The first time I saw my fiancée raise her hand toward my seven-year-old daughter, I was on my knees in the dirt pretending to be a gardener. Nobody at the charity brunch knew the quiet man trimming roses was Evan Whitaker—the mafia boss who owned half the fear in Connecticut—and nobody knew I had come home early to find out why my children had started flinching whenever my name was mentioned.

We were trapped in a concrete coffin.

The welding job was fresh, the metal still radiating a faint heat in the damp air of the tunnel.

"Marco must have done this before the brunch," I muttered, cursing my own blindness.

Sophie squeezed my hand, her tiny fingers trembling uncontrollably in the dark.

"Daddy, are the bad men going to come through the door?" she whimpered.

I knelt down and kissed her forehead, forcing a confident smile I absolutely did not feel.

"Never, sweetheart, I won't let anyone hurt you," I promised fiercely.

Above us, the pounding on the tunnel door grew louder, accompanied by the distinct whine of a heavy cutting torch.

The reinforced steel would hold them off for a while, but it was only a matter of time before they burned through the locks.

"We can't stay here," Grace stated calmly, illuminating the narrow space with her own flashlight.

She walked over to an old ventilation grate near the floor, pulling a multi-tool from her seemingly endless apron pockets.

"Elena told me about the old bootlegger tunnels beneath the estate," she said, quickly unscrewing the rusted bolts.

I stared at her in shock, realizing my late wife had kept secrets even from me.

"That grate leads to a drainage pipe, it's far too small for an adult," I argued.

Grace pulled the grate free and shined her light into the muddy, claustrophobic darkness.

"It's a tight squeeze, but unless you want to be burned alive by that cutting torch, we don't have a choice," she replied.

She gestured for Sophie to go first, coaxing the terrified girl into the damp pipe.

I helped Caleb in next, though he accidentally dropped his precious stuffed rabbit into the dark water below.

Grace followed behind the children, leaving me alone at the rear as the smell of burning metal filled the tunnel.

I squeezed into the pipe just as the heavy steel door above me gave way with a deafening crash.

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I crawled desperately through the sludge, pushing forward as flashlight beams cut through the darkness behind me.

Suddenly, a massive hand grabbed my ankle with crushing force, dragging me backward into the light.

Chapter 5 - No Way Out