Chapter 14 - The Fall of the Chandelier.
Daniel released Jennifer and lunged at Vanessa.
She stumbled against the railing overlooking the ballroom.
Below them, guests scattered as the emergency curtain continued descending.
Jennifer caught Daniel's jacket and pulled him backward.
He struck her across the face.
The force sent her into the lighting console.
A row of switches snapped beneath her hand.
The chandelier flickered violently.
Daniel ripped the cable from the damaged fingerprint reader and reopened the laptop.
The countdown resumed.
One minute and forty seconds remained.
Sloan reached the control room door, but Daniel's accomplice had fallen against it from the corridor side.
The officer struggled to force it open.
Vanessa climbed away from the railing.
"He forged my testimony," she shouted toward the live microphone.
"He gave me Jennifer's pills and threatened to take Olivia."
Daniel ignored her and pressed his bleeding thumb to the laptop sensor.
Identity confirmed appeared on the screen.
Jennifer saw a second prompt.
AUTHORIZED BENEFICIARY CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.
Daniel had forged Ellen's ownership, but he still needed a sample of her voice.
The laptop played Ellen's recorded words from three years earlier.
If Jennifer ever learns the truth about Olivia, our family will never survive it.
The system rejected the phrase.
Daniel tried again.
Jennifer laughed despite the blood at her lip.
"You copied the wrong sentence."
"My mother changed her banking phrase after you stole her passport."
Thirty-seven seconds remained.
Daniel grabbed the laptop and ran toward the service balcony.
He intended to connect it to a backup device inside the executive suite.
Jennifer followed.
They crossed the narrow maintenance bridge above the chandelier.
Warm crystal light burned beneath their feet.
Daniel kicked a safety latch as he passed.
The bridge tilted.
Jennifer caught the railing with both hands.
The tan folder slid from Maya's grasp below and burst open across the glass table.
Pages fluttered through the ballroom like white ash.
Daniel reached the far platform with twelve seconds remaining.
Robert stepped from the executive doorway.
He held the old Blue Finch authorization key.
"You need this too, don't you?"
Daniel stopped.
Robert snapped the key in half.
The countdown reached zero.
TRANSFER FAILED flashed across the laptop.
Daniel roared and charged him.
The damaged bridge shifted again.
Jennifer pulled herself onto the platform as Sloan broke through the control room door.
Daniel seized Robert by the collar near the open edge.
"You ruined everything."
"No," Jennifer said behind him.
"You finally ran out of people to blame."
Daniel swung toward her.
His heel caught the loosened cable.
He fell over the railing but grabbed a suspension wire beneath the chandelier.
For a breathless moment, he hung above the ballroom he had tried to steal.
Jennifer dropped to her knees and reached toward him.
Even after everything, she would not let him die.
Daniel looked at her hand.
Then he tried to pull her over with him.
Sloan caught Jennifer's waist while Robert kicked Daniel's hand away from her wrist.
Officers secured him with a rescue line and lowered him onto the marble.
He survived.
His final act beneath the chandelier had been witnessed and recorded by everyone.
Sloan fastened handcuffs around his wrists.
Daniel stared at Jennifer across the scattered pages.
"You still have nothing."
Maya lifted the missing corner of the Blue Finch contract from beneath his laptop case.
May you like
It contained his signature and the words sole controlling partner.
"Now we have everything," she said.
