The Billionaire’s Favorite Mistake のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

The elevator should not have existed.Every eye in the conference room remained fixed on the technician's monitor, where the digital display glowed with a single destination.LEVEL 4It wasn't listed anywhere on Sterling Tower's official plans.It wasn't programmed into any employee directory.It wasn't supposed to be there.Yet the elevator was moving.Slowly.Deliberately.Descending.Nobody spoke until Damien did."Where is it?"The technician swallowed. "I... I don't know, sir.""You have the building plans.""I have every public plan."Damien's eyes shifted to Marcus."You have the private ones."Marcus didn't answer immediately. He stared at the monitor as though it had reached across three decades and dragged every buried secret back into the light."I burned them."Julian let out a sharp laugh."You've said that about everything tonight."Marcus met his gaze without flinching."This time I'm telling the truth."---Ellie stepped toward the technician, watching the display craw

The hidden panel slid fully open, and a breath of cold air rolled out of the darkness.The smell hit Ellie first, and she stepped back before she caught herself."That's smoke," she said. "Actual smoke.""Old smoke," Marcus said. "Trapped down there twenty-five years. It has nowhere else to go.""Down where?" Ellie asked."A shaft," the security chief said. "Concrete. Staircase. No power that I can see.""Someone's touched this railing," Damien said."Where?""Handprint. Smudged into the dust. Recent.""How recent?""Recent enough.""So we're following someone," Julian said."We're following her," Damien said.Nobody corrected him."Sir, I need to say this clearly." The chief moved to block the entrance. "No layout down there. No comms once we lose signal. No idea if it's even sound after twenty-five years.""Noted.""I'd like to send officers first.""No.""Sir.""This isn't a raid." Damien's voice didn't rise. "If there's any chance my mother is down there, she doesn't need stranger

The monitor went black before anyone could react."It's gone," the security chief said, already reaching for his radio. "Whatever that was, it's gone.""It was never 'gone,'" Marcus said. "It saw us. That's not the same as leaving."Damien didn't take his eyes off the dead screen. "Can you trace where the feed originated?""Not from here," the technician's voice crackled faintly over the radio link, patched down through the stairwell relay. "I'll try from upstairs. Give me a few minutes.""We don't have a few minutes," Julian said. "Something just looked at us on purpose.""Then we keep moving," Damien said. "Standing here waiting to be watched again isn't a plan."Rosalind stepped closer to him, her voice low. "There's a hall past the dormitories. I never went in more than once. I couldn't make myself go back.""Why not?""You'll understand when you see it."The hall was long and narrow, its w

Static hissed out of the old speaker first, thin and crackling, the sound of decades pressed into magnetic tape that had no business surviving this long.Then, underneath it, a breath.Damien went completely still."Damien." Ellie's hand tightened on his shoulder. "That's a person.""I know."Nobody else moved. The static thinned, and a woman's voice emerged from beneath it, steadying itself before it spoke, the way someone breathes before stepping onto a stage they never wanted to stand on. The bulb overhead flickered once, as if the room itself had leaned in to listen."If you're hearing this," the voice said, "then they failed to destroy everything."Damien's knees nearly gave out. Ellie caught his arm before he realized he'd swayed."That's her," he said. "That's my mother."Marcus's face had drained of all color. "Victoria.""You knew," Damien said, rounding on him. "You've always known sh

The countdown was already running before they took a single step into the dark."Move," the security chief said, ducking through the crawlspace opening. "Watch the pipes overhead, they're old and some of them are still live.""Live with what?" Julian asked."Better not to find out."Damien went first after the two officers, flashlight gripped in his teeth so both hands were free to brace against the low concrete ceiling. Ellie followed close behind him, then Julian, then Marcus, then Rosalind, the second officer bringing up the rear.The radio crackled weakly against the chief's hip. "Sir, you need to move faster. I'm reading the failure sequence accelerating. Whatever's happening up here, it's not slowing down.""How long," Damien said, not a question so much as a demand."I don't know. Fifteen minutes. Maybe less. The systems aren't behaving like anything in the manual.""Then talk faster and walk faster," Damien said, pushing forward through the narrow dark.---The tunnel bent twi