Chapter 2 - The Trap Springs EarlyThe hand belonged to Petrov. His face was inches from hers, his breath smelling of stale coffee and peppermint. He didn't shout; his voice was a venomous hiss.
"What did I tell you about closed doors?" Petrov growled, his thick fingers digging into the fabric of her coat.
Delia didn't panic. Panic was a luxury she had never been afforded. Her left hand slid swiftly into her coat pocket, grasping her writing board. With her right hand, she thrust the board upward, slamming the wooden edge squarely into Petrov’s bridge of nose with a sharp crack.
Petrov stumbled back, cursing violently as blood spurted from his nose. Before he could recover his balance, Delia kicked out with the heavy steel-toed sole of her cleaning boot, catching him square in the knee joint. He collapsed against the paneled wall with a muffled groan, sliding down to the floor as darkness took him.
Without a second to lose, Delia grabbed her pushcart, abandoned it in the middle of the hallway, and ran toward the service stairs. She knew she had mere seconds before Vaughn or the other guards realized Petrov had failed to return.
Inside the study, the heavy double doors flew open. Emmett Vaughn stepped out into the hallway, gun drawn, his eyes scanning the corridor. He spotted Petrov slumped against the wall and the abandoned cleaning cart fifty feet away.
"We have a breach," Vaughn snarled into his radio lapel. "Someone was at the door. Find whoever was cleaning this wing. Kill them."
Grayson Caine, still bound to the wooden chair, raised his chin. A slow, dangerous smile touched the corners of his bruised mouth. The meticulous trap he had laid to catch a traitor had just sprung—not around his enemies, but around himself. And the only person who knew the truth was a mute girl sprinting down the service stairs into the freezing basement of the estate.
Delia descended the spiral stone steps into the cavernous cellar. The air here was choked with coal dust and damp masonry. Old wine racks stretched into the gloom, interspersed with heavy wooden crates bearing shipping labels from the Caine docks. She ducked behind an iron coal chute just as the heavy thud of boots echoed down the stone stairway.
"Check the coal bins!" a voice shouted.
Delia held her breath. Her chest burned from the sprint, but she forced her lungs to remain silent, drawing air in micro-gasps through her teeth. She pulled a small, rusted iron wedge from her cleaning kit—a tool she used to prop open stubborn fire doors.
A guard stepped into her line of sight, his flashlight sweeping across the stone floor. He was only six feet away.
Delia flicked a small bolt from her cart into the darkness of the far corner. It clattered loudly against an empty metal bucket.
The guard whipped his head around, raising his pistol. "Over there!" he yelled to his partner, rushing toward the noise.
As he bolted past her, Delia slipped out of the coal bin and sprinted toward the rusted exterior bulkhead doors that led upward to the cliffside gardens. The heavy iron doors were secured with a thick padlock, but the hinges were ancient and rusted. Using all her weight, she wedged the iron tool into the latch and heaved upward.
Screeech.
The rusted metal gave way with a shriek that sounded like a dying animal. Delia didn't hesitate; she squeezed through the narrow gap and tumbled out into the freezing New England mist.
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The wind off Narragansett Bay slammed into her face like a physical blow. She scrambled across the wet granite rocks, pulling her hood down low, away from the estate's security lights. Behind her, a shout rang out from the bulkhead doors. A gunshot cracked through the night, the bullet chipping spray from the rock a yard to her left.
She ran down the winding private access road, knowing she had to reach the main highway a mile away before Petrov’s men cut off her escape.
