184 When Manhattan’s Most Feared Crime Boss Found His Traumatized Daughter Asleep in My Waitress Apron, He Thought I Was a Stranger—Until He Discovered My Secret Past Was the Only Key to Saving His Missing Wife / Chapter 165 / 190

Chapter 165 - The Crypt of Saint Jude

The darkness beneath the printing warehouse was absolute, broken only by the sharp, narrow beam of Marcus's tactical light.

Water sloshed around the soles of our boots as we moved through the brick-lined passage. The air smelled of sulfur, damp lime, and motor oil. Ahead of us, the passage terminated in a wall of gray cinderblocks—the partition Marcus's father had constructed decades ago.

Marcus set Chloe down beside me against the dry brick wall. "Stay behind me," he murmured.

He drew a heavy steel crowbar from his pack, inserted the beveled tip into the mortar seam three feet above the floor, and drove his weight forward. The aged mortar crumbled with a dry crunch. Two blocks gave way, tumbling into the void on the other side with a hollow thud.

Marcus peered through the gap, his weapon drawn.

"Clear," he whispered.

He worked methodically, breaking away six more blocks until an opening wide enough for a man to slip through was cleared.

We stepped through the breach into the catacombs of Saint Jude's Chapel.

The space was vastly different from the crude brick tunnel behind us. The floor was dressed bluestone; the walls were clad in smooth limestone panels bearing the names of prominent Manhattan families from the nineteenth century. But the holy facade ended twenty paces in.

At the far end of the crypt stood an imposing, four-foot-thick vault door of polished brushed steel, embedded directly into the bedrock foundation. Its massive locking wheel was illuminated by a low-voltage emergency halogen lamp mounted on the ceiling.

Beside the door sat a console table with an integrated digital countdown clock.

The glowing red LED display read: *00:48:12*.

Forty-eight minutes until noon.

Standing beside the console was an elderly man in a bespoke charcoal wool overcoat, his silver hair neatly combed back, leaning lightly on a brass-headed walking cane. Behind him stood two mercenaries in gray tactical gear, armed with submachine guns.

It was Bartholomew Vance.

He looked up as the sound of our boots echoed across the stone floor. He didn't flinch. He didn't reach for a weapon. He merely adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and offered a thin, aristocratic smile.

"You're late, Marcus," Bartholomew said, his gravelly voice filling the damp cavern. "And you brought company."

His gaze shifted from Marcus to me, and finally to Chloe, who shrank behind my legs.

"Bartholomew," Marcus said, his voice flat, his pistol leveled directly at his uncle's forehead. "Tell your dogs to drop their weapons, or the vault won't be the only thing stained with blood today."

Bartholomew chuckled softly, a dry, rasping sound. "Always so theatrical, nephew. Just like your father. But you're holding an empty hand."

He tapped his cane against the steel vault door.

"Inside this chamber is your beloved Sarah," Bartholomew said, his smile vanishing, replaced by cold malice. "Her vitals are currently stable, though she hasn't seen daylight in eighteen months. The halon system is linked directly to my heartbeat monitor." He pulled back his cuff to reveal a medical sensor strapped to his wrist. "If my heart stops, the gas vents thirty seconds later. Shoot me, Marcus, and you murder your wife."

I felt Marcus's arm stiffen beside me. The calculation in his eyes shifted—the impossible trap laid bare.

"What do you want, Bartholomew?" Marcus asked between gritted teeth. "The Mercer family is broken. Julian Mercer is dead. Eleanor is in custody. There's no syndicate left for you to rule."

"Rule?" Bartholomew scoffed. "I don't care about street corners or garbage contracts, boy. I care about the Master Trust of 1952. The five billion dollars in Manhattan real estate deeds held in escrow beneath this floor."

He pointed his cane at Chloe.

"The trust deeds are locked in the inner vault," Bartholomew explained smoothly. "And the lock only recognizes two things: the brass cylinder hidden in that girl's necklace, and the blood signature of the rightful heir. Sarah refused to sign the transfer documents for two years. But Chloe will press her thumb to the scanner if you tell her to, Marcus."

"She's a child," I said, stepping forward, shielding Chloe with my body. "She has nothing to do with your greed."

Bartholomew's eyes narrowed as he looked at me. "Ah, the waitress. Elena, isn't it? Your father was a fool, my dear. He thought he could keep this city honest by building locks nobody could pick. But he forgot that every lock has a keyhole, and every keyhole can be forced."

"You don't have the sequence, Bartholomew," I said, staring him down.

The old man's smile faltered for the briefest fraction of a second.

"What did you say?" he murmured.

"You have the vault," I said, stepping closer, keeping my voice steady. "You have the timer. But you know that as soon as you insert the cylinder, the secondary carillon system demands the chime code. If you guess wrong, the halon purges anyway. That's why you didn't force the door an hour ago. You've been waiting for us because you don't know the bells."

Bartholomew's face tightened, his aristocratic composure cracking to reveal the desperate predator underneath.

"The girl has the sequence," Bartholomew hissed. "Sarah told her!"

"Sarah didn't tell her," Marcus said, his voice dropping into a lethal, low register. "Sarah told Elena's father. And Elena's father told her."

Above our heads, through the thick stone ceiling, the distant, muffled sound of gunfire erupted in the church nave.