His Family Disowned Him for Exposing a Deadly Secret—Six Years Later, He Was the Firefighter Sent to Their Burning Mansion

Chapter 06 - Back Through the Door

The front hall no longer looked like a home. Paint peeled from the walls. Chandeliers crashed onto the marble floor. Family portraits burned inside their frames, their faces disappearing beneath flame.

Ethan and Noah moved low, following the edge of the room. Their thermal camera showed three heat signatures near the west corridor and several more beyond the dining room. They found an elderly guest trapped beneath a fallen table, then a caterer unconscious behind a serving cart.

Every rescue cost time.

“Six minutes on air,” Noah warned.

Ethan pointed toward a narrow panel behind the library shelves. “There’s a service passage. It leads to the east wing.”

The panel had been covered with decorative wood, but Ethan broke through it with his axe. The hidden corridor was filled with smoke, yet the floor remained passable. They crawled inside.

Halfway through, a sudden flash of fire exploded behind them. Noah’s alarm sounded as part of the passage collapsed, cutting him off from Ethan.

“I’m okay!” Noah shouted over the radio. “Keep going. I’ll find another route.”

Protocol told Ethan never to continue alone. Training told him to retreat. But the thermal camera showed three fading shapes beyond the wall ahead.

He pushed forward.

In the music room, Lily pressed her face close to the floor. Vivian’s breathing had become shallow, and Richard could no longer lift the beam from his leg. The fire had reached the curtains. Smoke swallowed the ceiling.

“Someone is coming,” Lily said, though she could barely hear anything.

Richard looked at her with red, exhausted eyes. “If it’s a firefighter, you and your mother go first.”

The wall beside the piano burst open.

A figure stepped through sparks and broken wood, wearing black turnout gear and a breathing mask. For a moment, he looked less like a man than something shaped by the fire itself.

Ethan swept his flashlight across the room. He saw Lily first. She was older, but her eyes were the same. Vivian covered her mouth with both hands. Richard stared as though the smoke had created a ghost.

“Ethan?” Vivian whispered.

He did not answer. He crossed to Richard, tested the beam, and called for additional rescue support. The radio returned only static.

Lily reached for him. “I tried to call you.”

“We talk later,” Ethan said. “Right now, you listen to me.”

The ceiling groaned.

He gave Vivian his emergency escape hood, then handed Lily a wet cloth from his gear. Richard tried to push Ethan away.

“Save them,” he coughed. “Leave me.”