Chapter 6
I woke to Marcus slapping my cheek gently.
“Elena. Open your eyes.”
I coughed.
My throat burned.
Nora lay beside the desk, breathing but unconscious.
The emergency lights glowed red.
Marcus had wrapped wet towels over the vent.
His hands were bleeding from hitting the door.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“The baby?”
He pressed his hand to my stomach.
Our child moved.
Relief broke across his face.
“She’s moving.”
“She?”
He gave a shaky laugh.
“I know you think it’s a girl.”
I almost cried.
Then Nora groaned.
Marcus helped her sit.
She pointed weakly toward the floor.
“Drain tunnel.”
“What?”
“Old service tunnel under the wine cellar. The estate had bootleg rooms during Prohibition.”
Marcus pried up a metal grate beneath the shelves.
A narrow crawlspace opened.
I stared at it.
“I’m eight months pregnant.”
“I know.”
He looked terrified.
But steady.
“I’ll go first. Nora behind you.”
The crawlspace was cold and filthy.
Every inch hurt.
My belly scraped against my own fear more than the ground.
Marcus kept whispering, “You’re doing it. I’ve got you.”
Halfway through, I heard Victoria’s voice echo behind us.
“They’re in the tunnel.”
Then footsteps.
She had sent someone.
Marcus pushed forward faster.
The tunnel ended under the old greenhouse.
He kicked the grate open and pulled me into moonlight.
I sobbed when I felt air.
Nora climbed out behind me.
Then a man stepped from the shadows with a flashlight.
Tall.
Gray-haired.
Security uniform.
“Mr. Mercer,” he said.
Marcus lifted himself in front of me.
The man lowered his voice.
“I worked for your father.”
May you like
Then he held out a phone.
“And I have been waiting ten years to make this call.”
