Chapter 6 - The Siege of St. Jude’s Lane
Clare didn't ask questions. She dropped the phone receiver, grabbed Nero’s collar, and commanded, “Heel!”
She ran out of the security room, leaving Tommy pinned under the threat of Nero’s return, and sprinted down the damp concrete corridor toward the domestic wing.
The house, once a place of quiet luxury, now felt like a giant labyrinth of deadly traps. She burst into her apartment. Lily was sitting on her bed, her eyes wide with fear as the estate’s loud emergency perimeter siren began to wail across the grounds—a piercing tone that signalled an immediate armed breach.
“Mommy!”
“Up, Lily! Right now!” Clare grabbed her daughter’s hand, lifting her off the bed in one smooth motion.
“Is it the bad men?” Lily cried, clutching her mother’s neck.
“We’re going to play a hide-and-seek game in the wine cellar,” Clare said, her voice impossibly calm and sweet despite the panic clawing at her lungs. “Nero’s going to guard us.”
They raced down the domestic service staircase, out into the kitchen, and down the stone steps into the dark wine cellar. The hole in the masonry wall where Clare had found the bugs still gaped like an open wound, brick dust coating the stone floor.
At the far end of the cellar, behind the rows of expensive vintage cabernets, was a heavy iron door painted to blend seamlessly with the surrounding mortar—a prohibition-era panic room that Dante had upgraded with reinforced steel three years prior.
Clare punched the six-digit code into the hidden keypad disguised behind a wall-mounted thermometer.
The iron door clicked open with a heavy pneumatic hiss.
“Go inside, Lily. Stay in the corner behind the desk.”
“Are you coming with me?” Lily sobbed.
“In just a second, baby. I have to lock the outer door.”
As Clare pushed Lily into the safety of the reinforced room, she heard the heavy crash of shattered glass upstairs in the main conservatory.
The perimeter had been breached.
Men’s voices, rough and urgent, yelled orders in the main foyer above. Heavy boots thudded across the wooden ceiling joists.
“Search the cellar!” a voice shouted from the top of the kitchen steps. “Marco said the girl and the housekeeper know about the paper records! Clean them out!”
Clare’s heart stopped.
If she pulled the panic room door shut from the inside, the electronic lock would secure them completely. But the outer mechanism—the false brick panel—would remain open, revealing the existence of the hidden vault to anyone searching the cellar. If Marco’s men brought explosives or heavy cutting tools, it would only be a matter of time before they breached the inner steel.
She had to close the false brick panel from the outside to hide the vault entirely.
She looked down at Nero.
The big dog stood at the entrance of the panic room, his body braced, his dark eyes fixed on the cellar stairs.
“Nero,” Clare whispered, tears finally breaking through her eyes. “In. Protect Lily.”
The dog looked at Clare, his tail giving a single, heavy thud. He understood. He stepped inside the small, reinforced room and sat down firmly next to Lily, placing himself between the girl and the heavy steel door.
“I love you, Lily,” Clare whispered.
“Mommy, no!”
Clare pulled the heavy steel panic room door shut until the magnetic lock engaged with a loud THUD.
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She quickly reached over to the wall controls, pulling the manual lever that swung the heavy walnut wine rack back into place, completely concealing the steel door behind three tons of aged wood and heavy glass bottles.
She turned around just as two armed men in dark tactical gear descended the stone steps into the wine cellar, their flashlights cutting through the damp darkness.
