Chapter 9 - The Secret Tunnel
The underground garage was a carefully designed death trap.
The heavy footsteps in the hallway were growing louder, echoing off the concrete walls.
"They blocked the cars. We are out of options," I whispered in despair.
Vincent looked at the wired explosives and let out a dark chuckle.
"I built this house over the ruins of a Prohibition-era speakeasy," he said.
He walked over to a seemingly normal concrete pillar in the corner of the garage.
He pressed a sequence of hidden buttons concealed within the rough texture of the stone.
A massive section of the concrete floor suddenly hissed and slid downward like a ramp.
It revealed a dark, damp tunnel smelling of ancient dirt and standing water.
"Let's go, right now," Vincent ordered, pushing me toward the opening.
I picked up Mia and hurried down into the pitch-black subterranean passage.
Vincent followed right behind us, hitting the button to close the heavy door above.
The moment the door sealed shut, a massive explosion rocked the earth above us.
The Russians had detonated the C4 in the garage, trying to bury us alive.
The tunnel roof groaned ominously, raining thick dust and pebbles onto our heads.
"Run!" Vincent shouted, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward in the dark.
We sprinted blindly through the freezing water pooling at our feet.
The structure of the old tunnel was rapidly failing under the explosive shockwave.
Wooden support beams snapped like dry twigs behind us.
We burst through a rusted iron gate at the end of the tunnel just as the passage entirely collapsed.
We tumbled out into the freezing night air, surrounded by the thick woods of the estate's perimeter.
Behind us, the mansion was a towering inferno of orange flames reaching into the dark sky.
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I fell to my knees in the wet grass, clutching Mia tightly to my chest.
Then, a pair of bright headlights flashed twice from the tree line directly ahead of us.
