Chapter 5 - The Red Dress At The Doorthe Brass Bell Above The Heavy Mahogany Door Of Ferrante’s Chimed Softly As Cold Autumn Air Rushed Across The Marble Floor. The Flame Inside The Small Brass Candleholder On Table Four Flickered, Casting Long, Dancing Shadows Across The Linen.

The Red Dress At The Doorthe Brass Bell Above The Heavy Mahogany Door Of Ferrante’s Chimed Softly As Cold Autumn Air Rushed Across The Marble Floor. The Flame Inside The Small Brass Candleholder On Table Four Flickered, Casting Long, Dancing Shadows Across The Linen.

Chapter 5

Two fire engines were struggling through the narrow alleyways, sirens screaming, but the primary wooden staircase leading up to the second-floor residential apartment was already engulfed in roaring orange flames.

A crowd of neighbors stood on the rain-swept sidewalk, gasping in horror.

Standing near the alley entrance was Clara—her face covered in dark soot, her red silk dress from three nights ago now torn and stained with ash. She was screaming frantically, trying to break past two firefighters who were holding her back.

"MY DAUGHTERS!" Clara shrieked, her voice cracking into terrifying, agonizing pieces. "EMMA IS STILL INSIDE! LILY AND SOPHIE ARE HERE, BUT EMMA WENT BACK TO GET HER NOTEBOOK! PLEASE! SOMEONE HELP MY BABY!"

Five-year-old Lily and Sophie were crying hysterically on the sidewalk, clutching a neighbor's wool blanket.

Adrien stepped out of his black sedan.

He didn't hesitate. He didn't wait for the fire crew to rig their hoses.

He grabbed a heavy wool blanket from his trunk, dumped a bottle of mineral water over his head and shoulders, wrapped the wet blanket around his upper body, and charged straight through the roaring flames of the burning front doorway.

"SIR! NO! STOP!" the fire chief screamed into his megaphone, but Adrien was already gone, disappearing into the blinding furnace of smoke and heat.

Inside the building, the air was thick with suffocating carbon black, the timber framing cracking like gunshots under the heat.

Adrien covered his mouth with his sleeve, taking the burning wooden stairs three at a time, kicking open the heavy oak door of the second-floor apartment.

"EMMA!" Adrien roared into the smoke, his baritone cutting through the crackle of the flames. "EMMA!"

A soft, tiny cough sounded from the back bedroom near the closet.

Adrien dropped low to the floorboards, crawling beneath the toxic smoke cloud, bursting through the bedroom door.

Sitting in the corner of the closet, wrapped in a small pink blanket, clutching her pink notebook against her chest, was five-year-old Emma. Her big hazel eyes were wide, tears cutting clean tracks through the soot on her tiny cheeks.

"Mr. Adrien...?" Emma choked out softly into her blanket.

Adrien felt a surge of raw, overwhelming emotion crash through his chest. He scooped the small girl into his broad arms, pulling her tight against his chest, wrapping his wet wool blanket entirely around her body.

"I have you, Emma," Adrien whispered, his raspy voice fierce and absolute. "I have you."

The ceiling beam directly above the hallway collapsed with a deafening CRACK, throwing a shower of burning sparks across the floorboards.

Adrien didn't hesitate. Holding Emma tightly against his heart, shielding her body with his own back, he sprinted through the wall of fire, throwing his broad shoulder against the secondary emergency window at the end of the hall, leaping out onto the iron fire escape landing as the entire second floor caved inward into a roaring inferno.