Chapter 5 - What the Malone Family Buried
Darkness swallowed the wine cellar.
Someone grabbed my arm.
I nearly screamed until Rhett’s voice reached me.
“It’s me.”
His hand released me at once.
A beam of light appeared as Elias switched on a tactical flashlight.
Gerald was gone.
The old delivery tunnel stood open behind the last wine rack.
“Naomi,” Rhett said into the radio.
Static answered.
The explosion had severed communication.
Gunfire sounded upstairs.
Elias checked the tunnel.
“He went west.”
“Crane’s men are in the house,” I said. “Why are we following Gerald?”
“Because if he reaches what is buried beneath the estate, losing the house will be the smallest problem we have.”
“What is buried?”
Rhett looked at me in the narrow light.
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“My father kept secrets from everyone.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
Another burst of gunfire echoed overhead.
Elias turned toward the stairs.
“I should reinforce security.”
Rhett nodded.
“Get Naomi online. Protect the staff tunnel.”
Elias hesitated.
“You’ll be alone.”
Rhett looked at me.
“Apparently not.”
“I can go back,” I said.
“No. Gerald knows you are here now. The safest place is beside me.”
Despite everything, a strange warmth moved through me.
Not because I wanted danger.
Because this time he had not ordered me away.
Elias disappeared toward the stairs.
Rhett entered the tunnel.
I followed.
The passage was narrow and damp, built from old brick. Rusted rails ran along the floor where carts had once carried wine and coal beneath the property. The air smelled of earth and metal.
“How far does this go?” I whispered.
“Under the west garden, then toward the original carriage house.”
“And what did your father bury?”
“He used to say every family fortune rests on something no one wants uncovered.”
“That sounds comforting.”
“He was not a comforting man.”
We walked in silence.
After several minutes, the tunnel divided.
Fresh mud marked the left path.
Rhett crouched.
“Gerald went this way.”
A faint mechanical hum came from ahead.
We followed it to a steel door hidden behind hanging roots.
The door stood partly open.
Beyond it lay a chamber far newer than the tunnel.
Electric lights flickered overhead. Metal shelves lined the walls. Filing cabinets, sealed crates, old computers, and stacks of documents filled the room.
At the center stood Gerald.
Beside him was Felix Crane.
I recognized the white hair and false smile from Naomi’s photograph.
Two armed men stood behind him.
Gerald held a red folder.
Felix applauded softly when Rhett entered.
“The heir finally finds the family basement.”
Rhett kept his weapon lowered but ready.
“Step away from him, Gerald.”
Gerald looked tired.
“I tried to give you a chance to avoid this.”
“By inviting Crane into my home?”
“By giving him the proof he needs to stop a war.”
Felix laughed.
“Gerald still believes this ends with a negotiation.”
Rhett’s gaze moved to the red folder.
“What is it?”
Felix answered.
“Your father’s insurance policy.”
“Against whom?”
“Everyone.”
Gerald opened the folder.
Inside were photographs, bank records, shipping manifests, and handwritten statements.
“Your father documented every alliance,” Gerald said. “Every payment to police, judges, union leaders, contractors. Every shipment that passed through the docks. Every betrayal.”
“Why?”
“Leverage.”
Rhett’s face hardened.
“My father has been dead twelve years.”
“But many of the people named here are alive,” Felix said. “Powerful people. Public people.”
The implications settled over the room.
The missing ledger had not been the real prize.
It had shown Crane how to enter.
Boyd had been a disposable thief.
My mother had been bait.
Gerald had betrayed the house to reach evidence buried beneath it.
“What did Crane promise you?” Rhett asked.
Gerald’s jaw tightened.
“Peace.”
Felix smiled.
“I promised not to release the files if Rhett surrendered the waterfront holdings.”
“And you believed him?” I asked.
Gerald looked at me.
“I believed the alternative was bloodshed.”
“He kidnapped my mother.”
“That was Boyd.”
“You placed the weapon in Boyd’s hand.”
Gerald’s expression cracked.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Felix turned toward him.
“You did not mention the maid’s daughter was so persistent.”
“She is not part of this.”
“Everyone in this room is part of it now.”
Felix’s men raised their weapons.
Rhett shifted subtly in front of me.
Felix noticed.
“Interesting,” he said. “The famous Rhett Malone shielding a housemaid.”
“She is a witness.”
“Is that all?”
Rhett’s voice remained cold.
“She is under my protection.”
The words filled the chamber.
Felix smiled wider.
“That sounds personal.”
“It is a rule.”
“Rules are what men invent when they fear desire.”
Rhett did not respond.
Felix gestured toward the shelves.
“Your father understood desire. Money. Loyalty. Revenge. He kept records because he knew every man has a price.”
“My father died alone.”
“He died powerful.”
“He died afraid.”
Something moved in Gerald’s face.
Rhett continued.
“You served him for thirty years, Gerald. Tell me I am wrong.”
Gerald looked down at the folder.
Felix grew impatient.
“Enough family therapy. Put down the gun.”
Rhett did not move.
One of the armed men stepped toward me.
Rhett raised his weapon instantly.
Felix lifted a hand.
“Careful. We are standing inside a room filled with paper, ammunition, and enough fuel residue to turn this tunnel into a grave.”
I looked toward the crates.
Black warning labels marked several of them.
Old blasting caps.
Industrial explosives.
“You planned to destroy the evidence,” I said.
Felix glanced at me.
“After copying what I need.”
“And everyone inside the house?”
“An unfortunate fire.”
Gerald turned sharply.
“You said the staff had been evacuated.”
“They were.”
“There are still guards upstairs.”
“Malone guards.”
“You promised no unnecessary deaths.”
Felix sighed.
“Gerald, betrayal is such a difficult act for moral men. You want the reward without accepting the character it requires.”
Gerald’s face went pale.
Rhett lowered his gun slightly.
“Come back,” he said.
Gerald stared at him.
“You would forgive this?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because there are people upstairs who trusted you. Help me save them.”
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then Gerald closed the red folder.
Felix’s expression changed.
“Do not be foolish.”
Gerald stepped away from him.
One of Felix’s men raised his weapon.
The shot exploded through the chamber.
Gerald jerked backward.
Blood spread across his shirt.
Rhett fired immediately.
The nearest gunman fell.
Chaos erupted.
I dropped behind a metal cabinet as bullets struck the walls. Sparks burst from an electrical panel. Felix ran toward the far exit with the red folder.
Rhett exchanged fire with the second man.
Gerald collapsed near the shelves.
I crawled toward him.
“Stay down,” Rhett shouted.
Gerald pressed both hands against his wound.
“He has the detonator,” he gasped.
“Where?”
“Felix.”
A bullet struck the cabinet above my head.
I covered Gerald with my body instinctively.
Rhett fired twice.
The second gunman fell.
Silence crashed into the chamber.
Felix had disappeared through the far doorway.
Rhett rushed to us.
“Can you move?” he asked Gerald.
“Not far.”
I examined the wound.
The bullet had entered below the ribs. Dark blood soaked his shirt.
“He needs surgery,” I said. “Now.”
Gerald caught Rhett’s wrist.
“The charges are connected to the old gas line. If Felix reaches the carriage house exit, he’ll detonate remotely.”
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
Rhett looked toward the door Felix had used.
Then at Gerald.
Then at me.
“I can stabilize him,” I said.
“You are not staying here.”
“You need to stop Felix.”
“I’m not leaving you in a room full of explosives.”
“If you don’t stop him, the room explodes anyway.”
Rhett stared at me.
I tore fabric from Gerald’s shirt and pressed it against the wound.
“I’m a nurse,” I said. “Let me do what I’m trained to do.”
“You graduated last week.”
“I still graduated.”
Gerald coughed.
“She’s right.”
Rhett ignored him.
I met Rhett’s eyes.
“Trust me for five minutes.”
Recognition passed between us.
The same words he had spoken outside Bay Street.
His jaw tightened.
Then he removed a small radio from his belt and handed it to me.
“If the lights flash twice, run back through the tunnel.”
“What about Gerald?”
“Take him if you can. Leave him if you must.”
Gerald gave a weak laugh.
“Still merciful.”
Rhett leaned close to him.
“You do not get to ask for mercy tonight.”
Then he looked at me.
“I will come back.”
“You’d better.”
He disappeared through the far door.
I focused on Gerald.
His pulse was fast and weak.
“Keep pressure here.”
He placed a trembling hand over the cloth.
“You look like Clara.”
“Don’t speak.”
“Same stubborn eyes.”
“Save your breath.”
“I am sorry.”
“For betraying Rhett or using my mother?”
“Both.”
“Sorry doesn’t repair ribs.”
“No.”
“Sorry doesn’t erase seven years of fear.”
“No.”
“Then stay alive long enough to testify.”
His eyes closed.
I slapped his cheek lightly.
“Gerald.”
He opened them.
“Bossy.”
“Nursing school.”
A distant gunshot echoed through the tunnel.
Then another.
The lights flickered once.
My heart stopped.
Not twice.
I listened to the radio.
Static.
“Rhett?”
No answer.
Gerald’s breathing became shallow.
I tightened the pressure.
“Tell me about Rhett’s father,” I said, trying to keep him conscious.
“He was brilliant.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“He was cruel.”
“And Rhett?”
“Spent his whole life trying not to become him.”
The lights flickered again.
Twice.
Run.
I pulled Gerald’s arm over my shoulders.
“Stand.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
The first explosion came from somewhere above us.
Dust rained from the ceiling.
I dragged Gerald toward the tunnel.
He stumbled.
Behind us, fire burst from the electrical panel.
“Move!”
We reached the steel door as a deeper blast shook the chamber.
Shelves toppled.
Flames raced along the floor.
Gerald collapsed in the tunnel.
I pulled him by the shoulders.
The radio crackled.
“Lena.”
Rhett.
“I’m here.”
“Where are you?”
“Tunnel. Gerald is alive.”
“Leave him and run.”
“No.”
“Lena, the gas line is burning.”
“I’m not leaving someone to die.”
“He betrayed your mother.”
“I know.”
“Then why?”
“Because I am not Boyd. And I am not Felix.”
Silence.
Then Rhett said, “Keep moving. I’m coming toward you.”
Smoke rolled into the tunnel.
Gerald’s weight became impossible.
I dragged him another foot.
Then another.
My lungs burned.
A shape appeared through the smoke.
Rhett.
He had blood on his shirt and the red folder tucked beneath one arm.
Together, we lifted Gerald.
“Felix?” I asked.
“Escaped through the carriage house.”
“With the detonator?”
“No.”
Rhett showed me a crushed black device.
Relief nearly dropped me to my knees.
We carried Gerald through the tunnel as fire roared behind us.
When we emerged into the wine cellar, Elias and Naomi were waiting with guards and emergency equipment.
They took Gerald from us.
I leaned against the wall, coughing.
Rhett stood in front of me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Your hands.”
I looked down.
My palms were scraped and bleeding.
“I’m fine.”
He almost smiled.
“I have heard that lie before.”
Above us, alarms finally began to sound.
Rhett opened the red folder.
Several pages were missing.
“Felix took copies,” he said.
“Can he use them?”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?”
May you like
Rhett looked toward the burning tunnel beneath his family home.
“Now he stops hiding behind thieves.”
