Chapter 8 - The Secret in the Cellar
The sub-basement of Ravenswick Manor was carved from seventeenth-century bedrock, cold, damp, and smelling of iron and lime. Water dripped from ancient pipes into copper drains.
Odette hung from overhead chains by her handcuffed wrists, her bare feet barely grazing the cold concrete. Her emerald gown was soaked in grimy water, her face bruised and streaked with soot. Ten paces away, Julian sat strapped to an iron chair, his jaw swollen to the size of a grapefruit, his eyes wide with delirium.
The heavy steel bulkhead door swung open with a screech of rusty hinges.
Hector descended the stone steps. He carried no weapons, but the dark aura surrounding him was so terrifying that Julian began to sob involuntarily, the muffled whimpers escaping his swollen lips.
Hector walked directly to Odette. He stood inches from her dangling body.
"Eleanor," Hector said. One word. Flat. Low. Final.
Odette’s head snapped up. In the dim light of the hanging bulb, her bloodshot eyes widened in genuine, paralyzing horror.
"Hector... please..." she rasped through parched lips.
"You poisoned her IV drip in Boston," Hector said. His voice was terrifyingly calm, but his right hand came up, wrapping around her slender throat with measured, increasing pressure. "You watched her die while she was holding my newborn daughter."
"It wasn't... just me..." Odette choked out, fighting for air, her fingernails clawing uselessly at his iron fingers. "I didn't... have the power... to buy the clinic... records..."
Hector loosened his grip slightly, allowing her to draw a ragged gasp of damp cellar air. "Who gave you the poison, Odette? Julian doesn't know chemistry. Julian is an accountant with an Ivy League ring. Who engineered the aconitine?"
Odette wept, her body shuddering in the chains. "The Sovereign... The Sovereign Syndicate..."
Julian groaned from his chair, shaking his head frantically, as if warning her not to speak the name.
"What is the Sovereign Syndicate?" Hector demanded, his fingers tightening once more around her windpipe.
"A coalition..." Odette gasped, tears cutting clean paths through the grime on her cheeks. "The five families from Chicago... and the state senators... They’ve been planning to take the Eastern Seaboard ports for five years! Julian was their insider. I was their inside knife! They promised me twenty million in a Swiss account and custody of the trust until the child was declared deceased!"
"And where is their contact?" Hector whispered.
"The freight terminal at Pier 42..." Odette sobbed. "A courier is waiting at dawn... for confirmation of your death. If he doesn't receive the encrypted signal by 6:00 AM... they trigger Phase Two."
"What is Phase Two?"
Odette looked into Hector’s eyes, a ghastly, broken smile twisting her lips. "They don't just kill you, Hector. They burn Ravenswick Manor to the ground with everyone inside."
Hector stared at her for three seconds. Then, without a word, he turned to Donovan, who stood by the cellar stairs holding a heavy iron bar.
"Donovan," Hector commanded.
"Yes, Boss?"
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"Make sure neither of them ever speaks again."
Hector turned and walked up the stone stairs, closing the heavy steel bulkhead behind him. The muffled scream that echoed from below was swallowed instantly by the stone walls.
