Chapter 10 - The Red Button
Adrian disappeared for eleven weeks.
So did Celeste.
Thomas remained missing.
Federal agents dismantled pieces of Orpheus but could not locate the core server.
Meanwhile my health worsened.
Dialysis exhausted me.
David visited.
Awkwardly.
We could not recover thirty years in conversations.
So we stopped trying.
Sometimes he simply sat beside me.
That was enough.
Rosa remained stubbornly unimpressed by wealth.
When I offered her a better apartment, she refused.
When I offered to pay Mia’s tuition someday, she became angry.
When I offered her a legitimate job coordinating patient-support programs through my foundation, she considered it.
“Salary?”
“Market rate.”
“Benefits?”
“Yes.”
“No weird inheritance?”
“No.”
“Then maybe.”
I smiled.
The trust remained frozen.
Exactly where I wanted it.
Then Samuel discovered a vulnerability.
Celeste’s trustee authority could access Orpheus only if the trust transferred.
She still needed me to finalize a beneficiary.
That was why Adrian would return.
So we created the trap.
Not at a mansion.
Not a federal building.
Rosa’s apartment.
The location Celeste considered weak.
We rebuilt it.
Reinforced doors.
Steel shutters.
Hidden cameras.
Secure interior chamber.
Red emergency lockdown button.
Rosa insisted on one condition.
“Mia stays nowhere near this.”
Agreed.
David wanted to participate.
I refused.
“You’ve lost enough years.”
“So have you.”
“That’s exactly why.”
He smiled faintly.
“Still trying to mother me?”
“Apparently.”
We compromised.
He would remain inside the secure chamber with Agent Hale.
Weeks passed.
Then, at 10:13 p.m., Adrian came.
He kicked the apartment door open.
Three men followed.
Rosa stepped between him and me.
“Give me the trust!” Adrian screamed.
I barely recognized him.
Unshaven.
Desperate.
Terrified.
“Where is Celeste?”
“She’ll kill me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She has Thomas.”
Rosa said:
“Then go to the police.”
Adrian laughed hysterically.
“You think this is about stolen money?”
He lunged toward me.
Rosa blocked him.
Adrian grabbed her arm.
She tore free.
Then slammed her palm onto the red button.
Steel shutters crashed over every window.
The entrance sealed.
Adrian spun.
“What did you do?!”
Lights died.
Red emergency lamps illuminated the room.
One of Adrian’s men reached inside his jacket.
Federal voices thundered through hidden speakers.
“Hands visible!”
The men froze.
Then the secure interior door unlocked.
Adrian turned.
I smiled from my wheelchair.
“You still think this was about the money?”
The door opened.
David stepped out.
Adrian’s face went white.
He stared at the man he had been told was dead his entire life.
I spoke softly.
“Adrian, meet my son.”
But David wasn’t alone.
Behind him stood Thomas Bell.
Alive.
May you like
And Thomas was pointing directly at one of Adrian’s three men.
“That’s Malcolm Voss.”
