Chapter 17 - Six Floors Up
Benjamin's knees threatened to buckle. Grace had a bruise on her cheek, but she raised her head when she saw him.
“Dad, don't.”
Ethan stepped out from behind a pillar with Victor Sloane at his shoulder. Victor was broad, expressionless, and holding a pistol angled toward the ground.
“Put the folder where I can see it,” Ethan ordered.
Benjamin did. “Let her go.”
“First the deed.”
“Your father would've hated this.”
Ethan's face twisted. “Don't talk about my father.”
“I loved that man. He trusted me with his boy.”
“He trusted you more than he trusted me!” Ethan shouted. “Every time I did anything, he compared me to Benjamin Carter. Ben built the tower. Ben saved the financing. Ben never made a mistake. Do you know what it feels like to grow up inside somebody else's shadow?”
Benjamin heard a wounded child inside the rage, but he also saw the gun and Grace's shaking hands.
“You had a choice,” Benjamin said. “You still do.”
Victor interrupted. “We're not here for family therapy.”
He told Ethan to check the folder. Ethan opened it and pulled out a copy of the deed, notarized and clearly marked CERTIFIED COPY. He went pale.
“Where's the original?”
“In secure custody,” Benjamin said. “Destroying paper won't make you the owner.”
Victor lifted the pistol.
Grace screamed.
At that exact moment, police lights flashed through the concrete openings below. A loudspeaker ordered the men to drop their weapons. Victor wheeled toward the sound. Ethan grabbed Grace's chair, dragging it toward the edge.
“If I go down,” he yelled, “she goes with me!”
Benjamin took one slow step closer.
“Ethan,” he said, as softly as if speaking to the boy on the roof, “look at me.”
May you like
For a heartbeat Ethan did.
Then the chair's rear leg slid over the unfinished concrete edge.
