Chapter 5 - Breaking the VaultThe stench was overwhelming—a sickening mix of chemical preservative, stagnant air, and organic rot that told them everything they needed to know before they even set eyes inside.
“Step back,” Nathan ordered, his voice suddenly hard as iron.
He holstered his pistol, walked over to the heavy iron crowbar resting against the maintenance cart in the corner of the wine room, and brought it back to the splintered wall.
“Vance, wait, we need forensics, we need a judge’s order—!” Doyle protested, reaching out to grab Nathan’s shoulder.
Nathan shrugged him off with a single, brutal jerk of his shoulder. “There is no judge coming out here at two in the morning in the middle of a storm, Doyle. And whatever is behind this wall has been waiting six years for someone to find it.”
Nathan jammed the hooked end of the crowbar into the fractured seam where Nero had smashed the cedar panel. He threw his entire weight against the iron bar, his muscles straining beneath his charcoal suit.
Groan.
The modern polyurethane-coated wood gave way with a splintering shriek.
He struck it again, leveraging the bar against the concrete seam. With a loud, echoing crack, a large slab of the false wall broke away, tumbling into the darkness beyond.
Nathan held his flashlight up to the opening.
The beam cut through the thick, yellowed haze, illuminating a small, windowless concrete bunker no larger than a walk-in closet.
Against the far wall sat an open, heavy-duty steel safe, its dial blown off from the inside with an industrial charge. Scattered across the concrete floor were heavy canvas duffel bags, split open, spilling thousands of banded hundred-dollar bills that had begun to mold in the damp air.
And sitting slumped against the steel safe, wearing a decaying Brioni suit, was a skeleton.
Next to it, draped over a second set of remains tangled in the remnants of a silk dress, was a gold wedding band that still gleamed brightly beneath the dust.
Julian Ostrander and his wife, Eleanor.
They hadn't vanished into the sea. They hadn't fled to South America.
They had locked themselves in their own vault to escape the men coming for them—only to find that whoever sealed the concrete from the outside had welded their tomb shut forever.
Doyle stared into the crypt, his face pale in the flashlight beam. “My God... they were bricked in alive.”
Nathan didn't speak. He stepped closer to the opening, shining his light along the edge of the poured concrete frame.
There, stamped into the wet cement near the top right corner of the entryway, was a contractor’s initials and a date stamp: M.V. - Oct. 2019.
Marcus Vance.
Nathan’s uncle. The man who had taken over Vance Harbor Logistics after Nathan’s father died, claiming he wanted to ‘clean up’ the family's violent past while secretly expanding their control over the waterfront.
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Marcus hadn't just built a clean corporate image. He had built a graveyard.
Nero let out a low, mournful whine, sitting heavily on his haunches outside the broken wall, his dark eyes fixed on the skeletal remains within.
