Chapter 6 - Smoke in the Night
By eight o'clock that evening, the victory in the boardroom felt like a distant, fragile dream.
I sat in the ground-floor archives of Moretti Tower, surrounded by stacks of original physical deeds and paper manifests from the 1980s. I wanted to make sure there were no secondary legal loopholes Marcone could use to challenge our harbor rights.
The building was nearly empty. The cleaning crew had finished on the upper floors, leaving only the quiet hum of the ventilation system.
Suddenly, the lights flickered once. Twice.
Then, they went completely black.
I froze, my heart dropping straight into my throat. "Hello?"
The quiet hum of the air conditioning shut off, replaced by a high-pitched, mechanical screeching from the emergency alarms. Red strobe lights began pulsing against the concrete walls of the archive room.
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
A thick, acrid smell of burning rubber and chemical smoke drifted through the vents above my head.
I jumped up from my chair, grabbing my phone, my hands shaking so violently I almost dropped it. The screen displayed zero service bars.
I ran to the heavy steel door of the archive room and grabbed the brass handle.
It didn't budge.
I pulled with all my strength, slamming my shoulder against the heavy wood, but the door was locked tight from the outside.
"Help!" I screamed, beating my fists against the door. "Help! Is anyone out there?!"
The smoke was coming faster now, pouring through the ventilation grates in thick, black clouds that stung my eyes and choked my lungs. I dropped to my knees on the carpet, coughing violently, pulling the collar of my cream suit top over my mouth and nose.
Marcone.
He hadn't accepted defeat. He had sent an arson crew to burn the physical paper records—and me along with them.
"Clara..." I sobbed into the dark, tears burning down my soot-stained cheeks as the heat outside the room began to rise rapidly. "Clara..."
BANG!
A sound like thunder shattered the silence outside the door.
BANG! BANG!
The heavy steel lock splintered with a deafening screech of torn iron. The door swung open violently, hitting the concrete wall with a crash.
A tall figure smashed through the thick black smoke, wrapped in a soaked wool coat, his face covered in soot, his eyes wild with a terrifying, frantic panic.
Adriano.
"Maya!" he roared, his voice cracking with an emotion I had never heard in him before. "Maya!"
"Adriano!" I wheezed from the floor.
He dropped to his knees beside me instantly, his powerful arms wrapping around my waist, lifting my limp body effortlessly against his broad chest.
"I've got you," he growled into my hair, his chest heaving violently as he turned and sprinted through the burning hallway. "I've got you, hold on!"
Flames were licking the ceiling of the main corridor. Glass was shattering from the heat, showering the floor in glowing amber shards.
Adriano didn't slow down. He carried me through the roaring inferno like a man possessed, shielding my body with his own, kicking open the heavy emergency exit doors at the end of the hall.
We burst out into the cool, rain-slicked alley behind the building.
Fresh night air hit my lungs, making me gasp and cough violently as Adriano laid me gently down on the backseat of his armored SUV.
Matteo was already there, screaming into a radio while sirens wailed in the distance.
Adriano dropped onto his knees beside the open car door, his hands flying over my face, my shoulders, my arms, checking every inch of me with frantic, desperate speed.
"Are you hit? Are you burned?" he demanded, his voice shaking. "Maya, look at me! Look at my eyes!"
"I'm... I'm okay," I choked out, grabbing his wet, suit-jacket collar with both hands. "I'm okay... Adriano, your hand!"
I looked down. His left forearm was badly scorched through his torn shirt sleeve, the skin red and blistering from where a falling ceiling beam had struck him while he was carrying me out.
He didn't even look at his arm. He didn't care about the pain.
He leaned down, pressing his forehead against mine, his hot, ragged breath mingling with the cold night air, his hands clutching my face as if he were trying to convince himself I was still alive.
"If he had touched you..." Adriano whispered, his voice dark, broken, and thick with a terrifying devotion. "If I had been five seconds later... I would have burned this entire city to the ground."
I looked into his dark hazel eyes, surrounded by smoke, blood, and rain, and realized the final, undeniable truth.
May you like
I wasn't just his lawyer. And he wasn't just my boss.
I belonged to him. And he belonged to me.
