The unfamiliar man’s question made the air above me go silent.
“Mr. Luc, the life detector clearly shows someone is alive down there. Why aren’t we digging?”
For the first time in six days, I heard Luc Thua Chau hesitate.
Then his voice turned cold.
“The structure is unstable. Digging now could cause another collapse.”
“But we can open a passage from the east side.”
“No.”
One word.
Absolute.
The rescue worker sounded confused.
“Mr. Luc, every hour matters.”
“I said no.”
My fingers tightened around my phone.
Three percent battery.
I pressed record.
The man above still refused to leave.
“I need written authorization if you’re ordering my team to stop an active rescue.”
Luc’s tone changed immediately.
“This is private property. My company controls this section.”
“Disaster rescue doesn’t work that way.”
My heart began pounding.
Someone was finally questioning him.
Then I heard another voice.
On Vi.
“Officer, perhaps you should speak somewhere else.”
“No. I want to know who is trapped below.”
Silence.
The rescue worker continued.
“Our survivor registry doesn’t show anyone assigned to this location.”
Exactly what Luc and On Vi had discussed earlier.
They had erased me.
Luc replied calmly.
“The detector is probably picking up an animal.”
I almost laughed.
An animal.
Seven years as his wife, and now I was an animal beneath his feet.
I dragged myself toward the concrete crack.
Every movement sent pain through my body, but I forced my arm upward.
Then I grabbed the steel pipe beside me.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
Everything above stopped.
I hit it again.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
“Someone’s down there!” the rescue worker shouted.
Immediately, Luc yelled:
“It’s structural movement!”
“No. That was deliberate.”
Machinery started.
Then stopped again.
Voices erupted overhead.
I couldn’t understand every word.
But I heard Luc shouting orders.
And then—
“Get him out of here.”
My blood turned cold.
Several footsteps rushed across the rubble.
The rescue worker shouted, “Take your hands off me!”
I grabbed the pipe again.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
This time I screamed with everything left inside me.
“HELP!”
My voice barely sounded human.
But it was enough.
“There!” the man shouted. “There is a woman alive!”
Chaos exploded above.
I heard people running.
Someone called for additional equipment.
And then Luc’s voice came through the crack.
“Kieu Lam!”
No tenderness now.
No “wife.”
Only panic.
I smiled weakly.
“You finally remembered my name.”
He crouched near the opening.
“You need to stay quiet. They could trigger another collapse.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Listen to me.”
The same voice that had deceived me for seven years.
But now I knew what fear sounded like inside it.
I moved the phone closer.
“Thua Chau…”
“What?”
“I’m scared.”
His voice softened instantly.
“Don’t be afraid. I’m here.”
“Will you really save me?”
A pause.
Then the lie came again.
“Of course.”
I closed my eyes.
“Then why did you tell them to wait until I stopped breathing?”
Nothing.
For several seconds, there was complete silence.
Then On Vi gasped somewhere behind him.
Luc’s voice dropped.
“What did you hear?”
Enough.
I almost said it.
Instead, I whispered:
“I heard nothing.”
He didn’t believe me.
I could tell from his breathing.
Then he suddenly ordered everyone away from the opening.
A minute later, something slid through the plastic tube.
Another bottle of water.
“Kieu Lam, drink.”
I stared at it.
“No.”
“You have a fever. You need water.”
“No.”
His patience disappeared.
“Drink it!”
I smiled.
There he was.
The real Luc Thua Chau.
I picked up the bottle.
Then poured every drop onto the rubble.
“What are you doing?!”
“I’m not thirsty anymore.”
He went silent.
Now he knew.
I knew.
Footsteps rushed back toward us.
The rescue worker had returned, but this time he wasn’t alone.
“Emergency command has authorized excavation,” he announced. “Nobody stops this operation.”
Luc immediately protested.
“You don’t understand the condition of the structure.”
“We brought structural engineers.”
Machines roared.
For the first time in six days, concrete began moving above my head.
I cried.
Not because I was afraid.
Because I finally understood something.
Luc no longer controlled how long I lived.
“Forty minutes!” someone shouted. “We can reach her in forty minutes!”
Then On Vi whispered something to Luc.
I couldn’t hear the first part.
But I heard his answer.
“We don’t have forty minutes.”
My smile disappeared.
Their footsteps moved away.
A few minutes later, the plastic tube shook.
Something small dropped through it.
Not water.
Not bread.
A phone.
It landed beside my leg.
The screen was already on.
A video call.
Luc appeared.
Behind him stood On Vi.
And beside her was an elderly man tied to a chair.
My uncle.
The only other person who knew the truth about my father’s shares.
Luc looked directly into the camera.
His expression was completely different now.
No more pretending.
“You have thirty minutes before they reach you,” he said.
I stared at him.
“What do you want?”
“The original share certificate.”
My heart stopped.
“You thought I didn’t know your father created a second authorization key?”
I said nothing.
Luc smiled.
“Tell me where it is, and your uncle walks away.”
“And if I don’t?”
His eyes became cold.
“Then when they pull you from that rubble, you’ll discover you weren’t the only member of your family who didn’t survive today.”
I clenched my fist.
Luc thought he had finally trapped me.
What he didn’t know was that three days before the warehouse collapsed, my father’s former attorney had called me.
And after that call, I had moved the original certificate.
But that wasn’t the biggest problem for Luc.
Because I hadn’t moved it to a bank.
I had given it to the one person Luc Thua Chau would never dare threaten.
And as the rescue workers began cutting through the final layer of concrete above me, I heard a vehicle stop outside.
Then someone shouted a name.
A name that made Luc suddenly go silent.
My father’s attorney had arrived.
And he hadn’t come alone.
