Chapter 21 - THE TRAP SNAPS SHUT
The footsteps down on the gravel driveway were fast, heavy, and coordinated.
Ryan shoved the leather dossier into his heavy wool coat and snapped the iron safe shut.
"We have to move now," Ryan whispered, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the narrow attic stairs.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a caged beast, sending hot adrenaline coursing through my veins.
Down on the first floor, the loud smash of breaking safety glass shattered the dead silence of the manor.
"Sweep the ground floor," a man’s harsh voice barked from the main entryway. "Check the library first."
Ryan guided me silently down the attic stairs, our socks padding softly against the bare wooden risers.
We reached the second-floor gallery overlooking the grand double-height foyer.
Below us, three private security contractors dressed in black tactical gear were moving with methodical precision.
Behind them stood Evelyn Vance, wearing an immaculate beige trench coat, her silver hair coiled into an austere bun.
Her hands rested casually inside her deep coat pockets, but her gaze was dead, cold, and calculating.
Beside her, Brianna was pacing back and forth near the marble fireplace, biting her fingernails until they bled.
Brianna's eyes were wild, darting across the dark corners of the room with frantic, venomous energy.
"Did you find them?" Brianna hissed, clutching Evelyn’s forearm with desperate, trembling fingers.
"They're upstairs, darling," Evelyn replied calmly, not even flinching at Brianna's frantic panic. "The attic sensor went off."
"She knows, Mother!" Brianna screeched in an agonizing whisper. "If Nora opened that safe, she knows everything!"
"Keep your voice down," Evelyn ordered, her tone slicing through Brianna's hysterics like a razor blade.
"Nobody knows anything until a court sees the documents, and no documents are leaving this estate tonight."
Evelyn turned to the leader of the security detail, a tall, scarred man holding a heavy suppressed pistol.
"Mr. Graves," Evelyn said, her voice smooth and devoid of human warmth. "Clean the house."
"Both of them, Mrs. Vance?" Graves asked, checking the magazine of his weapon with a quiet click.
"Ryan is my nephew," Evelyn stated coldly, looking up toward the shadows of the upper mezzanine.
"He chose his side when he married that nameless stray. Make it look like a botched robbery."
Up in the mezzanine shadows, Ryan pulled me behind a thick fluted marble pillar, shielding my body with his own.
His breath was hot against my ear as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone.
The screen showed zero bars of cellular reception.
"They brought a portable signal jammer," Ryan whispered, his jaw set in stone. "We can't call the police."
"The back servants' staircase," I whispered back, pointing toward the dark eastern corridor behind us.
"It leads directly into the cellar pantry. There's a delivery cellar door that opens out into the rose garden."
Ryan nodded once, his eyes burning with fierce determination.
"Stay behind me, Nora. If anything happens, you run for the tree line and don't look back."
"We go together, Ryan," I told him fiercely, gripping the fabric of his sleeve. "We survive this together."
We slipped quietly down the shadowed eastern hallway, moving beneath the towering portraits of Vance ancestors.
Portraits of people whose blood flowed through my veins, not Brianna's.
Suddenly, a heavy floorboard creaked beneath my boot as we neared the entrance to the servants' stairs.
From the hallway below, the sharp sound of tactical boots pivoting instantly on hardwood broke the silence.
"Upstairs! East corridor!" a security guard yelled.
Heavy footsteps pounded up the grand staircase behind us.
"Run!" Ryan shouted, shoving the heavy wooden door of the servants' stairwell open.
We tumbled into the dark, narrow spiral stairs, racing downward as flashlight beams cut through the gloom behind us.
A muffled gunshot snapped through the air, sending wood splinters exploding from the door frame above our heads.
We plummeted into the pitch-black basement, the cold damp smell of earth and stone slamming into our senses.
Ryan found the heavy iron latch of the exterior cellar doors and pushed upward with all his strength.
The rusted iron groaned, lifting just enough to reveal the muddy ground of the rose garden and the rain outside.
Before Ryan could push it fully open, a heavy tactical boot stomped down on top of the cellar doors from the outside.
The iron doors slammed shut with a deafening boom, locking us in the subterranean darkness.
From the other side of the heavy wood, a cold, mocking voice drifted through the iron grates.
May you like
"Going so somewhere, little sister?" Brianna sneered, her footsteps tapping lightly on the iron grate above our heads.
***
