Chapter 3 - THE BLACKOUT
Emergency lights should have activated within three seconds.
They did not.
The ballroom disappeared into complete darkness.
Guests screamed.
Glass shattered.
Someone overturned a table near the dance floor.
Marcus shouted orders through his radio.
No answer came.
The estate’s internal communication system had failed.
Emma closed her hand around the flash drive.
A body slammed into her from the side.
She fell beneath the wedding table.
Fingers reached for her wrist.
She kicked blindly.
A man grunted.
Adrian’s voice came from somewhere nearby.
“Emma.”
“I’m under the table.”
A phone flashlight appeared.
Adrian crouched beside her.
Blood ran from a cut near his temple.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Do you still have the drive?”
Emma looked at him.
“Is that the first thing you care about?”
His expression changed.
Before he could answer, a gunshot exploded near the west doors.
Guests screamed again.
Marcus fired toward the ceiling.
“Everybody stay down.”
A dim red light finally activated above the stage.
The ballroom emerged in fragments.
Chairs lay overturned.
Vanessa was gone.
Julian was gone.
One of the guards who had been holding Julian lay unconscious near the elevator corridor.
The second guard had disappeared.
Celeste remained on the floor beside Dr. Grant.
Marcus checked the locked doors.
“The external controls have been cut.”
Adrian looked toward the service hallway.
“There is a passage to the lower kitchen.”
Emma shook her head.
“Vanessa knows that route.”
Adrian stared at her.
“How?”
“She inspected the staff areas yesterday.”
“She said she wanted to make sure the wedding photographs would not show service carts.”
Marcus pulled up the building plan on his phone.
The application would not connect.
Emma pointed toward the wine wall.
“There is a maintenance door behind the center rack.”
Adrian turned.
“You know this estate well.”
“I have worked eighteen events here.”
“You never noticed me.”
The words were not bitter.
They were simply true.
Together, they moved the wine rack.
A narrow steel door appeared.
Marcus tried the handle.
Locked.
Emma took a butter knife from the floor and slid it between the frame and latch.
Adrian watched her.
“Where did you learn that?”
“My father owned a restaurant.”
“The freezer door failed every winter.”
The latch opened.
Marcus entered first.
The passage smelled of dust and electrical insulation.
A trail of white fabric lay across the floor.
Vanessa’s veil.
They followed it toward the lower kitchen.
Halfway down the stairs, they found a security guard sitting against the wall.
His uniform badge identified him as Calvin Shaw.
A dark stain spread across his chest.
Marcus checked for a pulse.
“He is alive.”
Calvin’s eyes opened slightly.
“Julian.”
“What did he do?” Marcus asked.
“He has the bride.”
“No,” Calvin whispered.
“She has him.”
Footsteps echoed below.
Adrian raised the weapon Marcus had given him.
The group entered the lower kitchen.
The room was empty.
A catering refrigerator stood open.
Inside, trays of food had been removed.
A chair occupied the center of the cold storage compartment.
Ropes lay around it.
Someone had been held there before the wedding.
Emma noticed a small diamond earring near the drain.
She recognized it.
It belonged to Adrian’s younger sister, Olivia Cross.
Olivia had been absent from the ceremony.
Vanessa told everyone she was recovering from food poisoning at a private suite upstairs.
Adrian picked up the earring.
His face drained of color.
“Where is my sister?”
A speaker crackled above them.
Julian’s voice filled the kitchen.
“Bring the flash drive to the penthouse.”
May you like
“Come alone.”
“Or Olivia takes the elevator without a car beneath her.”
