Daddy, Grandpa’s associate hit the desk with a baseball bat and took the red binder!
The pitch-black darkness was absolute, thick, suffocating. The emergency wall flashes, which should have kicked in, remained stubbornly dead. The only light was the occasional, brief, terrifying flash of lightning outside the panoramic windows, illuminating the swirling, wind-whipped rain.
Panic clawed at me. I couldn’t see anything. I could only hear the roar of the storm and the ragged, shallow breathing of someone nearby.
“Julian?” It was Clara’s voice, small and strained, from what sounded like the reception area. “Julian, where are you? Leo is with me!”
Relief washed over me, brief and fleeting. Leo was safe, at least for now.
Then I heard Kenneth. His voice was shrill, laced with terror. “The security systems are down! All of them! This is a disaster!”
A crashing sound. Kenneth was stumbling around in the dark. I heard furniture scraping, then a desperate, frantic rustling.
“Wait,” Kenneth snarled, his voice closer than I expected. “The boy. Where’s the boy?”
My heart leaped into my throat. He knew. He knew Leo had the ledger.
“He’s not here, Kenneth!” I yelled, trying to disorient him, to buy time.
But I was wrong. Leo wasn’t with Clara. He had slipped away, curious, while Clara was distracted by the security guards’ attempts to override the door. He was in Arthur’s private study, where Clara had left him while she spoke with the building staff.
A small, choked gasp came from the study. Then, a low, guttural moan.
“Leo?” I whispered, straining my ears, my blood turning to ice.
Kenneth was moving, purposefully now, towards the study door. I could hear his heavy footsteps on the thick carpet. “You little sneak! Give me that backpack!”
Suddenly, a silhouette lunged. It was Arthur. He must have been trying to make his way out of the study. He stepped directly between Kenneth and the sound of Leo’s whimper.
“Kenneth, stop!” Arthur’s voice was hoarse, filled with a sudden, desperate fear. “Leave him alone!”
A violent shove. A grunt of pain.
Then, a sickening thud as Arthur collapsed to the floor.
“Grandpa!” Leo cried out, his voice small and terrified.
I heard Arthur gasp for air, a rattling, wheezing sound that tore through the darkness. “My… chest…”
He was clutching his chest. A severe angina attack. The strain, the shock, the terror of the blackout—it had all triggered it. My father was having a heart attack, trapped in the darkness, with the man who was bleeding him dry, while his grandson watched.
Kenneth didn’t care. He was still scrambling in the dark, his hands grabbing. “The backpack! Where is it, you little brat!”
The raw greed in Kenneth’s voice was sickening. My own father was dying on the floor, and this man cared only for the evidence that would expose him.
I fumbled forward, blindly reaching, desperate to get to Arthur. “Kenneth, get away from him! Dad!”
But the darkness was absolute, disorienting. I stumbled, hitting my knee on a heavy coffee table. Arthur’s labored breaths filled the void, each one a desperate struggle.
Kenneth was still scuffling, close to Leo. “Give it to me! Now!”
My father, the man who had built an empire, lay gasping on the cold marble floor. His wealth, his power, his carefully constructed legacy—none of it could save him now. Only air. And us.
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