Chapter 6 - THE SILVER BRACELET
The blinking red light on the tiny phone screen seemed to pulse in time with my racing heart.
A bomb. Wrapped around a six-year-old’s neck.
Damian stared at the image, his face turning the color of ash. For a terrifying second, I thought the great Damian Castellano was going to completely break. But then, a cold, mechanical calm washed over him. The father retreated, and the mafia boss returned.
"How much explosive is that?" Damian asked his security chief in the front seat, shoving the phone between the seats.
The chief glanced at it while driving. "C-4. A couple of ounces. Enough to..." He swallowed hard, unable to finish the sentence. "If the detonator goes off, or if the biometric clasp is forced open without the override code, it detonates."
Damian’s jaw locked. "He wants me alone."
"Boss, it's a suicide mission," the chief argued. "Julian has home-field advantage in those tunnels. If you go in alone, he'll kill you, and then he'll kill the girl anyway."
"I don't have a choice," Damian stated flatly.
"Yes, you do," I rasped.
Damian looked at me.
"He said no guards," I whispered, fighting the agonizing burn in my vocal cords. "He didn't say no maids."
Damian frowned. "Olivia, absolutely not. I am not bringing you into a hostage situation."
"You don't know the servant’s quarters," I argued, leaning closer to him. "Your father walled them off before you were a teenager. It’s a maze of old laundry chutes, coal rooms, and blind corners. Julian knows it. You don't. I do."
"How?"
"Because I used to hide there," I confessed, the shame coloring my cheeks. "When the senior staff was cruel. When I needed to cry where no one could hear me. I know every loose floorboard. I know which doors squeak and which ones are silent. If you go in alone, Julian will hear you coming from a mile away. If I take you, we can get behind him."
Damian stared into my eyes. He saw the sheer, stubborn will radiating from me. I wasn't going to let that little girl die.
"If things go bad," Damian said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "you run. You don't look back. You don't try to help me. Understood?"
I nodded once.
The SUVs screeched to a halt at the edge of the Castellano estate. The rain was torrential now, a wall of water masking our approach.
Damian ordered his men to hold a perimeter five hundred yards from the main house. "Nobody breaches unless I give the signal. If Julian sees flashlights, he hits the detonator."
Damian turned to Henry, who was trembling in the back of the SUV.
"You," Damian pointed a finger at the disgraced estate director. "You pray I make it out of there. Because if I die, my men have orders to hand you over to the New York families. And they won't make it quick."
Henry squeezed his eyes shut, nodding frantically.
Damian and I slipped out of the vehicle and vanished into the rain.
We moved like ghosts across the sprawling lawns, avoiding the security cameras Damian knew Julian would be monitoring. We reached the stone foundation at the rear of the mansion.
I guided Damian toward an old, rusted iron door hidden behind a massive overgrown rhododendron bush. It was the old coal chute.
"It's unlocked," I whispered. "The latch rusted through years ago."
I pulled the heavy door open just enough for us to squeeze through.
We dropped into the pitch-black basement. The air smelled of damp earth and centuries-old dust.
"The servant's quarters are two levels down," I whispered, placing my hand lightly on Damian’s arm to guide him in the dark. "Follow the wall. Step exactly where I step. The center floorboards rot and snap."
We moved in absolute silence. The darkness was suffocating, but my memory of the space guided my feet perfectly. We descended a crumbling stone staircase, the temperature dropping with every step.
Faint, flickering light appeared at the end of a long, arched stone corridor.
Candlelight.
We crept closer, pressing our backs against the cold, damp stone.
I peeked around the corner.
It was an old wine cellar, converted into a makeshift command center.
Sitting in the center of the room, tied to a wooden chair, was Mia. She was crying silently, tears streaking her dirty face. Around her neck, the silver bracelet blinked its lethal red warning.
And standing behind her, examining a layout of the mansion on a wooden table, was Julian Castellano.
He looked exactly like the photograph, but time and fire had ruined him. The left side of his face was a tapestry of jagged, angry burn scars. He moved with a heavy, pronounced limp, dragging his left leg. He wore a heavy, dark wool winter coat, despite the damp heat of the cellar.
"He's coming, little bird," Julian crooned to Mia, his voice a raspy imitation of Damian's. "Your fake daddy is coming to save you. And when he gets here, I'm going to show you what he really is."
Damian’s grip on his handgun tightened until his knuckles cracked. He prepared to step around the corner.
But I grabbed his wrist, stopping him.
I pointed to the ceiling above Julian.
In the shadows of the arched stone ceiling, barely visible in the candlelight, were tripwires. Thin, nearly invisible fishing line strung across the entrance to the room, connected to blocks of C-4 on the supporting pillars.
If Damian stepped into the room, he would bring the entire ceiling down on all of us.
Julian hadn't just booby-trapped the bracelet. He had rigged the entire room.
Damian saw the wires. The blood drained from his face. He was trapped. He couldn't shoot Julian without triggering a dead-man's switch, and he couldn't enter the room.
Julian chuckled, a dry, evil sound. He turned toward the dark corridor where we were hiding.
"I know you're there, Damian," Julian called out, his voice echoing off the stone. "I can smell your expensive cologne. Step into the light. But watch your step. I'd hate for the ceiling to crush my daughter before I get to say hello."
Damian took a deep breath. He handed me his spare magazine in the dark. A silent command. Stay hidden.
Damian stepped around the corner, keeping his hands visible, stepping carefully over the tripwire.
"Julian," Damian said calmly.
Julian smiled, his scarred face twisting into a grotesque mask. "Hello, little brother. It's been a long time."
Julian reached into the heavy pocket of his wool coat and pulled out a remote detonator. His thumb hovered over the trigger.
"Take off your gun, Damian," Julian ordered. "Toss it away. Or I blow the clasp on her neck right now."
Damian didn't hesitate. He pulled his weapon from its holster and tossed it into the far corner of the room.
"Let her go, Julian," Damian said. "You want me. You have me."
"I don't just want you dead," Julian spat, limping closer to Mia. He rested a scarred hand on the little girl's head. Mia whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut. "I want you to admit what you did. I want you to tell her that you stole my life. You stole my wife. You stole my empire."
"Elena chose me," Damian said, his voice steady. "She knew what you were."
"She didn't know anything!" Julian roared. "You poisoned her against me! You paid off Henry to cut my brakes so you could take my throne!"
I crouched in the dark, my mind racing. Julian believed Damian ordered the hit? Henry had acted alone, but Julian thought it was a coordinated assassination.
Julian pulled a heavy silver revolver from beneath his coat and aimed it squarely at Damian's chest.
"Get on your knees," Julian commanded.
Damian slowly lowered himself to the stone floor.
"Now," Julian smiled, stepping over the tripwire. "Beg for her life. And then, I'm going to shoot you in front of her."
I looked at the heavy wool coat Julian was wearing.
I remembered that coat.
Not from today. But from four years ago.
The night Elena died.
I had been a junior maid back then. I had been cleaning the mudroom when Elena ran out into the storm. And I had seen the man who chased her to the car.
It wasn't Henry.
May you like
And it wasn't Damian.
It was the man wearing that exact same heavy wool coat.
