Chapter 420
Theodore tapped his phone screen, hitting the merge call button.
When Finnegan answered, Theodore snapped impatiently, Where the hell are you? Did you stop to solve world hunger first? Even the old man with a walking stick could’ve made it to the fire by now!”
“Shut it!” Finnegan’s voice sounded muffled, as if coming through a barrier.
Theodore guessed he must have already put on his breathing mask.
“Going in!”
After this brief notification, Finnegan hung up.
Clutching Elara’s phone on the second floor of the auditorium, Beau ran out of the room. He glanced down at the screen displaying “Theodore” and decisively ended the call
Though he knew this was his orchestrated fire–that Ralph had guaranteed his safety within the auditorium–his. body still reacted to the rising temperature. Even through the soaked handkerchief, the acrid smell penetrated his nostrils.
Panic rising, Beau dashed down the stairs toward the main entrance. Four fire trucks had surrounded the building outside, and the firefighters immediately noticed the running child and rushed forward.
“Daddy!”
Spotting Harvey beyond the police tape, Beau cried out hoarsely, only then realizing how raw his throat had become.
Harvey tore through the police tape at Beau’s cry and rushed forward. His gaze swept behind Beau, finding no one else emerging. His heart immediately sank like a stone dropped into water.
“Where’s Elara?” he asked urgently.
Beau’s eyes were rimmed red, and his voice was thick with resentment as he said, “She’s still inside.”
Harvey’s panic spiked. “Why is she still in there?”
Beau clutched Elara’s handkerchief, his brows furrowed into identical deep creases as Harvey’s.
“Because she chose Xavier!”
The words burst from Beau like an accusation. “She abandoned me! Am I even her real child?”
His voice broke as he implored Harvey, “Why does she only care about Xavier? I just wanted our family back the way it was!”
Fat tears rolled down Beau’s flushed cheeks like pearls from a broken necklace.
Harvey took the handkerchief from Beau–the same one he’d seen Elara use to wipe Merida’s sweat. Then he pried the phone from Beau’s grip, recognizing Elara’s device by its case.
He asked, “She told you to come out first? Why haven’t your mother and Xavier exited yet?”
Facing Harvey’s interrogation, Beau tasted the salt of his own tears.
“Xavier’s trapped! She only wants to save Xavier! She didn’t come in for me at all—just for Xavier!
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Chapter 420
+25 BONUS
“Daddy! Mommy really abandoned me! Waah… Xavier’s all she cares about! I’m motherless now!”
Beau’s words dissolved into incoherent weeping. His desperate wails filled the air as the fire’s heat drained from his body, leaving his limbs icy and numb.
He stretched his arms toward Harvey, silently begging for his father’s embrace–for any scrap of comfort. Yet Harvey walked right past him as if he were invisible.
The Fisher bodyguards immediately intercepted Harvey when he moved toward the burning building. “Mr. Fisher, you can’t go in! It’s too dangerous!”
They immediately formed a human barricade. No one in their right mind would let the family head enter an inferno.
“Elara’s still in there!” Harvey roared.
The guards tried calming him. “The firefighters are working! Mr. Fisher, you mustn’t-”
Harvey’s patience for waiting snapped. Agitation radiated from him as he watched flames devour the auditorium -the heat might as well have been licking his own skin.
“Why aren’t they going in? Call for backup! Get rescue helicopters here now!”
The impeccably suited man’s voice turned arctic, and his clenched fists trembled. His face darkened to the shade of a scorched pot bottom.
Just then, an explosion cracked through the air like a string of firecrackers. Harvey’s head jerked up just in time to see the auditorium’s roof begin collapsing.
Beau stared in horror, his trembling lips parting as he murmured, “Will… Will Mommy and Xavier die in there?”
