Chapter 13 - Beneath the Chapel
Nathan’s single word remained on the phone screen.
Coming.
Dominic crushed the transmitter beneath his heel.
The green light went dark.
Marcus listened to the tunnel through a contact microphone pressed against the brick.
“Movement from the winery side,” he said.
“How many?” Shaw asked.
“Too far to count.”
Claire backed against the mirror wall.
“I did not know the transmitter was there.”
Mia looked at the slit inside the handbag lining.
“The leather was cut from the inside.”
“Someone could have done it at the warehouse.”
“Your bag never left the evidence table.”
Claire’s eyes moved toward Dominic.
He no longer searched her face for innocence.
That possibility had been exhausted.
“Did you send the signal?” he asked.
“No.”
“Did you know it was sending?”
Claire said nothing.
Shaw stepped forward with handcuffs.
“We are done negotiating.”
Claire pulled away.
“If you arrest me here, Nathan will kill Harper.”
“He already knows we are here,” Mia said.
“Because of you.”
Claire’s composure cracked.
“I was trying to stay alive.”
Mia’s voice remained quiet.
“You keep saying that as though the rest of us are not.”
A faint click came from the tunnel.
Marcus raised one hand.
Everyone stopped speaking.
The red sensor beam reappeared across the lower steps.
Someone on the other end had reactivated it.
Then a small mechanical sound traveled through the wall.
“Timer,” Marcus said.
“For what?” Dominic asked.
“Could be an alarm.”
“Could be a charge.”
The bridal estate windows flashed white.
An explosion struck the front gate.
Glass shattered throughout the building.
Shaw’s agents reported vehicles approaching from the river road.
Nathan had forced them toward the tunnel.
He controlled the entrance they had discovered and the roads outside.
Dominic looked at Samuel’s map.
“There is another route.”
Marcus followed his finger.
The bird symbol beneath the bridal estate connected backward toward Vale House.
A second line branched under the old chapel.
“You want to return to the estate?” Shaw asked.
“I want the tunnel Nathan thinks we abandoned.”
“The river entrance is wired.”
“So we approach from above the charges.”
Marcus understood.
“The chapel junction.”
“We can descend beyond the first blast point.”
Claire shook her head.
“You will lose too much time.”
Dominic looked at the clock.
Eleven thirty-six.
Twenty-four minutes.
“Then tell Nathan we are entering through the bridal tunnel.”
Claire stared at him.
“What?”
“You want to stay useful.”
“Be useful.”
“Send him a message from the transmitter account.”
“He will know I am lying.”
“He expects you to betray us.”
“For once, give him exactly what he expects.”
Shaw removed one handcuff and secured the other to Claire’s wrist.
Claire used the burner phone to send a message.
Tunnel open.
Dominic carrying ledger.
Nathan replied almost immediately.
Bring him down.
Mia watched Claire read it.
“He never planned to save you,” she said.
Claire did not answer.
They left the bridal estate through a rear maintenance exit while Shaw’s agents triggered smoke grenades near the main tunnel.
Nathan’s approaching men focused on the stairwell.
Marcus led the group through the woods to three waiting vehicles hidden beyond the property.
They reached Vale House by the quarry lane at eleven forty-four.
The estate remained dark in several wings.
Nathan’s attackers had withdrawn.
Loyal guards controlled the main hall, but no one knew which hidden cameras still worked.
Dominic took only Marcus, Mia, Daniel, and Shaw into the old chapel.
Claire remained above with federal agents.
Dr. Ortiz stayed with the evidence and monitored Daniel’s wound.
Daniel refused to remain behind.
“I moved the car,” he said.
Dominic turned toward him.
“What?”
“The night Elena died.”
The confession came without warning.
Daniel stood beneath the chapel’s painted ceiling with one arm in a sling.
“Nathan told me you wanted the sedan moved from the main garage to the service bay.”
“I was twenty-three.”
“I had worked for the family six months.”
“I did not ask why.”
Dominic felt the old chapel narrow around them.
“When?”
“Two hours before the explosion.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
“Because Nathan said the investigators knew.”
“He told me the move had nothing to do with the fire.”
“Then he promoted me.”
Daniel looked sick.
“I thought the promotion meant you approved of me.”
“It meant he wanted you grateful,” Mia said.
Daniel lowered his eyes.
“I may have placed Elena in that car.”
“No,” Dominic said.
Daniel looked up.
“Nathan chose the car.”
“Nathan gave the order.”
“You moved metal because a superior told you to.”
“That does not make you innocent of never questioning him afterward.”
“But it does not make you Elena’s killer.”
Daniel absorbed the distinction with visible pain.
“Then let me help finish this.”
Dominic nodded.
Marcus lifted the stone beneath the altar.
The tunnel opened.
Unlike the section used during the attack, this branch descended toward the river.
Samuel’s initials were carved into the bricks at each junction.
S.C.
A small bird symbol marked the correct direction.
Mia touched the first set of initials.
“My father built this.”
“Or mapped it,” Marcus said.
“He may have done both.”
They moved quickly.
The passage narrowed beyond the first hundred yards.
Old beams supported sections cut through unstable earth.
Water ran along a shallow channel near the wall.
At the third junction, Mia stopped.
A loose brick carried the same wing shape as the pendant key.
She pressed it.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside lay a metal box wrapped in oilcloth.
Dominic checked the time.
Eleven forty-nine.
“We cannot stop.”
Mia looked at the box.
“My father left it here for a reason.”
Marcus took it while they continued walking.
Daniel opened the lid beneath his flashlight.
Inside was a sealed envelope addressed to Dominic in Elena’s handwriting.
Dominic nearly stumbled.
He knew every curve of the letters.
She wrote his name with a long final line beneath the e.
The envelope had remained underground for eight years.
“Open it,” Mia said.
Dominic stared at the seal.
He had wanted one more word from Elena every day since the fire.
Now the words existed while Harper’s life depended on time.
He handed the envelope to Mia.
“Read while we move.”
She broke the seal.
Elena’s letter began without greeting.
Dominic, if Samuel gives you this, then Nathan has already prevented me from reaching you directly.
Mia’s voice echoed through the tunnel.
I followed the missing foundation funds into three Vescari accounts.
Nathan approved every transfer through companies he claims not to know.
He has asked the estate attorney what happens if you die without a child.
He has copied your personal seal.
Dominic’s pace slowed.
Marcus touched his shoulder.
“Keep moving.”
Mia continued reading.
I do not know whether he intends to harm you, but I know he is preparing to survive it.
Do not confront him alone.
Do not let him control the first account of anything that happens to me.
He has made himself necessary by creating emergencies only he can solve.
Dominic felt each sentence cut through a memory.
Nathan finding the corrupt driver.
Nathan exposing the warehouse leak.
Nathan rescuing Dominic from the car.
How many emergencies had he created before becoming the hero?
The letter continued.
Samuel believes the safest evidence is beneath the house because Nathan controls every message above it.
If I am wrong, forgive me.
If I am right, believe the people Nathan taught you not to hear.
Elena’s final line was shorter.
Power is not the same as being protected.
Mia folded the letter.
No one spoke.
Dominic had spent eight years believing Elena died before she could warn him.
She had warned him.
Nathan had simply controlled the path between her voice and his hands.
A thin wire appeared near the floor ahead.
Marcus stopped everyone.
“Fresh.”
The copper shone beneath the dust.
He followed it to a small charge fixed behind a support beam.
A red light blinked.
“Can you disarm it?” Shaw asked.
“Not safely in six minutes.”
“Can we go around?”
“No.”
The tunnel was too narrow.
Daniel examined the ceiling.
“If it blows, this section collapses.”
Marcus pointed toward the water channel.
“There is a maintenance crawlspace beneath the beam.”
“One person at a time.”
“Move.”
Mia crawled first because she was smallest.
Shaw followed.
Daniel pushed the evidence box beneath the beam.
Dominic entered next.
Halfway through, the red light changed from slow to rapid blinking.
Nathan knew they were there.
“Go,” Marcus shouted.
Dominic crawled forward.
The first explosion struck behind him.
The tunnel ceiling dropped in a roar of stone and earth.
The shock wave threw him into Mia.
Darkness swallowed the passage.
A second blast sounded ahead.
The floor rose beneath them.
When Dominic opened his eyes, dust filled his mouth and the flashlight lay broken near his hand.
Mia called Harper’s name into the dark.
No answer came.
Marcus’s voice sounded from somewhere behind the collapse.
“Dominic.”
“I’m here.”
“Daniel?”
A groan answered.
“Shaw?”
“Alive.”
Dominic felt along the wall.
The route behind them had disappeared beneath tons of earth.
The route ahead was blocked by fallen timber.
May you like
His phone showed eleven fifty-three.
Seven minutes remained before Nathan’s deadline.
