Chapter 13 - THREE MINUTESReyes tried the door.

Locked.

Ethan searched the walls.

"There's got to be another exit."

Smoke thickened.

Claire looked around frantically.

"The old furnace room."

"Where?"

She pointed.

"Behind the shelves."

We moved together.

Ethan shoved the cabinet aside.

A narrow door appeared.

Locked.

Reyes kicked it.

Nothing.

I looked at the timer.

Two minutes.

I remembered the server room.

Fire suppression systems.

Backup doors.

Maybe the old house had similar mechanisms.

I searched the wall.

Found a metal lever.

Pulled it.

Nothing.

Then another.

A section of ceiling opened.

Fresh air rushed in.

"Go!"

Ethan pushed Claire through first.

Then me.

Reyes followed.

The tunnel led outside the house.

We emerged behind the property.

Sirens were already approaching.

Someone had called the fire department.

But when we looked back, flames were spreading through the old house.

The evidence was burning.

Again.

History repeating itself.

I stared at the fire.

"He's trying to erase everything."

Claire stood beside me.

"I know."

I looked at her.

"Why did you really stay?"

She didn't understand.

"With me."

"Why?"

She stared at the flames.

"At first, because I needed access."

"And later?"

She swallowed.

"Because I loved you."

I felt nothing.

Or maybe too much.

"You hurt my son."

"I know."

"You lied to me every day."

"I know."

"You almost destroyed my life."

Tears filled her eyes.

"I know."

I turned away.

Reyes approached.

"We found something."

He held a small evidence bag.

A memory card.

"One of the cameras survived."

It contained a single video.

My father's face appeared.

He was sitting in an office.

Talking directly to the camera.

"I always wondered how much a man would sacrifice to protect his family."

He smiled.

"Now I know."

Then he said a name.

Not mine.

Not Ethan's.

Not Claire's.

Noah's.

"I built everything around the boy."

The recording continued.

"The trust is not merely money."

Reyes leaned closer.

My father explained that the trust contained ownership rights to a group of properties and companies.

Whoever controlled Noah's legal interests could eventually control them.

"That's why the child mattered."

I felt sick.

He hadn't been trying to steal cash.

He had been trying to control an empire.

Then my father said:

"Huy was always the obstacle."

A second video appeared.

Me.

Sleeping.

Filmed inside our bedroom.

Then another.

Me arguing.

Another.

Me drinking.

Another.

Clips had been edited together.

Made to tell a story.

The story of an unstable husband.

My father had been collecting footage for years.

Claire had helped.

But then came the final recording.

A file labeled:

CONTINGENCY.

My father appeared again.

"If Claire fails, the boy becomes the center of the case."

He leaned toward the camera.

"And if that fails..."

The screen went black.

Then a sentence appeared.

REMOVE HUY.

I looked at Reyes.

"Where is he?"

We hadn't known my father's location.

Until now.

The GPS metadata on the video gave us a location.

A private airfield.

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He was preparing to leave the country.

And the flight was scheduled for that night.