Chapter 5 - THE BURNING DOORS
“Grace, get back!” I screamed, grabbing my daughter and pulling her away from the door.
The gray smoke curled along the Persian rug like a living thing, thickening with every second. The smell of gasoline and burning wood violently threw me back to eight years ago. My chest tightened, panic seizing my lungs before the smoke even reached me.
Vincent didn’t panic.
He stepped back from the locked oak doors and kicked them with the bottom of his heavy dress shoe. The wood splintered, but the heavy brass deadbolt held firm.
“Briggs!” Vincent roared, his voice shaking the glass decanters on the desk. “Open this door!”
From the other side, the head of security’s voice sounded muffled but entirely calm.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Romano. But the Carlton family pays substantially better than you do.”
My stomach dropped. Vanessa hadn’t just brought her family’s arrogance into this house; she had bought Vincent’s own men.
“When my men find you, Briggs, they will tear you apart!” Vincent yelled, throwing his shoulder against the door.
“Your loyal men are currently locked in the south wing,” Briggs replied, the sound of crackling flames growing louder behind him. “Miss Carlton sends her regrets regarding the wedding. She also requested I leave you with a message.”
A pause.
“She says it’s a shame Matteo’s rat of a daughter had to burn twice.”
Footsteps echoed away down the hall, leaving us trapped as the heat began to radiate through the thick wood of the door.
“Mommy, my eyes hurt,” Grace whimpered, burying her face in my neck.
“It’s okay, baby, I’ve got you,” I lied, coughing as the smoke began to fill the upper half of the room. I dropped to the floor, pulling her with me to where the air was still relatively clear.
Vincent was a blur of motion. He didn't waste another second on the door. He ran to the heavy velvet curtains, ripping them down from the windows.
He grabbed a heavy bronze statue from his desk and hurled it at the reinforced glass.
The glass didn't even spider-web.
“Bulletproof,” Vincent cursed, dropping to his knees beside us. He stripped off his expensive tailored jacket and pressed it against the crack beneath the door, trying to stem the flow of smoke.
“We have to get out of here,” I choked out, my eyes watering fiercely. “Is there another way out?”
Vincent looked around the massive study. “No. This room was designed as a panic room by my grandfather. Reinforced walls, bulletproof glass, steel-core doors. It’s meant to keep people out.”
“But it’s keeping us in to burn,” I realized, terror gripping me completely.
Vincent looked at me, his face smeared with soot, his dark eyes intense. “I will not let you die here, Hannah. Do you understand me? I will tear the walls down with my bare hands first.”
He stood up, coughing, and began tearing books off the massive mahogany shelves, looking for structural weaknesses in the drywall.
Grace tugged on my sleeve.
“Mommy?” she coughed softly.
“Keep your head down, Gracie. Breathe into your shirt,” I instructed frantically.
“But Mommy,” she insisted, pointing a small, trembling finger toward the massive oil painting of Giuseppe Romano hanging on the far wall. “Grandpa said lions always have a secret exit.”
Vincent froze, a heavy encyclopedia dropping from his hands.
“What did she say?” Vincent demanded, rushing over to us.
“When Grandpa showed me the picture of the lion in the thorns,” Grace coughed, rubbing her eyes, “he said the lion always hides a way out behind his left paw.”
Vincent stared at her, then looked up at the massive Romano family crest carved into the wooden panelling right next to Giuseppe’s portrait.
The lion wrapped in thorns.
“My father’s private blueprints,” Vincent whispered to himself. He scrambled over to the wall, his hands feeling frantically over the intricate wood carving.
The room was growing dangerously hot. The smoke alarms were blaring, a deafening siren that masked the sound of the crackling fire outside the door. I could see the paint on the oak doors beginning to blister and peel from the heat.
“Left paw,” Vincent muttered, coughing violently. He found the lion’s carved left paw.
He pressed it. Nothing happened.
He twisted it. Nothing.
“It’s not working!” he shouted over the alarm.
I looked at the silver key still clutched in my hand. I crawled across the floor, my lungs burning, and held the key up to him.
“Vincent! Look at the center of the paw!”
In the very center of the carved lion’s paw was a tiny, almost invisible slit.
Vincent snatched the key, jammed it into the slit, and turned.
A loud, mechanical CLACK echoed behind the wall.
Suddenly, the entire section of the bookshelf swung outward, revealing a dark, narrow stone staircase spiralling downward into the pitch black.
Cool, stale air rushed up from the passage, cutting through the stifling smoke.
“Go!” Vincent yelled, grabbing Grace and lifting her into his arms. He grabbed my hand with his free one, his grip tight and unyielding.
We plunged into the darkness of the hidden staircase just as the oak doors of the study gave way with a horrific crash, sending a fireball rolling into the room we had just escaped.
Vincent slammed the hidden bookshelf door shut behind us, plunging us into total darkness.
The roar of the fire was instantly muffled.
For a moment, all I could hear was our ragged, gasping breaths echoing in the tight stone space.
“Is everyone okay?” Vincent asked, his voice rough from the smoke.
“We’re okay,” I coughed, leaning against the cold stone wall, relief washing over me in dizzying waves. Grace was clinging to Vincent’s neck, completely trusting the terrifying mafia boss who was carrying her like a fragile porcelain doll.
Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, turning on the flashlight.
The beam of light illuminated a narrow, dusty tunnel covered in cobwebs. It looked like it hadn't been used in a century.
“Where does this go?” I asked.
“I have no idea,” Vincent admitted, looking at the stone walls in awe. “My grandfather built this house. I thought I knew every inch of it. But my father… he and Matteo must have found this passage when they were boys.”
He looked down at me, the flashlight casting sharp shadows across his striking face.
“Hannah, if my father knew about this passage, and Matteo knew about it… then my father wasn’t hunting Matteo all those years ago.”
I looked at him, finally understanding.
“He was protecting him.”
Vincent nodded slowly. “My father didn’t die in that hotel fire. He faked his death to protect Matteo. Which means…”
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Vincent’s eyes widened as the ultimate realization hit him.
“Which means my father might still be alive.”
