Chapter 13 - Shadows Behind the Barricade
As evening fell over the estate, the police presence thinned out, leaving only a single patrol car parked at the main gates. Inside the mansion, the heavy silence was broken by a sudden, metallic grinding noise coming from deep within the basement utility corridor.
Hannah grabbed her tactical flashlight, rushing down the grand staircase with Arthur right behind her. "Stay here, Leo," Arthur commanded, though the boy immediately followed them down the steps, refusing to be left alone in the dark again.
They reached the reinforced steel door of the subterranean vault, which had been left ajar by the federal investigators. But the noise wasn't coming from inside the vault—it was echoing from an unmapped sub-basement hatch hidden beneath a concrete slab near the old coal chute.
"Someone is down there," Hannah whispered, raising her iron pipe defensively.
Arthur pulled the heavy iron ring of the sub-basement door. It lifted with a groan of rusted hinges. A damp, suffocating draft puffed upward, carrying the distinct scent of antiseptic and stale cigarette smoke—the exact brand of foreign cigarettes Julian’s personal bodyguard, Miller, used to smoke.
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"Miller never made it onto the helicopter this morning," Arthur realized, his eyes narrowing. "He’s still hiding in the service tunnels."
Without hesitation, Arthur dropped down the ladder into the pitch-black abyss, determined to sever the last remaining tentacle of Victoria and Julian’s conspiracy once and for all.
