Chapter 3 - The Room Beneath the Kitchen
Elena sprinted through the servants’ hallway.
Cassian followed.
“Who screamed?”
She didn’t answer.
They reached the kitchen.
A cook crouched behind the island, shaking.
Elena grabbed her shoulders.
“Where’s Maria?”
The cook pointed toward the pantry.
“They took her.”
Elena’s expression hardened.
Cassian had never seen Maria as anything more than the sixty-year-old woman who managed linen schedules and complained about expensive knives being placed in the wrong drawer.
Elena clearly saw her differently.
She pulled open the pantry door.
Nothing.
Then she moved a rack of canned goods aside.
Cassian frowned.
“What are you doing?”
Elena pressed a hidden switch.
A narrow metal staircase appeared behind the wall.
Cassian stared.
“That passage is not on the plans.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Maria found it six months ago.”
“You hid a secret passage in my house from me?”
Elena started down.
“You hid plenty from us.”
Marcus actually smiled.
Cassian shot him a look.
They descended into darkness.
At the bottom was an old wine-storage tunnel stretching beneath the eastern wing.
Elena stopped beside a bloodstain.
Fresh.
She knelt.
Cassian watched the softness disappear from her face again.
“Maria?”
Elena touched the blood.
“No.”
“How can you tell?”
“She takes medication that makes her blood thinner. This would spread more.”
Marcus blinked.
“You know her medication?”
“She’s my friend.”
Cassian said nothing.
Eight months.
Elena had lived in his house for eight months, silently learning every hidden corner and every weakness.
Yet somehow he had never wondered whether she had friends.
They continued.
Voices echoed ahead.
Elena raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
Two men spoke Russian.
Cassian couldn’t understand.
Elena could.
One said, “Volkov wants Rostova alive.”
The other replied, “What about Thorne?”
“Alive if possible. Dead if necessary.”
Elena translated in a whisper.
Cassian leaned close.
“They keep saying Rostova. Who are you?”
She looked at him.
“A mistake Viktor never managed to bury.”
Before he could ask more, footsteps approached.
Elena pulled Cassian into a dark storage room.
Their bodies pressed together between shelves.
Cassian whispered:
“You were military.”
“No.”
“Intelligence?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Elena gave him a humorless smile.
“Worse.”
A shadow passed outside.
Cassian could feel her breathing.
Slow.
Controlled.
Then a voice came through the darkness behind them.
“Elena?”
She spun around.
Maria stood in the corner.
Her wrists were tied.
Blood stained her temple.
Elena rushed toward her.
Maria shook her head desperately.
“No!”
Too late.
A tiny red light blinked beneath Maria’s chair.
Elena stopped.
Cassian saw it.
A device.
A timer.
Eight seconds.
May you like
And the steel door slammed shut behind them.
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