Chapter 22 - THE PRICE OF A NAME
The pitch-black darkness of the cellar felt like an open grave closing over us.
Above our heads, Brianna’s boots paced steadily on the rusted iron grate, her low laugh grating on my ears.
"You really thought you could take everything from me, didn't you, Nora?" she called down through the iron slits.
"You thought you could walk into my family with your quiet charity case act and steal what is mine?"
Ryan pushed his shoulder hard against the heavy cellar doors, but a steel padlock clicked into place from above.
"Brianna, open this door!" Ryan yelled, his voice bouncing violently against the stone foundations of the house.
"She’s your sister! Evelyn lied to both of you for thirty years!"
Silence fell over the grate for three agonizing seconds, heavy and suffocating.
Then, Brianna’s voice returned, sharper, colder, and utterly devoid of shock.
"You think I didn't know, Ryan?" Brianna whispered, her voice dropping into an icy hiss.
"You think I lived thirty years in this house without finding out who paid for my boarding school and my trust fund?"
My breath hitched in my chest as I stepped closer to the grate, staring up through the narrow gaps into the gloom.
"You knew?" I asked, my voice shaking with raw disbelief. "You knew I was Arthur's daughter all along?"
"Of course I knew, you stupid bitch!" Brianna spat, stomping her heel against the iron bars.
"Mother told me the truth the day I turned twenty-one. She told me we had a loose end out in Ohio."
"She told me that as long as Harold and Martha kept you quiet in the cornfields, the Vance billions were mine."
"And then you had the nerve to show up here," Brianna continued, her voice trembling with venomous rage.
"You showed up as Ryan's innocent little bride, carrying his precious little heirs in your belly."
"You weren't satisfied with surviving. You had to come right back to the empire that rejected you."
Behind us, the heavy wooden door at the top of the cellar stairs rattled violently on its hinges.
The security contractors had reached the basement entrance; heavy thuds pounded against the thick oak paneling.
"They're breaking through," Ryan warned in a harsh whisper, searching the dark cellar walls for a weapon.
His hand found a heavy rusted crowbar leaning against an old wine rack.
"Brianna," I said, looking up toward the dark silhouette above the grate. "Arthur left this estate to his biological child."
"Evelyn forged adoption papers to steal an inheritance that legally belongs to me and my babies."
"Legalities belong to the living, Nora," Brianna replied with a sickening, melodic laugh.
"Once Graves finishes with you two in that cellar, Mother and I will present a tragic story to the press."
"A tragic double suicide in the family cellar. Ryan, devastated by business debts, took his wife with him."
"And the Vance family will mourn... and keep every single dollar."
A tremendous crash echoed behind us as the upper cellar door gave way under the guards' battering ram.
Flashlight beams carved through the dust and cobwebs, descending down the stone stairs with lethal speed.
"Cover your eyes!" Ryan shouted, raising the heavy crowbar and smashing it into an overhead electrical junction box.
Blue sparks exploded into the darkness with a violent pop, showering the narrow corridor with blinding white fire.
The cellar plunged into absolute, impenetrable darkness as the emergency circuit breakers blew.
Shouts and curses erupted from the guards as they scrambled down the stone steps in the blackness.
"Over here!" Ryan whispered, pulling me toward the far corner where an old coal chute angled upward to the lawn.
The metal chute was narrow, covered in layers of slick black dust, but it opened directly into the backyard shrubbery.
"Climb, Nora!" Ryan urged, boosting me up with his strong hands under my boots. "I'm right behind you!"
I dug my fingernails into the rusted sheet metal, dragging my pregnant belly up the steep, suffocating incline.
Behind us, the beam of a tactical flashlight swung around the cellar wall, illuminating Ryan’s face.
"Target spotted!" a guard shouted.
A gunshot echoed through the enclosed basement like a cannon blast.
Ryan let out a sharp, choked gasp of agony, his grip on my ankles suddenly slackening and falling away.
"Ryan!" I screamed into the darkness, turning back toward the mouth of the chute.
"Keep climbing, Nora!" Ryan roared through the black smoke. "Don't stop! Save our babies!"
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Another gunshot ripped through the darkness, followed by the heavy, sickening sound of a body hitting stone.
***
