Chapter 3 - The Wine Cellar
The path to the estate’s historic stables ran through a line of towering saguaro cacti and olive trees, bathed in the blinding, white-hot heat of the midday Arizona sun.
Damon moved across the gravel court like a shadow, flanked by Marcus and three heavily armed security operators wearing tactical vests beneath their jackets.
The old stables had been built in the 1920s by Damon’s grandfather—a sprawling structure of red brick, dark wood, and subterranean storage chambers designed to keep wine cool during the brutal desert summers.
"Two men at the ground-level entrance," Marcus whispered, checking his suppressed firearm behind a low stone wall. "Not ours. They're wearing contractor uniforms, but they're carrying concealed automatics."
"Victor's personal mercenaries," Damon said. His suit jacket was gone, his white shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the dark, intricate tattoos that covered his forearms—symbols of the Reyes family's blood-soaked rise to power. "Take them down quietly. I want Selena out of there before anyone realizes Victor failed to report back."
Marcus nodded to the two operators behind him.
They moved with practiced, lethal precision.
The operators flanked the wooden stable doors, moving through the shimmering heat waves. Before the two mercenaries guarding the entrance could react to the subtle crunch of gravel, Marcus’s men were upon them. Two quick, muffled strikes, the heavy thud of bodies falling against the dirt, and the entrance was clear.
Damon stepped over the unconscious men, pushing open the heavy, iron-reinforced wooden door.
The smell inside was instant: old dust, leather, dry earth, and the sharp, metallic tang of copper.
Blood.
Damon’s heart slammed against his ribs. The cold, mechanical detachment that had carried him through a decade of violence threatened to crack.
He descended the stone steps leading down into the subterranean wine cellar. The temperature plummeted twenty degrees, the air thick and damp.
At the end of the narrow corridor, illuminated by a single bare bulb hanging from a frayed cord, was an iron-grate door.
Behind the iron bars, tied to a wooden chair, was Selena.
Her cream blouse was torn at the shoulder, covered in dirt and dark streaks. Her dark hair, usually pinned up in a neat, professional bun, hung in matted waves around her face. Her left eye was swollen shut, and blood trickled from a cut on her lip.
Standing over her was a tall, heavily built man holding a heavy leather belt.
"Where did the kid go, Selena?" the man was shouting, slapping her across the face with his open hand. "We know she ran toward the main house! What did she take from the room?!"
Selena’s head snapped back from the blow, but she didn't scream. She spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete floor, her one open eye burning with a terrifying, fierce light.
"She's three years old, you pathetic bastard," Selena rasped, her voice ragged and bloody. "She's playing with her toys. She doesn't know anything."
"She dragged a bag out of your room!" the man snarled, raising the belt again. "Victor said—"
He never finished the sentence.
Damon kicked the iron door off its rusted hinges with catastrophic force.
The heavy iron grate slammed inward, striking the mercenary square in the back, sending him crashing face-first into the concrete floor.
Before the man could push himself up, Damon was on him.
He grabbed the man by the hair, dragging his face upward, and drove his knee directly into his nose with the force of a battering ram. Bone exploded. The mercenary let out a wet, gurgling shriek, but Damon didn't stop. He slammed the man's head into the concrete three times until the body went entirely limp.
Damon stood up, breathing heavily, his white shirt stained with the intruder's blood.
He turned toward the wooden chair.
Selena stared at him through her swollen eye, her breath coming in shuddering, painful gasps.
"Damon..." she whispered, her voice breaking. "Ruby... is Ruby—"
"Ruby is safe," Damon said, his voice dropping all its violence, replacing it with a tenderness that made Marcus, standing at the doorway, step back to give them room. "She's in my study. She's eating cinnamon cookies with Marcus's men."
Selena let out a long, ragged sob, her head dropping forward as tears cut clean tracks through the dirt on her cheeks. "Thank God... thank God..."
Damon drew a silver pocket knife from his trousers, quickly cutting the heavy nylon ropes binding her wrists and ankles. The moment her arms were free, her legs collapsed under her.
Damon caught her before she hit the cold floor, lifting her easily into his arms, pulling her battered body against his chest.
She was trembling violently, her small hands clutching frantically at his blood-stained shirt, burying her face into his neck just as her daughter had done an hour earlier.
"I tried to stop her," Selena wept, her fingers digging into his back. "Victor... Victor came to my quarters while I was cleaning the east wing. He told me he knew I saw the safe. He said if I didn't give him the ledger key, he would take Ruby. I managed to lock him in the pantry for two minutes... enough time to run to Ruby... I told her to pack... I told her to run to you..."
Damon held her tighter, resting his cheek against her soft, dirt-streaked hair.
"You saved her, Selena," Damon murmured, his voice thick with a dangerous, dark pride. "And she saved us. She walked into my meeting, called out Victor in front of the entire board, and handed me his head on a silver platter."
Selena pulled back slightly, looking up into his dark eyes with shock. "She... she spoke to the board?"
"She dragged her pink suitcase right to my chair," Damon said, a tiny, genuine smile breaking through his hardened face. "She told me 'the mean man' was coming. She did better than any soldier I've ever hired."
Selena let out a wet, tearful laugh, which instantly turned into a wince as she touched her bruised ribs.
"Easy," Damon warned gently. He shifted her weight, carrying her toward the stairs. "Marcus, call Dr. Mercer. Have him set up the medical suite in the main house. Nobody outside this estate knows she's alive."
"And Victor?" Marcus asked, leaning against the doorframe.
May you like
Damon stopped at the bottom of the stairs, looking back over his shoulder at the dark cellar.
"Put Victor in the cage under the north garage," Damon ordered coldly. "And tell my team in Sonora to secure the Valdes border routes. Before this day is over, I am going to erase every man who thought they could use a child to bleed my house."
