Chapter 13 - The Underground ExodusThe alarms wailed through the mansion, screaming red emergency lights casting long, distorted shadows across the corridors. The estate was under full lockdown, but the Marseille operatives stationed outside were already breaching the outer reinforced doors with thermal cutting torches.
I couldn't stay in the study. If the entire estate became a tomb, I needed to be the ghost haunting it.
I sprinted down the private, wood-paneled corridor toward the subterranean escape tunnel—a secret passage my father had built decades ago, leading out to the rocky cliffs overlooking the Atlantic.
As I reached the hidden bookshelf entrance, the heavy oak door behind me blew inward in a shower of splinters and white smoke.
"There! He's heading for the sub-level!" a gruff voice shouted through a gas mask.
I didn't hesitate. I threw the secret lever, slipped into the dark stone tunnel, and slammed the heavy iron hatch shut just as a volley of submachine gun fire chewed into the wooden frame.
The tunnel was pitch black, lit only by emergency backup strips glowing a faint, eerie blue. I ran, my breathing steady, my mind calculating every move. Julian was ruined, my mother was exiled in Switzerland, and Marco was unconscious in my study. But the war for New York was far from over; it was just moving out of the sunlight and back into the gutters where it belonged.
As I emerged from the cliffside exit into the cold, salty ocean air, a sleek, unmarked black speedboat idled silently against the crashing waves below.
At the helm sat a figure wrapped in a dark trench coat, a familiar hood pulled low over their face.
I drew my Beretta, aiming down at the boat. "Cut the engine and turn around."
The figure slowly lowered their hood.
May you like
In the moonlight, pale skin and piercing dark eyes looked up at me. It wasn't an assassin.
It was Sophia.
