Chapter 10 - THE HOUSE BURNS
The floor jumped.
Windows shattered.
Fire rolled through the east corridor.
Clara was thrown backward.
Her ears rang.
She couldn't hear Noah.
That terrified her more than the explosion.
“Noah!”
Smoke filled the foyer.
“Noah!”
A small hand grabbed hers.
She looked down.
Noah.
Alive.
She pulled him against her.
Dominic emerged through the smoke.
“CLARA!”
“Here!”
He reached them.
Another explosion shook the mansion.
Marcus shouted.
“Gas line!”
“No.”
Mrs. Hargrove coughed.
“Charges.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You knew?”
“Vincent told me years ago.”
“Emergency protocol.”
“He wired sections of the house.”
Dominic stared.
“My brother planted explosives in my home?”
“Not all at once.”
“Employees.”
“Renovations.”
“Maintenance crews.”
The scale of the betrayal was almost impossible to understand.
Dominic grabbed Noah.
“We leave now.”
They moved toward the rear exit.
Lauren followed.
Beatrice came behind her.
Then gunfire erupted outside.
Marcus pulled them back.
“Front and rear compromised.”
Dominic looked around.
“Tunnel.”
Lauren nodded.
“Wine cellar.”
They ran downstairs.
Smoke followed.
Clara's lungs burned.
They reached the wine cellar.
Lauren opened a hidden stone door.
A tunnel descended beneath the property.
Dominic pushed Noah into Clara's arms.
“You go first.”
“What about you?”
“Go.”
Gunfire echoed upstairs.
Clara entered the tunnel.
Lauren followed.
Beatrice came next.
Dominic and Marcus covered the rear.
They had gone perhaps two hundred yards when Lauren stopped.
“There should be a gate here.”
There was.
Steel.
Locked.
Clara stared.
“Can we open it?”
Lauren searched the wall.
“No.”
A speaker above them crackled.
Vincent's voice filled the tunnel.
“Dominic.”
Dominic looked upward.
“Show yourself.”
Vincent laughed.
“You're standing beneath the house Father chose you to inherit.”
“Funny, isn't it?”
“You always stood above me.”
“Tonight you die underneath me.”
A timer illuminated beside the gate.
03:00.
Three minutes.
Beatrice whispered.
“No.”
Vincent continued.
“The tunnel collapses when that reaches zero.”
Dominic fired at the speaker.
It exploded.
“Marcus!”
They attacked the gate.
Nothing.
02:31.
Clara looked around.
Noah was staring at the wall.
“What?”
He pointed.
“Elephant.”
Clara didn't understand.
“What elephant?”
Noah touched a stone carving.
A tiny elephant had been carved into the wall.
Lauren gasped.
“Old emergency release.”
She pushed it.
Nothing.
Dominic joined her.
They pressed together.
A mechanism clicked.
The gate opened.
“MOVE!”
They ran.
02:02.
The tunnel climbed.
01:35.
Clara stumbled.
Dominic caught her.
“Keep going.”
01:01.
They saw moonlight.
A hatch.
Marcus pushed it open.
Everyone climbed out into the woods beyond the estate.
Dominic emerged last.
“RUN!”
They reached the tree line.
The ground exploded.
A column of fire shot into the night.
Part of the tunnel collapsed.
The mansion burned behind them.
Noah screamed.
Dominic picked him up.
“Don't look.”
But Noah did.
He stared at his childhood home burning.
Then he pointed toward the road.
A black SUV was parked beneath the trees.
A man stood beside it.
Dominic froze.
Even at a distance, the resemblance was unmistakable.
Vincent.
His brother smiled.
Then he raised a phone.
Dominic's phone rang.
He answered.
Vincent stared directly at him across the burning property.
“You've spent two years asking who killed Elena.”
Dominic's hand tightened.
Vincent smiled.
“It wasn't me.”
“Then who?”
Vincent looked toward Beatrice.
Their mother.
May you like
And said one sentence.
“Ask Mom why Elena called her ‘the shooter’ before she died.”
