The smell of accelerant is sweeter than gasoline. Wrong somehow. It doesn't smell like a gas station.
I stood by the wrought-iron gates of the estate, the cold night air biting at my exposed face, watching my childhood burn. It wasn't chaotic. The fire moved on purpose. It started in the foyer, where Miller's body lay, and curled upward into the library, seeking out the oxygen vents the "cleaning crew" had rigged open.
The men in the white hazmat suits the Janitors moved together, each one knowing where to be. They weren't panicking. They weren't rushing. One of them, the man who had spoken to me through the helmet, walked out of the front door just as the flames licked up the frame. He carried a silver canister in one hand and my father's tablet in the other.
He stopped in front of me, the orange glow of the inferno reflecting in his black visor. He held out the tablet.
"Structure integrity will fail in four minutes," his voice synthesized through the mask, devoid of humanity. "The gas main has been compromised to simulate a catastrophic leak. The explosion will occur in ninety seconds. It will look like a gas leak."
I took the tablet. The screen was warm.
"And the bodies?" I asked. My voice didn't sound like it belonged to me.
"Miller is ash. Your father is ash. The rug is ash." The Janitor tilted his head slightly. "There is no DNA. There is no evidence. There is only a tragic accident involving faulty piping and a grieving family."
He reached into his suit and pulled out a set of car keys. He tossed them to me.
"Black sedan, down the block. Unregistered. Drive to the safe zone. Do not stop for lights. Do not speak to emergency services. We will handle the fire department."
"Who are you?" My mother asked. She was standing behind me, shivering. She wasn't wearing a coat. She was hugging her arms, her eyes fixed on the burning house. Her face was illuminated by the flickering light, making the fine lines of age and terror stand out like cracks in porcelain.
The Janitor didn't look at her. He looked only at me.
"We handle the whole problem," he said.
Then he turned and walked back toward the fire, disappearing into the smoke like a phantom.
"Get in the car," I said to her.
"David, my jewelry... the safe in the bedroom..." She took a step toward the gate.
I grabbed her arm. My grip was hard enough to bruise. I didn't mean to hurt her, but I needed her to understand that the world she lived in the world of jewelry and bedroom safes was gone.
"Everything in there will burn," I said. "If you go back in, you're fuel too."
A low rumble shook the ground beneath our feet. The gas main.
I dragged her toward the darkness of the street, away from the glow. We made it half a block before the explosion hit. It wasn't a Hollywood fireball. It was a concussive thump that punched the air out of my lungs and shattered the windows of the neighboring mansions. The ground jumped. A plume of fire erupted into the sky, tearing through the roof of the penthouse, throwing sparks into the night.
My mother screamed, a short, sharp sound that was swallowed by the roar of the collapse.
I didn't look back. I found the black sedan a nondescript German model with tinted windows and unlocked it.
"Get in," I repeated.
She slid into the passenger seat, weeping silently. I got behind the wheel. The leather was cold. The engine started with a quiet, powerful purr.
I drove.
The city passed in a blur of neon and shadow. I kept to the side streets, avoiding the main avenues where the fire trucks would be screaming toward the smoke pillar rising from the hills.
The silence in the car was suffocating. My mother was staring out the window, her reflection ghosting against the glass. She looked broken. Just hours ago, she had been the mastermind, the woman who poured tea while a headless body bled out on the floor. She had been the one telling me to breathe.
She didn't say anything.
I glanced at the tablet resting on the center console. It was dark, sleeping.
"Where are we going?" she asked finally. Her voice was brittle.
" The St. Regis," I said. "The tablet booked a suite under a shell company."
"The tablet," she spat the word out with sudden venom. She turned to me, her eyes red-rimmed. "You're taking orders from a machine, David. A machine he built. You don't know what it's doing."
"It's saving us," I said, keeping my eyes on the road. "Miller is gone. So is the evidence."
"Free?" She laughed, a high, hysterical sound. "We have nothing. The house is gone. The assets are frozen until the probate clears. We are fugitives in a luxury hotel."
"We aren't fugitives," I corrected her. "We are survivors of a gas leak. And the assets aren't frozen."
I reached for the tablet and tapped the screen. The biometric lock engaged, scanning my face even in the dark car.
INSURANCE PAYOUT APPROVED.
POLICY TYPE: KEY MAN CLAUSE.
AMOUNT: $50,000,000.00.
STATUS: LIQUID.
TRANSFERRED TO OFFSHORE HOLDING.
I turned the screen toward her.
She stared at the number. The zeros glowed blue in the dark cabin.
"Fifty million," she whispered. "The policy... he took it out last month."
"He knew," I said again. "He planned for this."
She pulled back from the screen as if it were radioactive. "Why? If he knew I was going to... if he knew, why didn't he stop me? Why let me kill him?"
That was the question. The question that had been gnawing at the back of my mind since I opened the safe. Marcus Thorne was a man who controlled everything. He controlled stock prices, senators, and the weather in three different markets. Men like that don't just let their wives cut their heads off unless it serves a purpose.
"Maybe he was tired," I said, though I didn't believe it. "Or maybe he needed to die to start something else."
We pulled up to the hotel. It was a monolith of glass and steel, piercing the skyline. I left the car with the valet the Janitor had said it was unregistered, but I knew the tablet would handle the paper trail.
We walked through the lobby. It was empty, save for the night staff who nodded discreetly. We didn't look like rich people having a bad night; we looked like rich people who had survived a tragedy. The soot on my collar, the shock in my mother's eyes it all sold the narrative.
The suite was on the top floor. It was vast, impersonal, and cold. Beige walls, abstract art, floor to ceiling windows overlooking the city that my father used to own.
My mother walked straight to the mini-bar. She opened a small bottle of vodka and drank it straight, wincing as it hit her throat. She didn't offer me any.
"I need to sleep," she said, her back to me. "I need to wake up and find out this was a nightmare."
"Don't turn on the TV," I said. "The news will be covering the fire."
She didn't answer. She walked into the bedroom and closed the door. I heard the lock click.
I was alone.
I sat on the edge of the stiff, designer sofa. My adrenaline was starting to fade, leaving behind a cold, aching exhaustion. I looked at my hands. They were trembling again.
I had killed a man tonight.
I replayed the moment on the stairs. The way Miller had flailed. The way his weight had felt against my hand. The shove. It hadn't felt like murder. It had felt like deletion. Like dragging a file to the trash bin.
I felt sick. I wanted to vomit.
Bzzt.
The tablet on the coffee table lit up.
I stared at it. Part of me wanted to pick it up and throw it through the window. Part of me wanted to smash it until the silicon shattered. This thing was turning me into a monster.
But another part of me—the part that had just watched fifty million dollars hit an offshore account reached out and touched the glass.
PHASE 1: COMPLETE. SURVIVAL: CONFIRMED.
CURRENT ASSETS: $50M.
PHASE 2: THE HUNT.
INITIALIZING...
I frowned. The Hunt?
The screen shifted. A dossier appeared. A photo of a man I didn't recognize. He was older, balding, wearing a suit that cost more than the car I had just driven. He was smiling at a charity gala, holding a glass of champagne.
TARGET: ARTHUR VANCE.
ROLE: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, THORNE INDUSTRIES.
RELATION: "UNCLE ARTHUR."
I knew the name. Uncle Arthur. He wasn't blood, but he had been my father's right hand for thirty years. He came to Christmas dinners. He bought me my first bicycle. He was the one who taught me how to tie a tie when my father was too busy.
CRIME: BETRAYAL.
DETAILS: VANCE PROVIDED THE ACCESS CODES TO YOUR MOTHER.
HE DISABLED THE CAMERAS.
HE SOLD YOUR FATHER OUT.
My breath caught in my throat.
My mother hadn't acted alone. She wasn't smart enough to disable the perimeter security or loop the cameras. She needed someone inside. Someone with clearance.
Arthur.
I read the text again. He sold your father out.
OBJECTIVE: VANCE IS HOLDING A BOARD MEETING AT 9:00 AM TOMORROW.
HE PLANS TO DECLARE MARCUS THORNE MISSING AND ASSUME INTERIM CONTROL.
HE WILL LIQUIDATE THE LEGACY ASSETS.
INSTRUCTION: STOP HIM.
METHOD: PUBLIC HUMILIATION.
PROOF: FILE 11-A (ATTACHED).
I tapped the file. It opened a video.
I watched it.
It was grainy, black-and-white surveillance footage. It showed Arthur Vance in a hotel room not this hotel, a different one. He was sitting across from a man. A man with a scar on his cheek.
They were counting money. Stacks of it. And on the table between them were blueprints. Blueprints of our house.
"The old man won't see it coming," Vance's voice came through the tinny speakers of the tablet. "He thinks his wife is too weak. But give her the knife, and she'll do the work for us."
I paused the video.
The sickness in my stomach vanished. It was replaced by something else. Something hot and solid.
Rage.
Arthur hadn't just helped; he had instigated it. He had played my mother like a fiddle, using her resentment to do his dirty work so he could swoop in and take the company.
My mother was a murderer, yes. But she was also a victim. A pawn.
Arthur was the player.
I looked at the bedroom door where my mother was sleeping. She didn't know. She thought she had won. She didn't know that Arthur was probably waiting for the news of the "gas leak" so he could frame her for it later if he needed to.
I stood up and walked to the window. The city lights sprawled out below me, a grid of electricity and ambition. Somewhere out there, Arthur Vance was sleeping soundly, dreaming of his promotion.
He thought David Thorne was a soft, spoiled kid. A grieving son who would sign whatever papers were put in front of him.
He was wrong.
David Thorne died in the foyer with Miller.
I looked at my reflection in the glass. I looked tired. I looked pale. But my eyes... my eyes looked different. They were colder. Harder.
They looked like my father's eyes.
I picked up the tablet.
ACCEPT MISSION? [YES] / [NO]
I didn't hesitate.
I pressed YES.
MISSION ACCEPTED.
WELCOME TO THE BOARD, MR. CHAIRMAN.
SLEEP WELL.
TOMORROW WE GO TO WAR.
I turned off the lights in the suite. I didn't go to the bedroom. I sat in the chair facing the window, the tablet in my lap, watching the city burn in the distance, waiting for the sun to come up.
The game had just begun.