Chapter 5 - The Ghost of Ninety-Eight
The heavy thud of boots echoed from the grand staircase below.
Glass shattered in the foyer—the distinctive, violent sound of an entryway being forced open.
Vincent grabbed my hand, pulling me away from the door and toward the dark, narrow corridor leading to the historic servants' quarters that connected to the west wing.
“Move,” he snapped.
We slipped into the shadows just as the heavy oak door of the master bedroom splintered under the impact of a crowbar. Shouts rang out in the hallway—rough, unfamiliar voices barking orders in the dark.
“Check the closets! Find the girl!”
We hurried down the narrow, dust-laden corridor, our footsteps muffled by thick antique carpets. The air here smelled of old paper, cedar, and damp stone—a stark contrast to the modern luxury of the rest of the mansion.
“Vincent,” I whispered, clutching the heavy revolver in my trembling hand. “If my father lived here... why didn't my mother ever tell me?” Because she didn't want you looking for what he left behind,” Vincent replied, pausing in front of a narrow wooden panel hidden behind a row of empty bookcases. He pressed a sequence of brass studs along the molding—a combination I recognized from the safe in my mother's bedroom closet back in Brooklyn.
With a heavy, mechanical click, the panel swung inward, revealing a steep, dark staircase leading down into the subterranean foundation of the house.
“What is down there?” I asked, my voice barely audible over the sound of footsteps pounding down the hallway behind us.
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“The truth about how my father died,” Vincent said, turning to look at me one last time in the dim light. “And the proof that Silas Dyer didn't just steal a fortune—he framed your father for it.”
He stepped into the darkness, pulling me in after him, and as the hidden door clicked shut behind us, cutting off the shouts of the intruders, the floorboards above our heads began to splinter under the weight of the men who had come to finish what started twenty-eight years ago.
