Chapter 6 - The Night Everything Burned
The attack happened at midnight.
Toby's safe location suddenly lost power.
Security alarms screamed.
Clarina woke to darkness.
A window shattered.
Christian pulled her down.
"Stay here."
"No."
She grabbed a metal flashlight.
"We move together."
They found Toby in the hallway.
A guard was unconscious.
Someone had entered through the rear service door.
Christian shouted orders.
Security responded.
Then the fire started.
Smoke poured from the basement.
Clarina immediately understood.
"This isn't a fire."
Christian looked at her.
"It's a distraction."
"Exactly."
She ran downstairs.
A battery-storage unit had been deliberately damaged.
The flames were spreading toward the backup power system.
If they reached it, the explosion could kill everyone.
Clarina grabbed the emergency suppression lever.
Nothing happened.
The system had been disabled remotely.
Christian entered behind her.
"Can you stop it?"
"Give me ten minutes."
"You have five."
She opened the control box.
Her hands moved quickly.
Red lights flashed.
She bypassed one circuit.
Then another.
The fire climbed.
Christian tried to pull her away.
She resisted.
"One more."
The suppression system activated.
Foam exploded across the room.
The fire died.
Clarina collapsed against the wall.
Christian caught her.
"You okay?"
She nodded.
Then she noticed blood on his sleeve.
"You've been shot."
"It's a graze."
"Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"Sit."
He obeyed.
She wrapped the wound.
"You could have died."
"So could you."
"That's not the point."
He smiled faintly.
"It is to me."
She looked at him.
Something changed.
After the attack, federal investigators became involved.
The evidence now included attempted murder, corporate sabotage, data theft, and financial fraud.
Riker was no longer just a disgraced executive.
He was a fugitive.
Daniel Cross was missing.
And someone was still accessing Adler Hutton's systems.
Then Clarina found a hidden video file.
It had been recorded five years earlier.
She watched alone.
Riker stood in an office.
The second man was still partially obscured.
But this time, he turned.
Clarina froze.
She recognized him.
Gideon Price.
Christian's longtime business partner.
Christian refused to believe it.
"Gideon?"
"Yes."
"He was with me from the beginning."
"That's why he had access."
Christian looked devastated.
"Gideon knows everything."
"Exactly."
They confronted Gideon at the company headquarters.
He was waiting for them.
He didn't run.
Instead, he smiled.
"I wondered how long it would take."
Christian's voice was cold.
"You destroyed Clarina."
Gideon looked at her.
"I corrected a problem."
"You framed her."
"I protected the company."
"From what?"
"From people who don't understand how business works."
Christian stepped forward.
"She knew the truth."
Gideon laughed.
"She knew how to build engines."
"That's why you were afraid of her."
Gideon's smile disappeared.
Clarina understood.
He hadn't sabotaged her because she was weak.
He sabotaged her because she was dangerous.
Gideon admitted that the Valkyrie prototype failure had been engineered.
But he denied causing the fire.
"I only changed the telemetry."
Clarina stared.
"Then who started the fire?"
Gideon looked at her.
"You already know."
She didn't.
Then Christian remembered something.
"The hydraulic cooling prototype."
Clarina's eyes widened.
The fire hadn't begun inside the transmission.
It had begun because someone intentionally contaminated the coolant.
Someone with physical access.
Someone who had disappeared from the company afterward.
Gideon spoke one name.
"Riker."
Christian's jaw tightened.
Gideon had been the strategist.
Riker had been the operator.
Together, they had destroyed Clarina.
But now Gideon had a weakness.
He had recorded everything.
Because men like Gideon kept evidence when they believed they were untouchable.
A hidden server contained full conversations.
Emails.
Financial transactions.
Payments.
Instructions.
The entire conspiracy.
Christian looked at Clarina.
"You finally have your proof."
She stared at the files.
For five years, she had dreamed about this moment.
Yet she felt no joy.
Only exhaustion.
Gideon was arrested that evening.
Riker remained missing.
Then a message arrived.
"You found the wrong man."
Clarina read it twice.
Christian frowned.
"Who sent it?"
The answer came thirty seconds later.
A photograph of Riker standing beside an airplane.
The photo had been taken that morning.
May you like
He was alive.
And he was heading toward Europe.
