Chapter 3 - The Ghost Corridor
Roman raised his flashlight, illuminating the tunnel.
The passage was six feet high and four feet wide, lined with old red brick and supported by heavy steel ribs. It ran straight into the darkness, angling slightly upward toward the north wing of the estate.
On the dusty concrete floor of the tunnel were two distinct sets of footprints.
One pair belonged to a heavy dress shoe—Sebastian Crane’s leather loafers.
The second pair belonged to tactical boots with deeply grooved soles.
“Sebastian didn't escape into the vault,” Eva whispered, looking at the boot tracks. “He was dragged through this tunnel from somewhere else inside the house, then dumped through a hidden panel in the vault wall.”
“Which means someone inside my inner circle has the master access codes to the house’s hidden infrastructure,” Roman said, his voice dropping into a chilling register. “Codes that only my father, Sebastian, and I possessed.”
He stepped into the tunnel, gesturing for Eva to stay behind him.
“Stay close, stay low,” he commanded.
They moved silently through the narrow passage. The air grew colder, heavy with moisture from the earth above. Every ten yards, old iron junction boxes hung from the ceiling, their wires cut cleanly with wire clippers.
“Who had access to these plans, Mr. Bolaro?” Eva asked in a hushed tone as they walked.
“My father died ten years ago,” Roman explained calmly, his flashlight sweeping the darkness ahead. “Before he died, he told me that if anything ever happened to him, the vault was the only place in New York where my life would be safe. He said the house was built with a second skeleton—a system of hidden corridors designed to let his core team move unseen if the estate came under siege.”
“And who was his core team?”
“Three people,” Roman answered. “Sebastian Crane, his chief legal counsel. Victor Vance, his head of security for twenty-five years. And my uncle, Marcus Bolaro.”
Eva’s mind raced. “Where is Marcus now?”
“In his quarters in the north wing,” Roman said grimly. “He retired six years ago after a stroke. He barely leaves his room.”
The tunnel abruptly ended at a heavy iron spiral staircase leading straight up into the ceiling.
Beside the base of the stairs lay a small, black electronic device—a military-grade signal jammer, its blue indicator light blinking rhythmically in the dark.
Roman stepped forward and picked up the jammer.
“This is why the perimeter alarms failed,” Roman said, crushing the device beneath his heel until the blue light vanished. “Whoever did this knew our security frequencies down to the megahertz.”
He began to climb the spiral staircase, holding his weapon ready.
At the top of the stairs sat a small wooden hatch secured by a brass latch. Roman pushed it open half an inch, peeking through the narrow gap into the room above.
He froze.
Through the crack, the low light of a fire illuminated a carpeted room lined with bookshelves, oil paintings, and leather armchairs.
May you like
It was Marcus Bolaro’s private study in the north wing.
And standing beside the fireplace, holding a heavy suppressed pistol in his gloved hand, was Victor Vance—Roman’s head of security.
