Chapter 8 - Into the Catacombs
Julian didn't hesitate. With a sudden burst of adrenaline, he shoved Leo down through the open trapdoor into the darkness below.
“Go! Run down the stairs!” Julian yelled.
“Julian, no!” Clara shrieked, lunging forward, but Marcus intercepted her, tackling the bride to the polished floorboards just as the lead tactical operative raised his weapon.
Crack. A suppressed shot slammed into the wooden desk, showering the room with splinters.
Julian didn't wait to see what happened to Marcus. He dove headfirst through the trapdoor, tumbling down the steep stone steps and landing hard on his shoulder in a dusty, subterranean corridor. The air down here was thick and heavy, lit only by a faint emergency strip of LED lighting running along the low brick ceiling.
“Dad! Over here!” Leo’s small voice echoed from down the narrow tunnel.
Julian scrambled to his feet, wincing as a sharp pain flared in his bruised shoulder. He sprinted after the sound of his son’s voice, navigating a maze of old brick archways that felt like they hadn't seen daylight in a century. This was part of the estate’s original 19th-century foundation, an old smuggling tunnel network that his grandfather had occasionally bragged about during family dinners, though Julian had always assumed it was just local folklore.
Footsteps pounded on the stone stairs above them. Marcus’s voice rang out, breathless and strained. “I locked the trapdoor! Keep moving!”
A second later, a heavy thud shook the ceiling above, followed by the muffled sound of gunfire chewing through the wood of the trapdoor. Marcus came flying down the stairs, stumbling into the dirt corridor and slamming a heavy iron bolt into place from the inside just as something heavy slammed against the wooden hatch from above.
“That won't hold them for long!” Marcus panted, clutching his side where a dark stain of blood was slowly spreading across his charcoal shirt.
Julian stopped dead in his tracks, shining the flashlight app on his smartphone toward Marcus. “You’re bleeding. Were you hit?”
“It’s just a graze,” Marcus gritted his teeth, leaning heavily against the damp brick wall. “We need to find the old drainage exit. It leads straight down to the riverbank.”
Leo tugged on Julian’s sleeve again, pointing down the left fork of the dark corridor, where a rusted iron ladder led upward toward a heavy manhole cover framed by a circle of dim, gray twilight.
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“That way,” Leo whispered, his face streaked with dust. “I heard Clara talking on the phone about the river exit yesterday.”
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