Chapter 5 - The Fire That Bought an Empire
Adrian locked the conservatory door himself.
"If you're lying about this," he told Lena, "you're destroying the last decent memory I have of my father."
"I know," she replied. "I've spent nearly thirty years wishing it weren't true."
Preston sat down without being invited. The confident man who could silence a boardroom with a raised eyebrow suddenly looked old.
"We were almost bankrupt," Preston said. "Ash Street was a failing property. We needed repairs we couldn't afford."
"So you disabled the alarms?" Adrian asked.
"No. Tomas was the electrician. He made decisions without permission."
Lena shook her head. "He refused. He wrote it down."
She described the night in fragments. An overloaded circuit. A missing smoke detector. A supervisor told to keep the heat running despite a dangerous fault. Tomas Rivera warning two families before the stairwell filled with smoke. The west wing burned, but the eastern day-care wall survived.
"He got them out," Lena said. "He didn't get out himself."
Adrian remembered a boy with a stuffed bear. He'd thought it was a dream.
"Why would Dad risk people's lives?"
"Because the insurance payout would clear his debts. I never believed he meant for anyone to die. But he knew the danger."
Preston slammed his palm on the table. "You have no proof I planned a fire!"
"I never said you planned one," Lena replied. "I said you chose not to stop one."
Preston stood and faced Adrian. "Afterward, your mother stole from the relief account and ran. I let people think she'd died because you were too young to survive another scandal."
"You told me she was dead," Adrian said. "You watched me cry at a fake grave."
"I was protecting my son."
"You were protecting yourself."
Celia, standing by the door, spoke at last. "We need to stop this. There's a legal process for allegations like these."
"Great," Adrian said. "We'll use it."
His phone buzzed: Ward Development had ordered demolition equipment to Ash Street House for six the next morning.
He turned the screen toward his father. "You scheduled the demolition before I signed anything?"
Preston took one look at the notice and walked out.
May you like
Then Adrian's phone rang again. The caller identified herself as Tessa Moreno, his late wife's closest friend and an attorney.
"Adrian," she said, breathless, "don't let anybody near Nora's storage unit. Someone just tried Nora's old access code."
