Chapter 10 - The Unknown Number
The digital screen of the smartphone lit up the dark interior of the executive boardroom as Clara stared down at the incoming text message. The sender ID was completely blank, displaying only a string of encrypted digits. Her thumb hovered over the glass surface before she swiped to open the notification. The message contained a single, chilling photograph and a short line of text.
The photo showed the front gate of the Westport estate—her grandmother’s historic family home—engulfed in thick, rolling billows of black smoke. The text below it read: “You burned our empire, Clara. Now watch yours burn to the ground.”
Clara’s breath hitched in her throat. The silver beaded clutch slipped slightly from her fingers, catching the edge of the mahogany table with a soft metallic clatter.
"Clara? What is it?" Marcus asked, stepping up beside her and catching sight of the pale terror washing over her face. He glanced down at the screen, his own expression hardening into instant tactical alertness. "What did you receive?"
"The Westport estate," Clara whispered, her voice shaking for the first time all evening. "Someone set it on fire. Right now."
Arthur Vance and the remaining board members snapped their heads toward them, a new wave of panic rippling through the room.
"That’s impossible," Arthur stammered, gripping the edge of the table. "The property is heavily secured with private guards and biometric perimeter sensors. No one could breach—"
"Richard’s associates," Marcus interrupted, his tone razor-sharp as he pulled out his own encrypted satellite phone and began punching in emergency codes. "Richard must have activated a dead-man’s switch before the federal marshals cuffed him. He has loyal loyalists still on the payroll."
Clara didn't hesitate. She grabbed her silver beaded clutch, spun around on her heel, and bolted toward the heavy mahogany boardroom doors without another word to the cowering directors.
"Clara, wait! Where are you going?" Marcus called out, chasing after her down the long, dimly lit hallway.
"To my grandmother’s house," Clara yelled back over her shoulder, her royal blue satin dress swirling around her ankles as she sprinted toward the private elevator lobby. "The unedited security master drives are still hidden inside the library wall safe. If those burn, everything Grandma fought and died for turns to ash."
Marcus caught up to her just as the elevator doors slid open, his hand blocking the closing mechanism.
"You can't go down there alone, Clara. It’s an active crime scene, and whoever set that fire is likely still on the grounds waiting for you."
"I am not letting them erase her memory a second time," Clara said, her dark eyes flashing with a fierce, unbreakable determination that left no room for argument.
They stepped into the elevator together, Marcus pressing the subterranean parking garage button while unholstering his concealable sidearm. The metal car descended rapidly through the darkened core of the skyscraper.
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When the doors opened to the subterranean level, a figure stepped out from behind a concrete pillar, blocking their exit with a heavy iron pipe in hand.
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