Chapter 5 - What Elena Left Behind
The cellar smelled of damp stone, cured wine, and old iron.
Bea sat on an overturned crate, holding Frankie in her lap while Gia clung to Bea’s side, her face buried against Bea’s ribs. Outside the reinforced steel blast door, the muffled thunder of rifle fire and tactical shouting reverberated through the foundation.
Gia was shaking violently. “They’re going to hurt Papa.”
“Your father is the strongest man in this county,” Bea whispered firmly, wrapping her arms tighter around both girls. “Listen to me, Gia. Listen to my voice. Focus on the room. Name five things you can see.”
“A... a wine rack,” Gia stammered, wiping tears from her cheeks. “The lantern. The iron door. Your boots. The brass key in your pocket.”
Bea froze.
She looked down at Gia, then reached into her cardigan pocket. In the chaos of the alarm, she had grabbed Elena’s brass key along with the flashlight.
She looked at the antique iron door set into the far stone wall of the wine cellar—a cellar that had been built into the original eighteenth-century foundation of the estate.
The keyhole on the interior wine cage was modern, but behind the central wine rack, half-hidden behind stacks of dusty Cabernet cases, was a small, ornate iron hatch set directly into the stone wall.
“Frankie,” Bea whispered. “Did your mother ever bring you down here?”
Frankie lifted her head, her eyes wide and wet. “Mommy called it the secret garden. She said if the bad men ever came when Papa was away, we had to crawl through the small door.”
Bea’s pulse raced. She stood up, guiding the girls behind the wine racks. She swept away two wooden crates, revealing an arched iron door no larger than three feet high.
The keyhole was shaped like an ivy leaf.
Bea slipped the brass key into the lock. It turned with a heavy, smooth click that sounded through the cellar.
She pulled the door open. Inside was not a damp tunnel, but a dry, brick-lined alcove illuminated by a battery-operated emergency light that flickered weakly. On a small wooden shelf sat a fireproof metal lockbox and a thick leather-bound diary embossed with Elena’s initials.
Bea pulled the diary out.
She flipped the pages open under the flashlight beam. Elena’s elegant handwriting covered every page, detailing dates, bank account transfers, and private phone transcripts.
*“August 14th: Dominic thinks Julian is his brother in arms. He doesn't see what I see. Julian has been skimming the port accounts through offshore shells in Cyprus. When I confronted Julian yesterday, he smiled at me. He told me that accidents happen to curious women on mountain roads.”*
*“September 2nd: I’ve copied the ledger onto an encrypted drive. If something happens to me, Dominic will tear the world apart looking for an outside enemy. He won't look behind him. Julian is the poison in our well. May God protect my daughters.”*
Bea covered her mouth with a hand, a cold dread washing over her.
Elena Bellmore hadn't died from bad weather. Her brakes hadn't failed by chance. Julian Vance—Dominic’s chief financial officer, his most trusted childhood friend, the man who had stood beside Dominic at Elena’s funeral—had murdered her to keep his embezzlement quiet.
A loud metallic screech echoed from the top of the cellar stairs.
The heavy steel blast door groaned as an electronic code was entered from the outside.
Bea slammed the diary shut and shoved both girls into the secret brick alcove. “Stay inside. Do not make a sound, no matter what happens.”
“Miss Hale—” Gia whispered, pure terror in her eyes.
“I won't let anyone touch you,” Bea said fiercely, kissing the top of Gia’s forehead before closing the iron door until it was nearly shut, leaving only a tiny crack for air.
Bea grabbed an empty heavy glass wine bottle by the neck, stepped into the shadows behind the main cellar door, and waited.
The steel door swung open with a hiss of hydraulics.
Boots descended the concrete steps. But it wasn't Dominic.
It was Julian Vance, dressed in an immaculate cashmere coat, flanked by two men carrying tactical submachine guns. Julian’s face was pale, his eyes darting frantically across the dark cellar.
“Dominic is occupied on the south lawn,” Julian said to his men, his voice tight and ragged. “Find the girls. We take them as leverage. If Dominic thinks rival syndicates have them, he’ll hand over the port authority codes by morning.”
Julian stepped past the wine rack.
Bea didn't hesitate.
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Using every ounce of her strength and weight, she swung the heavy magnum bottle directly into the temple of the first armed guard. The glass shattered with an explosive crack, dropping the man instantly to the concrete floor.
***
