Chapter 26: The Countdown
The timer began at thirty, and Chloe’s first thought was not fear, but fury that Mark still believed he owned the ending after losing every other room.
The red numbers glowed inside the open safe, neat, bright, and obscene, already stealing air from the room while Mark’s handwriting waited beside them like a smug witness.
Leo moved before Chloe’s breath returned.
He swept the evidence bags from the floor, pushed the insurance folder against her chest, and scanned the bedroom with violent calm.
The door would not move.
Somewhere beyond the hall, the front lock answered with a heavy mechanical clunk, the sound of a flat turning itself into evidence and punishment at once.
The window was barred outside with decorative ironwork, pretty enough to fool estate agents and strong enough to make a room feel final.
Twenty-six.
Chloe looked at Mark’s card on the floor.
If you are reading this, Chloe, you finally became interesting.
Even now, he wanted applause.
Leo pulled a flat black tool from his coat, not a miracle, only preparation expensive enough to look like one.
He slid it into the doorframe.
Nothing.
Chloe forced herself to stop staring at the timer and start seeing the room.
Mark loved traps that made victims feel small, rushed, and grateful for any door he chose to leave half open.
That meant the exit would be insulting, not impossible, because vanity always hid its weakness beneath theatre.
She studied the wardrobe, the floor panel, the safe, the false skirting, and the thin metal vent above the laundry cupboard.
There, not a door or window, but a mistake left by builders and ignored by rich men.
A narrow service hatch, painted over, hidden behind a framed print of a hunting scene.
Nineteen.
Leo followed her gaze.
His expression changed once, which for Leo was almost panic.
Too small for him, too old to trust, and too useful to ignore.
Large enough for her, if she was willing to crawl through dust while Mark’s last joke counted down behind her.
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” Chloe said, already handing him the folders.
She climbed onto the chair, kicked the picture aside, and dragged at the old hatch until paint cracked beneath her nails.
The timer reached fifteen.
Leo locked his hands around her waist and lifted.
The hatch scraped open with a sound like an old mouth protesting truth.
Dust fell into Chloe’s eyes.
She swallowed a cough and pushed through, shoulders burning, silk tearing, evidence folder clenched beneath her chin, thinking of every woman Mark had mistaken for decorative.
Behind her, Leo shoved the bags after her.
Ten.
Chloe twisted in the crawlspace, reaching back for him.
His hand found hers.
For one second, their fingers locked, and the room below turned red with the timer’s light.
Seven.
Leo pulled himself upward, hit the frame, swore once, and threw the last evidence bag into Chloe’s arms instead of saving his pride, because men like him understood priorities.
Three.
Chloe caught his sleeve and pulled with everything Mark had mistaken for weakness.
The blast was not fire, not the spectacle Mark probably imagined, but a brutal pressure crack that punched the room below and hurled them into the narrow passage.
Silence followed, thick with dust, alarms, and the stunned disbelief of a trap that had failed to collect its intended witness.
Leo was half on top of her, shielding her from falling plaster, his shoulder bleeding through torn cloth, his breath rough but steady against her cheek.
Chloe touched his face before she could stop herself.
His eyes opened. “Still alive.”
“Still arrogant,” she whispered.
Outside, sirens began climbing the street.
Chloe looked at the evidence bag in her hand and saw one final document she had not opened, its corner folded as if fate had marked the page for her.
Her name sat at the top of a life insurance policy, with Mark Alden and Evelyn Vale listed as beneficiaries.
The effective date was three years old, long before Chloe knew she was already worth more dead than married.