Broken silver scattered across the mansion floor while I knelt there praying no one would fire me before my first real shift even began. My seven-year-old son needed another blood transfusion the next morning, and the wages from this house were the only thing standing between us and a bill I had no way to pay. I gathered each piece into my apron as slowly as I could, because as long as I was still cleaning, nobody had told me to leave. Behind me, footsteps approached, and my whole body locked.

The barking echoed through the narrow stone tunnel, a vicious, overlapping cacophony that sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once.

“Dobermans,” Malcolm growled, leaning heavily against the damp brick wall. “Tommy unleashed the perimeter guards.”

“They’re going to find us,” I panicked, tightening my grip on Leo’s hand. The little boy was shaking violently, his eyes wide with silent terror in the beam of the flashlight.

“They’re tracking the blood from my shoulder,” Malcolm said, glancing down at his torn shirt. The gunshot wound from days ago had reopened during his escape. He pressed his hand against it, but the dark stain continued to spread. “They won’t stop until they corner us.”

We hurried deeper into the tunnel. The air grew colder, smelling of salt and rotting seaweed, telling me we were getting closer to the coastal cliffs. The antidote had given Malcolm a burst of adrenaline, but I could tell it was fading. He was dragging his left leg, his breaths coming in ragged, painful gasps.

Suddenly, the tunnel widened into a small, circular antechamber. Wooden crates, rotted with age, were stacked against the walls. It was an old Prohibition staging room, untouched for nearly a century.

“Look,” I said, shining the flashlight toward a rusted hook on the wall.

Hanging from it was a heavy, floor-length wool coat. It was covered in decades of dust and moth-eaten at the hem, but it was thick and dark.

“My father’s,” Malcolm whispered, a strange look of reverence crossing his hardened features. “He built these tunnels. He always kept an emergency stash down here.”

I grabbed the coat off the hook and shook out the dust. “Put this on. It will cover the blood. It might mask your scent enough to confuse the dogs.”

Malcolm nodded, grimacing as I helped him shrug his massive shoulders into the heavy wool. As I smoothed the lapel, my hand brushed against something stiff inside the breast pocket.

I reached in and pulled out a bundle wrapped in cracked, yellowed oilcloth.

I peeled it open. Inside were three vintage passports, a stack of very old, out-of-circulation hundred-dollar bills, and a folded piece of parchment. It was a hand-drawn map of the tunnel system.

“Look here,” Malcolm pointed a trembling finger at the map. “The main exit to the cliffs is straight ahead. But there’s a secondary hatch. An old smuggler’s drop, leading directly up to the estate’s outer garage. If Tommy expects us to run for the cliffs, the garage will be empty.”

“We can steal a car,” I realized, a spark of hope finally igniting in my chest.

“Exactly. Come on.”

We altered our course, following the map down a narrower, secondary tunnel that veered sharply to the right. The barking of the dogs seemed to grow louder, then suddenly muffled as we put a thick wall of rock between us and the main passageway.

The coat was working. The thick wool was trapping the scent of the fresh blood.

We walked for what felt like miles in the dark, the only sound the crunch of our footsteps and Leo’s soft, frightened breathing. Finally, our flashlight beam hit a solid wall of rusted metal.

It was the secondary hatch. A heavy iron door set into the ceiling of the tunnel, accessed by a short metal ladder.

“We made it,” I breathed, a relieved sob escaping my lips.

I climbed the first three rungs of the ladder and pushed against the iron hatch. It was incredibly heavy. I pushed harder, bracing my shoulders against the cold metal, but it didn't budge.

“Let me,” Malcolm grunted, gently pulling me down.

He climbed the ladder, his face contorting in pain. He planted his boots on the rungs, placed both massive hands flat against the iron door, and pushed with a guttural roar. His muscles bulged under the heavy wool coat. The ladder groaned in protest.

The door didn't move a fraction of an inch.

Malcolm stopped, panting heavily. He ran his hand along the edges of the door where it met the stone frame.

When he looked down at me, the terrifying mob boss looked utterly defeated.

“It’s welded shut,” he whispered.

My stomach plummeted. “What? Are you sure?”

“Fresh welds,” Malcolm said, touching the thick, sloppy beads of metal sealing the hatch shut. “Someone did this recently. Someone who knew I might try to use this escape route.”

Tommy.

He hadn’t just decided to kill Malcolm tonight. He had been planning this for months. He had systematically sealed every rat hole in the estate, ensuring there was absolutely no way out. We were rats in a trap, and we had just walked into a dead end.

Behind us, in the darkness of the tunnel we had just walked down, a new sound echoed.

Not barking.

Footsteps. Slow, deliberate footsteps splashing through the shallow puddles on the tunnel floor.

I spun around, pointing the flashlight down the dark passage.

A blinding beam of light hit us in the face, forcing me to shield my eyes.

“I have to admit,” Tommy Marlow’s voice echoed off the damp stone walls, smooth and dripping with cruel amusement. “I didn't think the old man had it in him to make it this far. You’ve been holding out on me, Malcolm.”

Tommy stepped into the halo of our flashlight. He was holding a high-powered tactical flashlight in one hand. In the other, aimed directly at Malcolm’s chest, was a suppressed pistol.