Chapter 4 - The Basement Door
"Where did she faint, sweetheart?" Ethan asked gently, keeping his voice incredibly calm so he wouldn't wake the baby strapped to Nora’s back.
"In the dark hallway downstairs," Nora whispered, pointing a trembling finger toward the service elevators. "The mean lady with the red hair told me if I didn't finish the top floor, she was going to call the police and have me and Lucy taken away from Mommy forever."
Ethan’s jaw locked. The "mean lady with the red hair" was Valerie Sterling, his Head of Building Operations. She was a woman who always smiled sweetly in board meetings, boasting about how she had single-handedly cut maintenance costs by thirty percent. Now, Ethan knew exactly how she achieved those numbers.
He stood up, taking Nora’s tiny hand in his. "Take me to her."
They rode the private executive elevator all the way down to the sub-basement, far away from the glowing city views and polished marble. This was the concrete underbelly of the building, a place Ethan hadn't stepped foot in for years.
Nora led him down a cold, flickering corridor lined with heavy steel doors. She stopped in front of a small utility closet marked Chemical Storage.
Ethan reached for the handle, but it was locked from the outside with a heavy padlock.
"She locked her in?" Ethan muttered, his blood turning to absolute ice. Valerie hadn't just threatened a child; she had illegally imprisoned a sick, unconscious woman in a room with toxic fumes.
May you like
Ethan didn't hesitate. He stepped back and drove his heel violently into the heavy door handle, snapping the cheap padlock mechanism in half.
👉 What will Ethan find when he pulls open the heavy steel door?
