Chapter 10 - The Front Gates
The shrill wail of the automated security alarm pierced the damp air of the greenhouse, vibrating through the glass panes and echoing across the mansion’s sprawling grounds. Julian froze, his hand still hovering protectively near the young maid's shoulder. Victoria’s head snapped toward the sound, her confident defiance momentarily faltering as the flashing red warning strobes from the exterior floodlights began to paint the conservatory in pulsing shades of crimson.
“What did you do?” Julian demanded, grabbing Victoria by the arm once more, though this time with restrained urgency rather than aggression. “Who else did you invite here tonight?”
Victoria wrenched her arm free, her eyes darting nervously toward the glass doors leading back into the main hallway. “I didn’t invite anyone. The security system is tied directly to the old family trust trustees. If the vault below the study is breached or the red seal is broken, an automated distress signal goes straight to their private security detail.”
Julian’s blood ran cold. The trustees. A group of ruthless corporate executors who had held a silent stake in the estate for decades, men who cared nothing for family tragedies and everything about legal technicalities and asset control. If they arrived and found Clara—the long-lost heir—trapped in a mansion with a history of suspicious disappearances, they would seize everything, locking them all away in legal purgatory or worse.
“We have less than five minutes before they clear the front gates,” Julian said, his voice hard as he turned to the maid. “Can you walk?”
She nodded firmly, wiping the remaining tears from her face and standing up straight, shedding the submissive demeanor she had worn all evening. The terrified maid was gone; in her place stood a woman demanding answers about her own stolen life. “I can walk, sir. But where do we go? Every door in this house is wired to their network.”
Julian reached into his pocket and pulled out the heavy brass skeleton key he had used earlier in the study. “Not every door. There’s an old service tunnel running beneath the greenhouse that leads past the perimeter wall. My father mapped it before he vanished.”
Victoria let out a sharp, incredulous laugh, leaning against a stone pillar with her arms crossed over her beige satin silk robe. “You seriously think you can outrun the trustees, Julian? They own the police, the courts, and every inch of soil for fifty miles. You’re walking right into another cage.”
May you like
Julian ignored her cynical remarks, turning to the maid and gesturing toward a hidden latch disguised beneath a bed of ferns near the back wall of the conservatory. As she knelt down to spring the latch, a heavy set of headlights swept across the glass exterior of the greenhouse, illuminating the gravel pathway as multiple black SUVs rolled up the main driveway, their tires crunching loudly against the gravel.
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