Chapter 4 - Descent into the DarkThe hallway outside the nursery was pitch black.
The emergency backup generators should have kicked in within three seconds of a power failure, but they hadn't. That meant the sabotage wasn’t just digital; someone had physically severed the primary fuel lines in the sub-basement.
I pressed Nico tightly against my chest, wrapping his flannel blanket around his face to shield him from the chill of the unheated corridors. Every shadow cast by the faint green glow of the exit signs looked like a threat.
Thump.
A dull, heavy sound echoed from the floor below.
I froze halfway down the grand mahogany staircase, my boots hovering above the next step. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“Mr. Bolaro?” I whispered into the darkness, straining my ears.
No answer. Only the dripping of rain against the tall stained-glass windows and the distant, rhythmic creak of old wood settling in the wind.
Four years in a pediatric ICU had taught me how to keep my head when monitors flatlined and parents panicked. But this wasn't a hospital. There were no code blues called over an intercom, no security teams rushing to assist. Out here, in the dark belly of a crime lord's fortress, a nurse with a plastic bottle cap was the only thing standing between an infant and whoever was walking up those stairs.
I changed direction, abandoning the path to the basement. If the main stairwell was compromised, the service elevator shaft was a death trap, and the basement panic room might already be cut off.
Instead, I slipped through the heavy double doors leading to the East Wing—the old servants' quarters.
The air in the wing smelled of dust, old parchment, and faint lemon polish. It was a labyrinth of narrow corridors, linen closets, and forgotten storage rooms that hadn’t been updated since the mansion was built in the 1920s.
That was our advantage. The architectural blueprints of this wing didn't match the digital schematics Marcus Vance had hacked upstairs.
I ducked into a small linen room just as heavy boots crunched on the polished floorboards of the main gallery outside.
One. Two. Three pairs of boots.
They weren't walking like Bolaro’s guards. Bolaro’s men moved with tactical precision, heels striking silently, covering each other’s sectors. These men walked with the sloppy, aggressive swagger of mercenaries—professionals brought in for a clean-up job, not a security detail.
“Sweep the upper level first,” a harsh voice hissed through a static-laced tactical radio just outside my door. “The boss wants the kid alive, but the nurse and the doctor are expendable. If they get in the way, put them down.”
The radio crackled with static, then fell silent as the footsteps moved past the door and faded down the hall toward the nursery.
I let out a shaky breath, my back pressed against the cold wooden shelves of the linen closet.
That was when my foot brushed against something metallic on the floor.
May you like
I looked down, squinting through the gloom. Half-hidden beneath a pile of old drop cloths was a heavy steel hatch built directly into the floorboards—an old coal chute used decades ago to heat the mansion, leading straight down to the old drainage tunnels beneath the city streets.
And from beneath the closed iron lid of the chute, a thin, unmistakable stream of fresh air drifted up to touch my face.
