Chapter 4 - THE EMPTY ROOM
Cain Tower stood in Midtown like a black glass blade.
The company occupied the top twenty floors, but Tristan’s private office was at the very top, behind three security checkpoints and a private elevator that recognized only his palm.
By the time we arrived, every employee had been evacuated.
The building felt abandoned.
Our footsteps echoed through the marble lobby.
I had worked there for three weeks, but I had never seen the tower empty. Usually, hundreds of people moved through the building carrying laptops, coffee, and expensive secrets.
Now, every desk was dark.
Every elevator was frozen.
Every camera watched us.
Tristan led me to the private elevator.
“Once we go up, the doors will lock behind us.”
“That sounds safe.”
“It is.”
“You say that about everything right before it becomes dangerous.”
A faint smile touched his mouth.
“You’re learning quickly.”
The elevator rose without making a sound.
I stood beside him, still wearing a borrowed coat over my torn dress. He had given me clean clothes from a private wardrobe at the hotel, but I hadn’t had time to change properly. The situation was too absurd to process.
I had started the day as an assistant worried about rent and hospital bills.
Now I was being escorted into a billionaire’s locked office while armed men searched the building for a killer.
When the elevator doors opened, Marcus and two guards moved ahead.
Nothing looked disturbed.
Tristan’s office was enormous, with dark wood walls, a glass desk, and a panoramic view of Manhattan. A painting of a stormy ocean hung behind the desk.
I had always thought the room looked cold.
Tonight, it looked like a crime scene waiting to be discovered.
“Where was the loose panel?” Tristan asked.
I walked toward the bookshelves.
“Behind the third row.”
He moved beside me.
I pointed to a wooden panel hidden between two shelves. There was no visible handle.
Tristan pressed his palm against the wall.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
A soft click sounded.
The panel opened inward.
A narrow compartment appeared.
It was empty.
My stomach dropped.
“Someone got here first,” Marcus said.
Tristan reached inside and examined the edges.
“There’s dust on the lower shelf but not the upper one.”
“Meaning?”
“The compartment was opened recently.”
I looked into the darkness.
“I told you it existed.”
“No one said you were lying.”
“Your face said it.”
Tristan turned toward me.
“Your face is easier to read.”
Before I could answer, the lights went out.
A gunshot cracked through the office.
The guard beside me fell.
Tristan grabbed my waist and pulled me behind the desk.
Marcus fired toward the far wall.
A figure ran through the office doorway.
Tristan pursued him.
I crouched behind the desk, heart pounding. The fallen guard groaned. Blood spread across his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” I whispered.
“Bulletproof vest,” he gasped.
The gunfire stopped.
Tristan returned seconds later, empty-handed.
“He escaped through the service corridor.”
Marcus looked toward the wounded guard.
“How did he enter?”
The security chief checked his radio.
“No breach reported.”
Tristan looked at the cameras.
“Then he was already inside.”
The words settled over the room.
Someone had been hiding in Cain Tower.
Someone had waited for us.
Tristan walked toward his desk. His eyes moved over the room.
“Check every exit,” he ordered. “No one leaves the building.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Mr. Cain, if the shooter is still inside, we should move you to the safe floor.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“You are the target.”
“No. Emma is.”
I looked at him.
He hadn’t said my name with anger.
He had said it like a fact he would personally defend.
Marcus gave orders through his radio.
I walked slowly around the office.
The painting behind Tristan’s desk caught my attention. It showed a dark sea beneath a red sky. The waves were violent, but one small boat floated near the horizon.
“Who painted this?” I asked.
“My father.”
“Was he an artist?”
“No. He hated art.”
“Then why paint it?”
“Because he wanted to remind himself that every storm ended somewhere.”
I touched the frame.
It shifted slightly.
Tristan noticed.
“Move.”
He removed the painting from the wall.
Behind it was another compartment.
This one had not been touched.
Inside sat a silver box.
Tristan opened it.
There was a handwritten note, a flash drive, and a photograph.
He picked up the photograph first.
His face changed.
I leaned closer.
The picture showed two men standing outside a construction site. One was younger Tristan, perhaps twenty years old. The other was his father, Alexander Cain.
Beside them stood my father.
I recognized him immediately.
Daniel Hart had died when I was eleven.
My mother had always told me he had been killed in an industrial accident at a Cain Global construction facility.
I stared at the photograph.
“Why is my father there?”
Tristan looked at me.
“Your father was one of our chief engineers.”
“You knew him?”
“I was seventeen when he died. I remember him.”
“My mother said he was only a contractor.”
“He wasn’t.”
I took the photograph from Tristan’s hand.
On the back, someone had written:
THE FIRST BETRAYAL BEGAN HERE.
My fingers trembled.
“What does that mean?”
Tristan opened the handwritten note.
His father’s signature appeared at the bottom.
“Tristan,” he read silently.
Then he handed it to me.
The note contained only one sentence:
If anything happens to me, trust the woman who refuses to drink.
I looked up.
“I don’t understand.”
Tristan’s expression was unreadable.
“Neither do I.”
The flash drive was labeled with a date.
June 18, twelve years earlier.
The date of Alexander Cain’s death.
Marcus entered the office, his face tense.
“We searched the service corridors. Nobody is inside.”
Tristan held up the drive.
“Find a secure computer.”
Marcus stared at it.
“Where did that come from?”
“Behind the painting.”
The security chief looked at me.
For the first time, his face revealed fear.
Not surprise.
Fear.
The office phone rang.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Tristan walked to the desk and answered.
“Who is this?”
A distorted voice replied.
“Your father left you a beautiful little puzzle.”
Tristan’s grip tightened.
“What do you want?”
“The girl.”
“You’ll never get her.”
“She already belongs to us.”
I felt cold spread through my body.
The voice continued.
“Ask her mother what happened the night Daniel Hart died.”
Tristan looked at me.
The call ended.
May you like
My mother had never told me the truth about my father’s death.
And now someone was willing to kill us both to keep it buried.
