Chapter 6
Z
The air in the wine cellar was rapidly turning thick with suffocating black smoke pouring through the ceiling cracks.
"Cover your mouths with your shirts!" I barked, pulling the twins deeper into the stone vaults.
Using the faint glow of my dying penlight, I searched the rear wall of the cellar until I found the heavy iron grating Margaret had described. It was locked with an old, rusted chain, but the damp mortar around the stone frame was crumbling.
"Help me!" I yelled to the boys, grabbing a heavy iron wine rack pin.
I jammed the metal bar into the crumbling mortar, leveraging my entire body weight against it. Lucas grabbed the bar beside me, pushing with all his tiny strength, while Leo held the flashlight steady.
"On three!" I shouted. "One... two... THREE!"
With a agonizing crunch, the stone frame gave way, the heavy iron grating collapsing outward into a dark, narrow dirt tunnel. Cold, damp fresh air rushed into our faces, cutting through the thick smoke.
"Go, go, go!" I pushed the twins into the tunnel first, crawling in right after them.
The tunnel was barely three feet high, a muddy, claustrophobic crawlspace beneath the burning estate. Above us, the roaring sound of the fire sounded like an angry demon tearing the mansion apart. Every few seconds, the ground shook as heavy beams collapsed inside the house.
Vincent, I thought, my heart twisting in unbearable agony. Please be alive.
We crawled furiously through the cold mud for what felt like miles until the tunnel finally sloped upward, ending at a small wooden hatch secured with a simple wooden latch.
I shoved the hatch open with my shoulder, tumbling out into the pouring rain and fresh night air.
We were standing in the tall grass behind the old caretaker's cottage, well outside the high stone perimeter walls of the Moretti estate. Across the sprawling lawn, the grand mansion was engulfed in a towering inferno, orange flames licking the black night sky, smoke billowing high into the clouds.
"Daddy!" Lucas screamed, trying to run back toward the burning fence.
I grabbed him, pulling him tight into an embrace, holding both boys as they wept hysterically against my chest. The heat from the fire could be felt even from here.
Suddenly, the high iron gates of the main entrance were smashed open from the inside.
A sleek black SUV crashed through the heavy iron doors, spinning wildly on the wet gravel before slamming to a stop near the caretaker's cottage. The driver's door flew open.
A tall figure stumbled out into the pouring rain, coughing heavily, his clothes torn and covered in black soot.
"VINCENT!" I screamed at the top of my lungs.
He whirled around, his face bloodied, his eyes wild. When he saw us standing in the rain, he let out a guttural cry and sprinted across the muddy lawn, throwing his arms around me and the twins, collapsing to his knees in the mud.
"You're alive... you're alive..." Vincent sobbed openly, pressing his face into the boys' wet hair, pulling all three of us into a tight, desperate embrace.
"How did you get out?" I gasped, wiping blood from a cut on his forehead.
"The security room had an emergency hatch," he rasped out, his voice raw from smoke. "I found Julian... we fought. I locked him in the east wing vault before the roof collapsed."
I stared at him in shock. "Julian is inside?"
Vincent looked back at the towering inferno consuming his ancestral home. His expression was cold, devoid of sympathy. "He made his choice."
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Suddenly, the harsh beam of searchlights cut through the rain as three state police cruisers sped down the road, sirens blaring, pulling up around our location.
Vincent stood up slowly, keeping his arms firmly around his sons and me, stepping forward to face the flashing red and blue lights.
