Chapter 3 - The Departure
Without offering an explanation to the stunned gala organizers or the whispered gossip columns of the city's elite, Adrian discarded his champagne flute and swept out of the ballroom with Leo walking calmly beside him. Flashbulbs flickered from lingering reporters, but Adrian ignored them, shielding Leo with his own body as they slipped through the service exit and into the chilly night air.
Inside the waiting armored town car, the silence was absolute. Adrian stared at the leather notebook lying between them on the leather seat. The scorch marks along the edges were unmistakable—remnants of the night the warehouse burned down to its concrete slab.
"Why now, Leo?" Adrian finally broke the silence, his eyes fixed on the young boy's profile as the streetlights cast moving shadows across his face. "Why send you into that room tonight?"
"Because today is my sixteenth birthday," Leo answered, turning his amber eyes toward Adrian. "And on every birthday before this one, my father would sit by the window and stare at a picture of a man he once called a brother. He didn't want vengeance, Mr. Foster. He wanted peace. And peace requires an accounting."
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Adrian swallowed hard. The guilt he had buried beneath billions of dollars, endless work hours, and charitable donations clawed its way back to the surface. He had convinced himself over the years that Benjamin had acted out of cowardice, that the fire had been an accident born of negligence. But looking at Leo, he realized the terrifying truth: he had known the fire wasn't an accident all along. He had simply chosen silence because silence was profitable.
The car slowed to a halt, the urban sprawl giving way to the decaying industrial district where the river curved sharply against the old rusted rail yard. The skeletal remains of the warehouse loomed in the distance like a monolith of guilt.
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