Chapter 3 - The Sanctuary of Glass"Hello, Valeria," my father said softly.
His voice was smooth, deep, and perfectly calm—the exact same voice he had used to read me bedtime stories when I was seven years old, the voice he used to address the city council when accepting awards.
He stepped into the room, kicking the door shut behind him with his heel. The heavy deadbolt clicked into place with a sickening finality.
I tried to scream, but the bandage around my jaw restricted my mouth, turning the sound into a choked, desperate gurgle. I pushed myself back against the pillows, agony tearing through my broken ribs, but there was nowhere to go. I was trapped in a hospital bed, hooked to an IV line, with a cast on my arm and three broken bones in my chest.
Hector Santos walked slowly toward the side of my bed. He wasn't wearing his usual tailored suit. He wore black leather gloves, dark trousers, and a rain jacket stained with wet droplets. In his gloved right hand, he held a heavy steel crowbar.
"You always were too smart for your own good, Valeria," Hector murmured, standing over me, looking down at my broken face with cold, detached curiosity. "I spent twenty-eight years providing for you. I paid for your private schools, your university tuition, your apartment in the city. And how do you repay me? By digging through my personal life like a cheap tabloid reporter."
"Dad... please..." I wept, my right hand desperately clutching the edge of the mattress. "Please don't do this..."
"You ruined everything," he whispered, leaning down until his face was inches from mine. I could smell his expensive cologne—sandalwood and tobacco—mixed with the rain on his jacket. "Your mother is losing her mind. The bank is freezing my commercial lines because of the police investigation. All because you couldn't mind your own business."
He lifted the heavy steel crowbar, resting its cold, flat tip directly against the center of my chest—right over my broken ribs.
I let out a ragged, strangled cry as he applied gentle pressure, sending a blinding bolt of white heat straight through my torso.
"Where is the drive, Valeria?" he asked, his voice deadpan. "I searched your room. The third floorboard under the closet was empty."
My mind raced through the blinding haze of pain.
Empty?
Then I remembered.
Three weeks ago—before the attack—I hadn't kept the original drive in my bedroom. I had moved it. I had anticipated that if my father ever suspected I knew the truth, he would search the house first.
"It's... it's not at the house," I rasped, tears streaming into my ears as I lay pinned under the iron bar.
Hector's eyes narrowed. He pressed the crowbar a fraction of an inch deeper into my chest. "Where is it?"
"If you kill me..." I gasped, struggling for air, "...the cloud trigger... releases the key in twelve hours. The police... already have the encrypted files..."
Hector smiled—a terrible, thin line devoid of any warmth. "The police have nothing without the key, Valeria. And as for your cloud trigger... I hired an IT team in Chicago three days ago. They’ve been pinging your server continuously. Once you're dead, your accounts become part of an active estate dispute. My lawyers will tie up those digital assets for years."
He lifted the crowbar off my chest.
"I gave you fourteen days to die peacefully in a coma, Valeria," Hector said quietly, raising the steel bar high above his right shoulder, aiming directly for my head. "You should have taken the gift."
CLANG!
The heavy glass window overlooking the hospital inner courtyard suddenly shattered inward in an explosion of glittering shards.
A dark figure burst through the shower of glass, tackling my father across the chest with brutal, momentum-driven force. Both men slammed into the rolling medical cart, sending silver trays, IV bottles, and surgical instruments crashing across the linoleum floor.
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"Police! Drop the weapon!" a voice roared through the darkness.
It was Detective Ethan Cole.
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