Chapter 16: The Breath of Death
The red emergency lights bathed the nursery in a demonic glow as the reality of Isabella’s final act settled over the room.
Carbon monoxide. Odorless. Tasteless. Invisible. And it was currently being pumped through the penthouse’s central ventilation system, rapidly filling the fifty-story glass cage with a lethal, silent poison.
“Miller!” Marcus roared, his voice slicing through the shock. “The doors! Get the doors open!”
“Sir, the magnetic seals engage automatically during a total grid failure to prevent a breach!” Miller yelled, already sprinting toward the primary suite doors. He slammed his shoulder against the heavy oak, but it felt like hitting a solid brick wall. The biometric panels were dead. The penthouse was designed to be a fortress, and right now, it was performing perfectly. It was a tomb.
Khloe swayed, her hand flying to her forehead. A sudden, dizzying wave of nausea washed over her. “Marcus,” she gasped, her legs buckling.
Marcus caught her before she hit the floor. He lifted her effortlessly, holding her tight against his chest. “I’ve got you. Breathe shallow, Khloe. Into my shirt.”
“Sir!” one of the security guards shouted from the hallway, his flashlight beam cutting through the red-lit darkness. “The vents! You can hear it hissing!”
Marcus looked up. A faint, barely perceptible hiss echoed from the sleek metallic grates in the ceiling. The air was already growing heavy. His own head was beginning to throb, a telltale sign that the oxygen in the room was rapidly being displaced.
“The windows,” Khloe whispered weakly, her face buried in Marcus’s collarbone. “Break the glass.”
“They’re hurricane-grade polycarbonate,” Miller shouted, his chest heaving as he realized the air was thinning. “They’re rated to withstand a bomb blast, Mrs. Thorne! We can’t shoot through them without the bullets ricocheting and hitting us!”
Marcus’s eyes darted around the nursery. The elegant, modern furniture was useless. He needed mass. He needed absolute, condensed weight.
His eyes locked onto the black wooden crib Silas had left in the bedroom. But next to it, resting on a heavy marble pedestal in the hallway, was a solid bronze sculpture Marcus had purchased at an auction in Geneva. It weighed at least two hundred pounds.
“Miller! The statue!” Marcus commanded, gently setting Khloe down against the wall, as close to the floor as possible where the clean air might linger a second longer.
Miller and two guards rushed to the bronze sculpture. Grunting with maximum exertion, the three men lifted it off its pedestal.
“On three!” Marcus yelled, stepping back. “One! Two! Three!”
The men hurled the heavy bronze statue at the floor-to-ceiling window.
Crack.
The sound was deafening. The impact didn't shatter the window, but a massive spiderweb of fractured glass bloomed across the pane.
“Again!” Marcus bellowed, grabbing the statue alongside them. His muscles strained, the veins in his neck bulging. The lack of oxygen was making his vision swim, but pure, primal adrenaline kept him on his feet.
With a combined, agonizing roar, the four men drove the statue into the center of the fracture.
The polycarbonate finally gave way. The window blew outward in a shower of glittering shards, instantly sucking the toxic air out into the freezing night sky and letting a rush of crisp, freezing oxygen pour into the room.
Marcus collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. The security team fell back, coughing violently as the fresh air hit their lungs.
“Khloe!” Marcus scrambled to his wife, pulling her up toward the shattered window. “Breathe, baby. Breathe.”
Khloe took in a deep, shuddering gasp of cold air. Her eyes fluttered open. “The stairs,” she rasped. “We have to get out. The gas is still pumping.”
Marcus looked at the door leading to the emergency stairwell. It was manual, overriding the electronic lockdown. But it was fifty flights of concrete stairs. Khloe was on strict bedrest. If she walked down fifty flights, the physical trauma would undoubtedly trigger a placental abruption.
“You aren't walking,” Marcus said, his voice hard, resolute, and completely stripped of fear.
May you like
He scooped Khloe up into his arms, securing her firmly against his chest. He looked at Miller, who had just kicked open the heavy fire door to the stairwell.
“Light the way, Miller,” Marcus ordered. “We are leaving this godforsaken building.”
