Chapter 1 - The Weight of Seven BellsGabriel stared at the small brass plate attached to the wooden handle.
Etched into the metal were three deeply worn characters: XVII.
“Seventeen,” Gabriel said softly, his voice dropping into a register that made even Walter Pike shift uneasily. He looked up at Evelyn, his dark eyes sharpening with a sudden, intense focus. “Where exactly did she find that, Mrs. Carter?”
“By the service corridor near the old wine cellar,” Evelyn answered, gently taking the cord from her daughter’s hand and slipping it into her uniform pocket. She looked at Gabriel with an unyielding gaze. “A corridor that was supposedly sealed during the renovation three years ago.”
“Sealed,” Gabriel repeated with a dry, humorless laugh. “Nothing in this house is ever really sealed. People just stop looking.”
He stood up, brushing a speck of dust from his dark gray suit. He didn't ask Lucy to explain further; instead, he glanced at Walter. “Clear the courtyard. And cancel the delivery for those black candles. If my aunt asks, tell her I’m handling chapel logistics myself from now on.”
Walter bowed his head stiffly. “Yes, Mr. Ashford.”
As Gabriel turned and walked back toward the main entrance, Evelyn felt a cold knot twist in her stomach.
She had worked at Ashford House for four years, cleaning the marble halls, maintaining the historic archives, and raising her daughter in the small apartment provided above the stables. She knew the family's history of violence, extortion, and blood. She knew that men didn't just disappear from estates surrounded by iron gates and private security.
And she knew that a bell labeled Seventeen wasn't just an antique toy.
May you like
It was part of the estate’s original emergency communication system—a subterranean network designed a century earlier so that the head of the house could summon help, or lock down the compound, from hidden chambers beneath the foundations.
A system that was supposed to have been disconnected entirely.
