The Night the Manor Burned Again
Chapter 10 - The Night the Manor Burned Again
The blast did not throw Maeve across the room the way movies promised.
It stole the air.
One second she stood in the mudroom with Declan between her and the rain. The next, pressure slammed the windows inward and dust filled her mouth.
Declan grabbed her before falling glass reached her face.
“Move.”
He did not ask if she was hurt.
There was no time.
The manor became a living thing under attack. Men shouted in the halls. Alarms wailed. Somewhere upstairs, an automatic security shutter jammed halfway down with a metallic scream.
Maeve thought of Nell.
She shoved Declan hard enough that he looked offended.
“My sister.”
“Roman has her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know Roman.”
That was supposed to reassure her.
It did not.
They ran toward the kitchen, staying low. Smoke drifted from the front hall, but the worst of the damage seemed to be at the gates. Varo had not come to destroy the house.
He had come to split it open.
In the kitchen, Lucia sat in a wheelchair Gabriel had found from somewhere, wrapped in blankets and furious.
Nell stood beside her with a kitchen knife in one hand.
Roman was on the phone, issuing orders in a voice so calm it made the chaos seem embarrassed.
Maeve crossed to Nell.
“I’m sorry.”
Nell blinked. “For what?”
“For what I said.”
“You can apologize later when nobody is bombing the rich people.”
Maeve laughed because shock was strange.
Gabriel came through the pantry door. “The tunnel is open.”
Roman nodded. “Lucia and Nell first.”
“No,” Lucia said.
All three sons turned.
The old authority in that one syllable could have stopped traffic.
“I ran once,” Lucia said. “I will not be carried out while my children fight around me.”
Declan looked ready to argue and terrified to do it.
Maeve stepped forward. “Mrs. Falcone, with respect, if you stay, everyone in this room will make bad decisions trying to save you.”
Lucia studied her.
Then, impossibly, she smiled.
“Rose would have liked you.”
“She raised me. She didn’t always like me either.”
That did it.
Lucia allowed Gabriel to wheel her toward the hidden pantry stairs.
The tunnel below the kitchen was older than the manor, cut into the cliff, smelling of salt and stone. Maeve helped Nell down the steps. Roman stayed behind until everyone else had entered.
At the tunnel bend, Gabriel pressed a handgun into Maeve’s hand.
She stared at it.
“I don’t know how to use this.”
“Point it at anything that comes down here without our last name and look offended.”
“Is that official training?”
“Falcone certified.”
He moved past her before she could throw it back.
The tunnel led to an old boathouse at the base of the cliff. Rain hammered the roof. Waves struck the pilings hard enough to shake the floor.
For one fragile moment, Maeve thought they had made it.
Then a voice spoke from the shadows.
“Put the gun down, Miss Cole.”
Mrs. Hess stepped into the weak light.
The former house manager held a pistol in both hands. Her face looked older than it had that first day, stripped of panic and replaced by despair.
Behind her stood two of Varo’s men.
Gabriel froze at the tunnel mouth.
Nell whispered, “Maeve.”
Mrs. Hess looked directly at her.
“I’m sorry. I truly am.”
Maeve’s fingers tightened around the gun she didn’t know how to fire.
From the tunnel behind them came Roman’s footsteps, running.
May you like
Mrs. Hess raised the pistol.
“Not one more step,” she called. “Or the maid dies first.”
