Chapter 7 - The Escape and the Evidence
Julian hoisted the terrified three-year-old up to the vent. Camila crawled through the narrow metal tube first, her knees scraping against the unpolished screws, before pulling Sofia through into the dark neighboring storage unit.
"Julian! Come on!" Camila yelled back through the duct, smoke beginning to pour into the vent tube.
Julian was a tall, heavily built man. He kicked at the wall panels near the vent, using a heavy iron crowbar from Mateo's toolbox to leverage the cheap drywall apart. With a final desperate push, he shattered the interior wall board and tumbled into the adjacent unit just as the flames burst through the front door of his original locker.
Gasping for air, the three of them sprinted out the rear emergency exit of the storage building, tumbling out into the pouring rain just as fire alarms began to blare across the complex.
They collapsed on the muddy grass behind the facility, soaked and covered in soot. Sofia was sobbing into Camila's chest, while Julian lay on his back, staring up at the stormy sky, his chest heaving.
"Are you okay?" Camila begged, reaching out to touch Julian's arm.
Julian looked at her, his eyes filled with an intensity she had never seen before. "I'm better than okay, Camila. I have proof. The ledger... did you bring it?"
Camila pulled her wet canvas bag tight against her chest. Inside, wrapped in plastic, was Mateo's original ledger and the hand-written note explicitly naming R.V.
May you like
"I have it," she breathed.
Julian sat up, taking Camila's face in his large, warm hands. "Richard thinks he just burned us alive. He thinks his problems are solved. We are going to use that overconfidence to tear his world apart."
