Chapter 7 - The Ghost of the Manor
The freezing temperature inside the underground vault began to bite aggressively at Isabella's bare skin.
She refused to sit on the cold floor and simply wait for Sebastian's men to return and finish the job.
During her first year of marriage, she had obsessively memorized the estate's architectural blueprints to ensure the house ran perfectly.
She knew this vault shared a major ventilation artery with the laundry chutes that led directly up to the nursery wing.
Using the heavy metal heel of her designer shoe, she desperately smashed the protective grate covering the massive air duct.
She climbed painfully onto the tall supply shelves and squeezed her bruised body into the dusty, narrow metal shaft.
She crawled aggressively through the complete darkness, fueled entirely by the raw, unstoppable adrenaline of a desperate mother.
The sharp metal screws inside the duct tore her beautiful crimson dress and sliced deeply into her arms, but she did not stop moving.
After thirty agonizing minutes of crawling, she saw a faint sliver of warm light glowing through a grate ahead.
She kicked the grate out with both feet, dropping heavily and silently onto the soft carpet of the upstairs hallway.
Isabella crept silently toward the nursery, peeking cautiously through the crack in the heavy wooden door.
Evelyn was standing over the crib, softly stroking Leo's cheek with an expression of pure, unhinged obsession.
She was softly whispering to the baby about how they were finally going to be a perfect, happy family.
Isabella noticed a thick medical syringe filled with clear liquid resting dangerously close on the changing table.
Evelyn turned around suddenly, completely unsurprised to see Isabella standing bruised and bleeding in the doorway.
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She calmly picked up the deadly syringe, holding it exactly like a highly trained assassin.
"This estate is incredibly massive, Isabella, but it only has room for one Mrs. Vance to survive the night."
