Chapter 2The Ventilation Shaft

The footsteps stopped.

Maren pressed herself against the wall, her fingers still wrapped around Soren's arm. The lock clicked. Metal scraped against metal. Someone was unlocking the outer door.

Her lungs demanded air, but she didn't dare breathe.

Soren's hand found hers in the darkness. He squeezed once—a signal, though she didn't know what it meant. Then he released her and moved, his footsteps impossibly quiet for a man his size.

She heard him fumbling near the far wall. A soft metallic grate. The scrape of screws being twisted.

The outer door creaked open.

"Check the desk first." A voice she recognized—Vance. He sounded calm. Businesslike. As if entering a crime scene was part of his morning routine.

Maren's eyes adjusted to the dark. A sliver of light appeared under the lab door, then widened. Footsteps crossed the outer room.

Soren was at the ventilation grate, working frantically at the last screw. She couldn't see his face, but she could feel his urgency in the quick, jerky movements of his shoulders.

The lab door handle turned.

Soren yanked the grate free and motioned to her. *Now.*

She crossed the room in three strides, her shoes silent on the concrete floor. The opening was narrow—maybe eighteen inches wide. She grabbed the edges and pulled herself up, scraping her forearms on the rusted metal.

"Search the files," Vance said, just outside. "He kept everything."

Maren twisted inside the shaft, her knees pressed against her chest. Soren followed, pulling the grate back into place behind him. The metal groaned. He froze.

"Did you hear that?" Another voice. Deeper. Older.

"Just the building settling." Vance's tone dismissed the concern. "Daniel, focus. We have fifteen minutes before the night guard does his rounds."

Daniel. The name hit Soren like a physical blow. His grip on the grate slipped, and he nearly knocked it loose. Maren caught his wrist, steadying him.

She watched his face in the dim light filtering through the grate slats. His jaw was tight. His eyes had gone hard.

*Daniel Ashford.* His uncle. His father's younger brother. The man who'd sat beside him at the funeral, who'd offered condolences with tears in his eyes.

The shaft was barely wide enough for one person, let alone two. Maren pressed herself flat against the metal floor, and Soren crawled over her, positioning himself at the grate where he could see below. She ended up behind him, her face inches from his shoes.

Below, two figures moved into view.

Vance stood by the desk, rifling through papers. Daniel Ashford—gray-haired, impeccably dressed, carrying himself with the practiced authority of a man who'd never been challenged—stood near Dr. Khalil's body, examining the syringe in his neck.

"Clean," Daniel said. "No trace of the compound. They'll think it was a heart attack."

"Until the autopsy," Vance countered.

"There won't be an autopsy. I've already spoken to the coroner." Daniel straightened his cuffs. "The body will be cremated by morning. Small private ceremony. Tragic loss of a brilliant researcher."

Soren's hands curled into fists. Maren could see the tendons standing out on his neck.

"And the girl?" Daniel asked. "The caretaker?"

"She knows too much." Vance pulled a file from the desk drawer. "I have her background check. She's not a citizen. Her visa expired three years ago. One phone call to immigration, and she's gone."

Maren's blood turned cold.

"Too slow." Daniel walked to the filing cabinet and began pulling drawers. "I want her implicated. Plant evidence. Make it look like she killed Khalil. She had access, she knew about the lab, and she has motive—her mother was a test subject."

"Her mother died of natural causes."

"No." Daniel turned, his eyes cold. "Her mother died because of NovaGen. And if she ever finds out the full extent, she'll destroy everything we've built."

Soren shifted, and the metal shaft groaned. Both men below looked up.

Maren stopped breathing.

The silence stretched for an eternity. Then Vance shrugged. "Old building. Settling."

Daniel stared at the ceiling for another long moment. "Secure the lab. I want everything incinerated by dawn."

They left, their footsteps fading down the corridor. A door slammed. Then silence.

Soren didn't move for a long time.

Maren touched his ankle. "Soren?"

"Daniel." His voice was barely a whisper. "My father trusted him."

She didn't know what to say. She'd spent years watching the Ashford family from the edges—bringing Lydia her tea, adjusting her pillows, pretending she didn't overhear the hushed arguments. She'd always assumed Vance was the villain. She'd never imagined the rot went deeper.

"We need to move," she said. "They're coming back to destroy everything."

Soren nodded, but he still didn't move. She crawled past him, pushing the grate open with her shoulder, and dropped to the floor. The lab looked the same—the same flickering fluorescent lights, the same stacks of files, the same body lying face-down on the desk.

Except now she knew what it meant.

Soren landed beside her. "We need evidence. Something they can't burn."

"The journal." She didn't know why she said it. Something about the way Daniel had checked the filing cabinet—quickly, methodically, like he knew exactly what he was looking for. "Your father kept a journal."

Soren stared at her. "How did you know?"

"I didn't. I guessed." She moved to the far corner where the floorboard felt uneven beneath her feet. "Help me with this."

They pried up the board together, splinters digging into their fingers. Beneath it sat a leather-bound journal, its pages yellowed with age. Soren picked it up like it was made of glass.

"The last time I saw this," he said, "was the night before he died."

He opened it to the final entry. Maren leaned over his shoulder, reading the cramped handwriting:

*Daniel wants me dead. If you find this, he is the one. I have the evidence. The NovaGen trials were never approved. Elena Novák's death was a murder, not a tragedy. I documented everything. It's in—*

The entry stopped mid-sentence. The rest of the page was blank.

Soren turned the page. Nothing. He flipped to the back. Empty.

"He was interrupted," Maren whispered.

"Or he was caught." Soren closed the journal, his hands shaking. "He knew. He knew Daniel was going to kill him, and he still stayed to finish the documentation."

Outside, footsteps returned. Faster this time. Multiple people.

Maren grabbed his arm. "We have to go. Now."

He looked at her, and for a moment, she saw the weight of everything pressing down on him—his father's murder, his uncle's betrayal, the truth about her mother. Then he tucked the journal inside his jacket and nodded.

They slipped out the back door just as the lights came on in the lab.

The night air hit her face, cold and sharp. She didn't stop running until they reached the conservatory, the glass walls gleaming under the moon.

Soren collapsed onto a bench, the journal clutched to his chest. "My uncle killed my father."

"No." Maren sat beside him, her voice steady even though her hands were shaking. "Your uncle ordered the murder. But Vance held the knife. And they're both still walking free."

Soren looked at her, and something shifted in his eyes—grief hardening into resolve.

"Then we make them pay."