Chapter 5 - Five Minutes of AirNo one moved.
That was the horror of it.
A baby screamed inside a sealed medical crib, a countdown bled seconds from a screen, and five adults stood frozen because the demand had landed in the room like a bomb.
Bring me Elena Marlowe.
Elena heard her own name as if it belonged to someone else.
Vittorio turned toward her.
Marco turned toward Vittorio.
Rosa clutched the rocking chair with both hands.
And the baby—Matteo—beat one tiny fist weakly against the clear lid.
04:41.
04:40.
04:39.
Elena swallowed. “Give me to her.”
“No,” Vittorio said immediately.
“You don’t even know me.”
“I know enough.”
“No, you know I noticed a vibrating headboard and threw a glass badly.”
“You also saved my life twice in ten minutes.”
“That does not matter if your son dies.”
The word son changed the room.
Vittorio looked back at the crib.
For one second, Elena saw the man behind the reputation break open. Not loudly. Not with tears. His face barely moved. But something in him collapsed and rebuilt itself around that small screaming child.
Marco stepped to the machines. “There has to be an override.”
Valentina’s voice came through the speakers. “There is.”
Marco looked up.
“Carlo has it.”
The screen feed from the foyer expanded.
Carlo Moretti stood beneath the grand staircase in an impeccable navy suit, his silver hair combed back, his hands folded over a cane he did not need. Men stood behind him. Not Vittorio’s guards. Elena could tell by their posture. These men watched the house as if they already owned it.
Carlo smiled into the camera.
“Cousin,” he said. “You look terrible.”
Vittorio stepped toward the screen.
“You took my son.”
Carlo sighed. “Technically, your wife took your son. I merely chose not to interfere.”
Marco raised his radio again. “Luca, respond.”
Nothing.
Carlo’s smile deepened. “Your men at the exterior gates are resting.”
Vittorio’s eyes turned murderous.
Carlo lifted one hand. “Alive. Mostly. I have no interest in slaughter before breakfast.”
03:58.
03:57.
Matteo’s cry became thinner.
Elena could not stand it.
She moved toward the crib.
Rosa caught her wrist. “If you touch the lid without the code, it shocks him.”
Elena froze.
“How do you know?”
Rosa’s face twisted.
“Because I tried.”
Vittorio heard that. His eyes moved to Rosa’s bandaged wrists.
Something passed between them. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But recognition of pain.
Marco crouched beside the crib and examined the lock.
“Four bolts. Internal seal. Electronic release.”
Elena looked around the chapel.
There were machines, wires, screens, an old altar, stacked pews, medical lights, pipes along the ceiling, and a breaker box mounted behind a metal cage near the far wall.
“Power,” she said.
Marco followed her gaze. “If we cut it, the lock may fail closed.”
“Or the lid opens.”
“Or the oxygen stops faster.”
Valentina’s voice returned. “You always gamble with other people’s lives, Elena?”
Elena looked at the camera dome nearest her.
“You know a lot for a dead woman.”
Silence.
Then a soft laugh.
“I like her.”
Vittorio did not. “Do not speak to her.”
“Still issuing commands in rooms you do not control.”
03:21.
03:20.
Elena forced herself to breathe.
There had to be something.
Every system had a weakness. Not because she knew technology, but because she knew houses. Mansions, apartments, hotels, hospitals where her mother had spent too much time—every building had shortcuts. Lazy installations. Service gaps. Human mistakes.
She looked at the wires.
The machines fed into the crib through a control tower on the left side. The control tower connected to the wall. The wall cable ran along the floor under a rubber safety strip.
But one smaller wire ran in the opposite direction.
Toward the rocking chair.
Toward Rosa.
Elena crouched.
“Rosa, move your foot.”
Rosa looked down.
A thin black cable disappeared beneath the chair cushion.
Elena slid her hand under the edge.
Rosa flinched. “What are you doing?”
Elena pulled.
Something was taped beneath the rocking chair.
A small backup battery.
No bigger than a paperback book.
Elena’s heart jumped.
“Marco.”
He crossed to her.
The moment he saw it, he understood.
Valentina’s voice sharpened. “Do not touch that.”
Elena almost smiled.
“Found the thing she cares about.”
02:49.
Marco studied the battery. “If this powers the lock separately—”
“Can you remove it?”
“Maybe.”
Carlo’s voice cut in from the screen. “I would advise against that.”
Vittorio turned toward him.
Carlo leaned closer to the foyer camera. “That battery also stabilizes the crib’s sensor grid. Pull it carelessly, and the child receives a neural shock strong enough to stop his heart.”
Rosa let out a broken sound.
Elena looked at Marco.
“Is he lying?”
Marco’s silence was answer enough.
02:31.
Vittorio faced the screen. “What do you want?”
Carlo smiled.
“There. Finally.”
“What do you want?”
“Your signature.”
Vittorio stared at him.
Carlo continued. “Transfer authority over all Moretti family holdings to the emergency council. Step down due to medical instability. Admit publicly that you are unfit. I will take care of the child.”
“You will never touch him.”
Carlo sighed. “Then he will die in front of you.”
02:07.
Elena stood.
“Enough.”
Everyone looked at her.
She faced the camera.
“You don’t want Vittorio’s signature.”
Carlo’s expression barely changed, but barely was enough.
Elena continued. “If that was all, you would’ve forced it weeks ago while he was sleep-deprived and half-delirious. You kept him awake for four months, but you didn’t finish him. Why?”
Valentina was silent.
Carlo’s smile thinned.
Elena stepped closer to the screen.
“You needed him alive, lucid enough, scared enough, guilty enough. And you needed someone else to find the device. Someone disposable. Someone nobody would question if she disappeared.”
Marco looked at her.
Vittorio did too.
Elena’s voice steadied as she spoke, because anger was easier than fear.
“Rosa found it too early. So you took her. I found it too early too. But instead of taking me quietly, you had to do this in front of him. Why?”
01:36.
Matteo’s cry weakened.
Elena’s throat tightened, but she kept talking.
“Because there’s something only I can open.”
The chapel went very still.
Valentina’s voice returned, lower now.
“You are clever.”
Elena’s skin crawled.
“No,” she said. “I’m tired. Clever people don’t take housekeeping jobs in mafia houses at 2:30 in the morning.”
Vittorio’s eyes narrowed slightly.
He had heard something in that.
Marco too.
Carlo’s face changed on the screen.
Valentina whispered, “Tell her, Carlo.”
Carlo looked annoyed now.
That felt like a victory.
“Elena Marlowe,” he said, “your mother was not only a caretaker patient.”
The room tilted.
Elena stopped breathing.
Carlo continued. “Margaret Vale Marlowe. Former biomedical engineer. Former lead designer at Vale Medical Dynamics.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
Vittorio turned fully toward her.
Elena stepped back. “No. My mother cleaned hospital rooms. She did laundry. She took double shifts. She never—”
“She ran,” Valentina said. “Like all cowards do when men begin using their inventions exactly as designed.”
Elena’s pulse roared in her ears.
Her mother had died with swollen hands, tired eyes, and a shoebox full of unpaid bills. She had owned three cardigans, two pairs of shoes, and a locked metal box Elena had never opened because grief had made even keys feel too heavy.
Vale.
V.M.D.
Margaret Vale Marlowe.
Elena looked at Vittorio.
His face had changed.
Not suspicion.
Recognition.
“Your mother created the failsafe,” he said.
Carlo nodded from the screen. “And bloodline encryption is sentimental nonsense until one needs it.”
01:02.
The countdown flashed red now.
Marco spoke sharply. “What does she need to do?”
Carlo smiled again.
“Come to the foyer.”
“No,” Vittorio said.
Elena looked at the baby.
His mouth opened, but almost no sound came out.
00:49.
She moved toward the chapel door.
Vittorio caught her arm.
“Elena.”
She looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“You said I observe things.”
“Yes.”
“Then observe this. Your son has less than a minute.”
His grip tightened.
For one strange second, she thought he might still refuse.
Then he released her.
But he stepped beside her.
“I go with you.”
Carlo sighed through the speaker. “That was not the instruction.”
Vittorio looked into the camera.
“Then change your plan.”
Marco moved to his other side.
Rosa stood shakily.
“I know a service route to the foyer.”
Valentina’s voice sharpened. “Rosa.”
Rosa looked straight at the camera.
“You should have killed me.”
00:31.
Elena turned to Marco. “Can you keep him alive?”
Marco looked at the crib, the battery, the wiring.
“I can try.”
Vittorio’s voice was deadly quiet.
“Do more than try.”
Elena ran.
Vittorio ran beside her, though every step looked like punishment.
Behind them, Matteo’s countdown continued.
00:21.
00:20.
00:19.
In the passage, Valentina’s voice followed through the walls.
“You cannot save everyone, Elena.”
Elena ran faster.
Her mother had always said the same thing.
But maybe her mother had been wrong.
Maybe saving one person at the right moment changed the whole house.
They reached the stairs.
Above them waited Carlo.
May you like
Below them, a baby had sixteen seconds of air.
And somewhere inside Elena’s blood was a key she had never asked to inherit.
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