Chapter 5 - “No.”
“He’s alive.”
Kara pressed a hand against her mouth.
“Oh, my God.”
I watched her reaction carefully.
It was real.
Whatever else she’d done, she hadn’t known the man hiring her was the father she’d helped me bury.
But that didn’t erase her betrayal.
I turned away.
“Take her out.”
Kara began crying harder.
“Olivia, please don’t hate me.”
I closed my eyes.
“I don’t know what I feel about you anymore.”
“Can you ever forgive me?”
I looked at her.
“You don’t get to ask that while the women you helped sell are still locked upstairs.”
She fell silent.
Then slowly, she reached into her purse.
“I have something.”
Dante moved immediately.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Kara froze.
“It’s just a card.”
She withdrew a black electronic access card.
“The coordinator gave it to me.
I’m supposed to use the staff elevators.”
Dante took it.
He examined the markings.
Then looked at Nolan.
“East-wing access.”
I stared at Kara.
She wiped her face.
“I heard them discussing the women.
They said they’d be taken through the service entrance.”
“Which service entrance?”
Nolan asked.
“The north courtyard.”
Dante checked his watch.
“That’s where the transport vehicles are scheduled to collect them.”
Kara looked at me.
“I know I can’t undo what I did.”
“No,” I said.
“You can’t.”
“But I can help them.”
I studied her for a long moment.
Then I nodded.
“Then help them.”
Everything happened quickly after that.
Dante contacted Agent Ortiz.
A federal team was preparing to enter the property through two access points.
The north courtyard was the priority.
The electronic doors to the east wing had to be opened before the guards could move the women elsewhere.
Kara’s access card might help.
Nolan turned to me.
“Dante can escort you to the service exit.
Ortiz will have someone meet you.”
I stared at him.
“You think I’m leaving?”
“It’s the safest option.”
“And Mina?”
“We’ll get her.”
“That’s what people always say when they want somebody to stop asking questions.”
He studied me.
“Olivia, you have every reason to hate me.
You don’t have to prove anything to me tonight.”
“I’m not trying to prove anything to you.”
I looked toward the door.
“I’m trying to make sure another woman gets to go home.”
His expression softened.
Then he nodded.
“All right.
Stay behind us.”
I followed them into the corridor.
For the first time that evening, I wasn’t being dragged.
I was walking because I’d made a decision.
It was a small difference.
But after the auction platform, it felt enormous.
We reached the service staircase.
Kara’s access card opened the first door.
Dante led us upstairs.
The mansion seemed unnaturally quiet.
Somewhere below, music continued playing.
Guests were still drinking champagne.
They had no idea that the evening was about to end.
At the second-floor landing, Dante stopped.
He touched the communication device near his collar.
“Movement ahead.”
Nolan lifted a hand.
We waited.
Footsteps approached.
Two guards appeared at the far end of the hallway.
One carried a radio.
The other reached instinctively toward his holster.
“Mr.
Voss?” the first guard asked.
Nolan stepped forward.
“I want to inspect the holding rooms.”
“Mr.
Wexler didn’t authorize—”
“I didn’t ask what Wexler authorized.”
The guard hesitated.
His radio crackled.
A voice announced something about the north gate.
Then the second guard looked toward me.
Recognition flashed across his face.
“That’s Seventeen.”
He reached for his weapon.
Dante moved.
There was a short, violent struggle.
The first guard slammed into the wall.
The second fell against a table, sending a porcelain vase crashing to the carpet.
Nolan seized his wrist and forced the gun away.
Within seconds, both guards were restrained.
My heart raced.
No one fired a shot.
But I understood how close we had come.
Dante retrieved the access card.
“East wing.
Now.”
We hurried down the corridor.
Three doors stood behind a security panel.
Kara’s card unlocked the first.
Inside, two women were sitting on a narrow sofa.
They looked up in terror.
Nolan kept his voice calm.
“We’re getting you out.”
One woman began crying.
Dante spoke into his radio.
“Two located.
First holding room.”
The second door contained three more women.
One had been trying to pry a window open with a broken piece of furniture.
When we entered, she raised it defensively.
“Please,” I said.
“We’re here to help.”
Her eyes moved from me to Nolan.
Then to the armed guards lying restrained in the corridor.
She lowered the wood.
The third door was locked with a separate security code.
Dante tried the card.
Nothing.
I heard movement inside.
Then a familiar voice.
“Hello?”
“Mina!”
A sharp gasp followed.
“Olivia?”
I pressed my palm against the door.
“It’s me!”
“Please hurry!”
Dante examined the keypad.
“Secondary authorization.”
Nolan looked toward the end of the corridor.
“We don’t have time.”
Dante pulled a small tool from his jacket and began working on the emergency access panel.
I heard footsteps somewhere below.
A door slammed.
Then a male voice shouted.
“Security breach!”
Dante looked up.
“Ortiz needs to move now.”
Nolan spoke into his communication device.
“East wing secured except the final room.
Enter.”
For a moment, there was only static.
Then a woman’s voice answered.
“Federal agents entering the grounds.
Hold your position.”
A distant crash echoed from downstairs.
Someone shouted.
The emergency panel clicked.
Dante opened the door.
Mina stumbled into my arms.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
She held me so tightly that I could barely breathe.
“You came back,” she whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“I remembered your name.”
Then we heard a gunshot.
It came from the lower floor.
One sharp crack.
Then shouting.
Dante pulled us away from the stairwell.
“Stay inside.”
Nolan looked toward the corridor.
“Take the women to the west service stairs.”
Dante began directing the others.
Mina still held my hand.
“You need to come,” she said.
I looked toward the staircase.
Nolan was already speaking into his radio.
Then a familiar voice rose from below.
“Olivia?”
Everything inside me stopped.
The voice came again.
Older.
Rougher.
But unmistakable.
“Olivia, sweetheart.
I know you’re here.”
My father.
I couldn’t move.
Nolan turned sharply.
“Stay back.”
But I was already walking toward the stairs.
He caught up beside me.
“Olivia.”
“I need to see him.”
“He may be armed.”
“I need to see him.”
Something in my voice made him stop arguing.
He looked at Dante.
“Get the women out.
I’ll stay with her.”
Dante hesitated.
Then nodded.
I heard Mina call my name.
I turned once.
She was being guided toward safety with the others.
Then I continued down the stairs.
At the bottom, the corridor opened into a smaller drawing room.
A man stood beside the fireplace.
He wore a navy suit.
His silver-streaked hair was neatly combed.
A heavy ring glinted on his right hand.
He turned toward me.
And smiled.
The same smile I’d remembered from childhood.
The smile from birthday mornings and school graduations.
The smile I’d spent eight years searching for in strangers’ faces.
“Hello, Livvy.”
I stopped breathing.
Nobody had called me that since my mother died.
My father took a step forward.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“I’ve missed you.”
I stared at him.
All the years of grief rushed forward at once.
The funeral.
My mother’s shaking hands.
The empty chair at Christmas.
The nights I’d cried over his photograph.
And now he was standing six feet away.
Alive.
I wanted to run into his arms.
I wanted to hit him.
I wanted to ask why.
Instead, I whispered, “You let us bury you.”
His expression changed.
“Olivia—”
“Mom thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“She died.”
My father’s eyes lowered.
“I heard.”
I recoiled.
“You heard?”
He looked up.
“Sweetheart, I couldn’t come back.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t safe.”
“For whom?”
He hesitated.
I felt something cold moving through me.
“For whom, Dad?”
He glanced toward Nolan.
Then sighed.
“You’ve grown up so much.”
“Answer me.”
Nolan stepped forward.
“Michael.”
My father’s expression hardened.
“Nolan Voss.
Still trying to play the hero?”
Nolan’s jaw tightened.
“It’s over.”
My father smiled faintly.
“You’ve been saying that for years.”
I looked between them.
“What is he talking about?”
My father extended a hand.
“Come here, Olivia.
We don’t have much time.”
I didn’t move.
“Tell me what happened.”
He lowered his hand.
“You were sixteen.
You couldn’t understand what I was dealing with.”
“Then explain it now.”
A distant voice shouted from the foyer.
“Federal agents!
Hands where we can see them!”
My father glanced toward the door.
Then reached beneath his jacket.
Nolan moved immediately.
“Michael.
Don’t.”
My father withdrew a small black pistol.
He pointed it at Nolan.
I stumbled backward.
“Dad!”
“Stay where you are.”
His voice had changed.
The tenderness vanished.
In its place was something flat and frightening.
Nolan raised his hands slowly.
“Put it down.”
My father laughed.
“You always did think you could tell me what to do.”
I stared at the gun.
At my father’s face.
At the man I’d spent eight years mourning.
Then I noticed something that turned my stomach.
He wasn’t surprised by the raid.
He was angry that it had happened before he was ready.
“You knew about the auction,” I whispered.
He glanced at me.
“Olivia, this isn’t the time.”
“You knew.”
His jaw tightened.
“Your friend was supposed to deliver you quietly.”
The words struck like a physical blow.
I stared at him.
“You arranged it?”
He didn’t answer.
Nolan’s expression grew colder.
“Michael, she deserves the truth.”
My father gave a sharp laugh.
“Truth?
Coming from you?”
I stepped closer.
“Did you tell Kara to bring me here?”
My father’s gaze met mine.
For one moment, I saw calculation behind his eyes.
Then he sighed.
“Yes.”
My world fell apart.
Again.
I could hear shouting elsewhere in the mansion.
Boots pounding through corridors.
Radios crackling.
But the drawing room felt sealed away from everything.
My father lowered the pistol slightly.
“Olivia, listen carefully.
I never intended for anyone to hurt you.”
I stared at him.
“You put me on an auction platform.”
“It was supposed to be temporary.”
“Men were bidding on me.”
“A controlled arrangement.”
I almost laughed.
“You call that controlled?”
He glanced at Nolan.
“I knew he’d buy you.”
The room seemed to lose its air.
“What?”
“I knew Nolan would come.
He’s spent years trying to interfere with my business.”
I stared at him.
My father’s mouth tightened.
“And I knew he’d never leave Michael Carver’s daughter in that room.”
Nolan said nothing.
My father continued.
“So I arranged a situation he couldn’t ignore.”
I felt physically sick.
“You used me as bait.”
“It was necessary.”
“Necessary?”
“You don’t understand the money involved.”
I looked at him.
The father who’d taught me to ride a bicycle.
The father who used to cut apples into little stars because he knew I liked them that way.
The father who once walked three miles in the snow to buy medicine when I was sick.
He was talking about selling me as though it were an inconvenience.
A business decision.
I shook my head.
“You’re the one running this place.”
May you like
He hesitated.
Nolan answered for him.
Related Stories
