Chapter 4 - Venom in the Wine
Andrew slowly turned around to face Eleanor. The silence inside the bunker was deafening.
"What does she mean, Eleanor?" Andrew asked, his voice dead calm, though his pulse was racing like a war drum. "Why did she say that?"
Eleanor didn't flinch. Tears welled up in her eyes again, but this time, her gaze was steady. "Because the gasoline came from your family's personal garage, Andrew. Because the person who handed Victoria the keys to our house that night... was Raymond."
Andrew felt as though the floor had vanished beneath him. "Raymond? My father's brother? The man who raised me after my parents died?"
"Raymond was bankrupt," Eleanor revealed, her voice shaking with rage. "He owed eighty million dollars to a cartel in South America. Victoria offered to pay off his debts in exchange for access to my family's shipping network. But to get that network, I had to die, and you had to be driven insane so they could appoint Raymond as the trustee of the Sterling-Vance corporate merger."
She pointed to the monitor where Victoria was holding the phone. "Raymond isn't her hostage, Andrew. He's her partner. They’re faking his kidnapping right now to trick you into opening this door!"
Andrew stared at the screen. He zoomed in on the live feed of Uncle Raymond on Victoria's phone.
He noticed a tiny detail.
Raymond’s hands were tied behind the chair, but his right hand was relaxed, holding a lighted cigar between two fingers behind the wooden frame. He wasn't a prisoner. He was waiting.
A dark, dangerous coldness washed over Andrew. His entire life—his grief, his depression, his endless nights drinking himself to sleep while mourning his wife—had been manufactured by the two people he trusted most in the world.
BOOM!
The safe room door vibrated violently as the first charge detonated outside. The thick steel warped inward by half an inch. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
"Daddy! Mommy!" the youngest boy screamed, waking up in terror.
Eleanor rushed to the sofa, pulling both boys into a tight embrace. "It's okay, my babies. Mommy's here. I'm not going anywhere."
Andrew walked over to the bunker’s weapons locker hidden behind a fake electrical panel. He punched in an eight-digit code. The panel slid open, revealing two tactical shotguns and several handguns.
He pulled out a heavy .45 caliber pistol, checked the magazine, and racked the slide with a crisp clack.
"Marcus," Andrew said into his earpiece. "Are you in position?"
Through the earpiece, Marcus's voice came through, cold and sharp. "In position, sir. SWAT teams are three minutes out. The perimeter snipers have clear lines of sight on the hallway exits."
Andrew looked at Eleanor. "You told me you came here to see the boys one last time before fleeing the country."
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"Yes," she whispered.
"Cancel those plans," Andrew said softly, walking over and kissing her gently on her scarred forehead. "You're home now. And nobody takes my wife twice."
