Chapter 5 - The Siege of Moncoeur
The lights in the subterranean archive cut out completely, plunging us into absolute darkness. The emergency backup generators failed to kick in, meaning the electronic locks on the heavy steel vault door were now dead, sealing us inside—or keeping someone out.
"Anastasia, get under the table," Julian ordered, his voice tense as he drew a compact pistol from his waistband.
Beside me, Eleanor stood perfectly still, her breathing calm despite the danger. She had lived through the Cold War; she wasn't about to be intimidated by a power outage.
A heavy, mechanical thud echoed from the other side of the steel door. Someone was using a hydraulic breaching tool from the palace guard garage. They weren't trying to hide their tracks anymore; the exposure of the Swiss bank documents had triggered a panic button.
"Vincent," I whispered in the dark. "The ventilation shaft. It leads to the old wine cellar behind the kitchens."
"It’s too narrow for the Duchess," Vincent hissed, his eyes fixed on the door as the metal began to groan under the immense pressure of the hydraulic jack.
"Go, Anastasia," Eleanor said, her hand finding mine in the dark and squeezing it with surprising strength. "Take Julian and Vincent. They want you dead or gone before dawn so the legal trust can default. If I am here alone, they dare not touch me. I am still the reigning Duchess of this house. They cannot forge a dead woman's signature on a public execution."
"I’m not leaving you, Nana," I said, using the name I had dreamed of whispered in my childhood nightmares.
"You are the future of Moncoeur, Anastasia," she said, her voice dropping into a fierce, commanding whisper. "Now move!"
Vincent grabbed me by the waist, hoisting me up into the narrow metal opening of the air shaft just as the first steel bolt on the main door sheared off with a sound like a gunshot. Julian climbed up right behind me, his boots scraping against the aluminum lining.
We crawled through the dark, dusty conduit, the sound of metal tearing and screaming echoing from the room we had just left. Through the slatted grates of the ventilation system, I could see figures moving through the palace corridors below—men wearing the black tactical gear of the palace guard, but their armbands had been stripped off.
"Beatrice has bought the midnight shift," Julian muttered as we reached the exit grate in the wine cellar. "She’s using her father's private security forces disguised as a internal security purge."
We dropped down onto the cold stone floor of the cellar, surrounded by racks of ancient dust-covered bottles.
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"We need to get to the embassy district," Vincent said, reloading his clip. "If we can reach the federal police headquarters in the center of the city, Beatrice's local jurisdiction means nothing. But the courtyard is crawling with her mercenaries."
"We don't go to the embassy," I said, looking down at the sapphire pendant around my neck. "We go to the source. The Vane Bank branch in the North End. The keys to my grandfather's vault are still active. If we can trigger the security alarm from inside their own vault, the federal regulators will lock down the entire system automatically."
